The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-04-19 00:00:00

BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST.

Proudly was gather'd the festive throng;
Bouyant each heart, and beaming each eye ;
Loud was the mirth ; and the joyous song
A thousand voices raised to the sky.
Around the monarch his satraps sate,
Sharing the bold and impious strain ;
His queens were there, in their royal state ;
And warriors too, a mighty train.
Belshazzar gazed, with a look of pride,
On the smiling mein that beauty wore ;
" Bring forth the vessels," in scorn he cried,
" The boast of Judah in days of yore !"
" Bring them forth ! to our gods let us quaff
From those goblets by her deem'd divine !"
The vessels were fill'd : loud rose the laugh,
As scoffing they drain'd the rosy wine.
Why trembles the monarch ? why pales each cheek,
As smote to the heart by a sudden-fear?
'What means that wail—that feminine shriek?
Tells it of anguish and peril near ?
He marks the writing upon the wall,
The sign of his empire overthrown ;
Fled is the joy of the festival !
Hush'd is the magic of music's tone !
Monarch ! arouse from thy deathly trance !
The host of Persia is at thy gate !
! seize the buckler, the sword, and the lance!!
To arms ! to arms ! ere it be too late !
Vain is the summons : the city walls
Are gain'd by the foe's invading host ;
And the king lies dead within those halls
That lately rang with his lordly boast.
Thus fell the king that vainly defied
Jehovah's wrath, in his revels gay ;
And thus will ever be crush'd the pride
That trusts in the might of earthly sway.

CONTEMPORARY PRESS.

TIIE PRACTICE OF STABBING IN ENGLAND.

(From the Morning Herald.)
It is to be hoped that the foreign practice of stabbing
with dirks or knives, which has lately become, like
some other bad continental practices, dangerously pre-
valent in this country, will receive a wholesome check
from the examples which, in two recent and remark-
able instances, have been made of the blood-guilty
offenders, both of whom are new under sentence of
three years' imprisonment in the metropolis.
The common carrying about of knives and daggers
by any man, in an orderly and civilised community like
that of England, indicates, we fear, in itself a revenge-
ful and treacherous disposition, prompt to seek occa-
ions of quarrel, and cowardly and cruel in avenging
real or imaginary wrong. The very opposite is such a
disposition to the bold, manly, and generous qualities
for which the English character has been heretofore
distinguished.
The stiletto of the Spanish or Italian assassin, and
the bowe knife of the American savage, are not suita-
ble appendages to the habit of an Englishman. The
practice of resorting to those weapor s for the decision
of private quarrels, and in tavern and street brawls, if
once naturalised in this country, would effect a great
and fearful change in the national character. A com-
munity of stabbers and assassins exhibits, as the sub-
stitute for courage and manhood, nothing but ferocious
cowardice.

