The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-08-02 00:00:00

SELECT EXTRACTS.

NATURE'S WORKMEN.—There are three creatures, the
squirrel, the field-mouse, and the bird called the nut-hatch,
which live much on hazel nuts, and yet they open them each
in a different way. The first after rasping off the small end,
splits the shell into two with his long ore-teeth, as a man
does with his knife, the second nibbles a hole with his teeth,
as regular as if drilled with a wimble, and yet so small that
one would wonder how the kernel can be extracted through
it ; while the last picks an irregular ragged hale with its bill ;
but as this artist has no paws to bold the nut firm while he
pierces it,—like. an adroit workman, he fixes it, as it were';in
a vice, in some cleft of a tree, or in some crevice, when,
standing over it, he perforates the stubborn shell:—White's
Natural History of Selborne.
VALVE OF A GOOD CHARACTER.—Mr.Bebbage remarks,
" High character supplips the place of an additional portion
of capital; and the merchant, in dealing with the great ma-
nufacturer, is saved from the expense of verification, by
knowing that the loss, or even the impeachment, of the ma-
nufacturer's character would be attended with greater pe-
cuniary detriment to himsef than any profit upon a single
transaction could compensate. To such an extent is this
confidence in character carried, that, at one of our largest
towns, sales and purchases an a very extensive scale are made
daily in the course of business, without any of the parties
ever exchanging a written document. The amount of well-
grounded confidence which such a practice, is one of the
many advantages au old manufacturing country always pos-
sesses over its rivals."

IMPROVED TUNING FORK.—IMPORTANT TO PRECEN-
TORS.—We have been favoured with an inspection of an
improved tuning fork, invented and constructed by a me-
chanic of this place. The peculiarity of the improved fork
is, that it is not like the common fork, restricted to the pro-
duction of one note, but may be made to produce any note
within the compass of two or three octaves. This is accom-
plished by extremely simple means. A stop is made to slide
stiffly between the prongs, the effect of which is to check the
vibrations in the portions of the prongs included between the
stop and the handle. The effective length of the prongs be-
ing thus diminished, the rapidity of their vibrations is in-
creased, and the pitch consequently raised. In the fork now
before us, the fundamental—that is, the note yielded without
the use of the stop—is D below the first line of the stave ;
and the positions of the stop, for the production of the other
notes of the scale, up to C (beyond which the inventor has
not yet carried his divisions), are marked on the prongs.—
These positions are of course, in the first instance, ascertained
by trial. It appears to us that this improved fork requires
only to be known to come into general use.—Aberdeen
Journal.

ANCIENT AND MODERN STEAM ENGINE DUTY.—In the
course of a well digested lecture on the steam engine, by Mr.
Sims, of Chacewater, delivered at the Truro Institution, a
comparison was drawn between the engines of Watt's time,
and those of the present day. As nearly as the average of
the former could be obtained, their duty could not he more
than 15,000,000 lbs. lifted a footligh by the consumption of
a bushel of