The practice—the unmanly, treacherous, and malig-
nant practice—of stabbing with daggers, or knives,
carried in concealment about the person, must be put
down, or the national character will be debased beyond
redemption. It must and can be put down by a firm,
consistent, and temperate vindication of the law, bestow-
ing on offenders such a measure of punishment as will
coerce and correct them, without exciting public sym-
pathy in their behalf. Intemperate punishment makes
the offence of the guilty object be forgotten or under-
rated, and destroys the moral influence of the law.
The two stabbers now under sentence of three years'
imprisonment in the metropolis are great criminals,
both in a moral and legal point of view. At one period
of our judicial history their offence would have sub-
jected them to a forfeiture of life. We are glad that
time has passed away. On the scaffold the fate of such
homicides would attract public commiseration; but
t'ie just and moderate punishment which they now un-
dergo will not cause the public horror of their crimes
to he merged in the public sympathy.
In passing sentence upon Medhurst, convicted of
ie treacherous and cowardly stabbing of his school-
fellow with a knife or dagger of a peculiar construc-
tion, which he habitually carried about his person,
Mr. Justice Coleridge thought it necessary to state his
reasons for not sentencing him to transportation for
life—the highest punishment of manslaughter. Those
reasons were the character which he had received—
the sudden quarrel in which he had been engaged—
the absence of malice or premeditation—and the con-
trition which, since the fatal event, he had constantly
evinced. The learned judge very properly added—" I
should be extremely sorry, however, if it should be
supposed that, in passing on you a lighter sentence
than transportation, the court has forgot to take into
consideration the deadly weapon which it appears you
carried about you. I trust that you and all those who
hear me will feel that circumstance weighs heavily
against you, and that it has called for punishment
against others as it must against you ; and I trust if
there be any persons here, or elsewhere, who are in
p ,session of such dangerous instruments, they will get
r.d of them as soon as possible, for we see the danger
of possessing such weapons, and the absolute necessity
which exists for those who administer public justice to
visit with heavy punishment any person who violates
the law by using such instruments against the life of a
fellow-creature. But for the fact of your possessing
that knife you would stand in a less unfavourable po-
sition from what you do now." We do not wonder at
the censure passed by the learned judge upon the pre-
ceptor of this young man, who, knowing that he was
in possession of such a deadly weapon—knowing also
that he was of irascible and vindictive temperament—
left the room when the quarrel commenced, which
ended in bloodshed and death, that he might, and
ought to, have prevented.
It is very right that judges should take into account,
when awarding punishment to an act like that of which
Medhurst has been convicted, the circumstance of the
deadly weapon having been habitually carried about
with him by the offender, as if anxious that his own
violent temper should not lack the means of de§troying
life upon any sudden provocation. Nothing will better
tcnd to put down the practise of carrying such weapons
upon the person than its being known that judges, in
passing sentence, will always take into account, as an
aggravation of the offence, the fact of the offender
being one who provides himself beforehand with such
a deadly weapon, as if desirous of finding an opportu-
nity to use it.

On Friday morning, a respite during her Majesty's plea-
sure was received from the secretary of state, for the culprit
Musgrave, left for execution by Baron Alderson, for the rape
at Armley.—York Chronicle.

The Queen has been pleased to direct letters patent to be
passed under the great seal, for greeting the dignity of a
v :count of the united kingdom of Great Britain and Ire-
land, unto the Right Hon. John Baron Ponsonby, G.C.8.,
her Majesty's ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary
at the Sublime Ottoman Porte, and the heirs male of his
body lawfully begotten, by the name, style, and title of Vis-
count Ponsouby, of Imokilly, in the county of Cork.

POPISH INTRIGUES ON THE CONTINENT.—The Roman
Catholic clergy are actively engaged in undermining the Pro-
testant religion in Bavaria, with the full sanction of the
bigotted King of that country. Six sisters of the congrega-
tion of St. Eulalio opened, on the Ist June last, a school in
the royal palace of Nymphenburg, in Munich, at which young
girls of the nobility, both Catholic and Protestant, were to be
a .mitted. The children of the last persuasion were to be in-
structed in their religion by Lutheran and Calvinist Ministers.
The establishment being patronized by the Court, most of the
distinguished families of Bavaria placed their daughters
therein, and the conditions of the prospectus as regarded re-
ligion were for some time strictly complied with. The nuns,
however, were not idle, for, aided by several Catholic clergy-
men, they laboured underhand to convert the Protestant
children to Rornanism. In the course of December last, four
publicly read their recantation, with the tacit consent of their
p rents, who, belonging to the Court, thought thereby to in-
gratiate themselves in the favour of the King. A judge'of
the Supreme Court of Appeals, however, was not to be in-
fluenced by such considerations. On being informed that
the nuns had prevailed on his daughter, a child ten years old,
to become a Roman Catholic, he immediately took judicial
proceedings against the managers of the school and a Jesuit
• Dillengen who had received her abjuration. The nuns pro-
duced, in justification of their conduct, a letter from the
Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs, by whom they were au-
thorised to use all their influence to convert to Rornanism the
young Protestant girls committed to their care. The trial,
says a letter from Munich, of the 26th ult., will shortly come
cs before the orkoiaut court of that city.—Lr Droit.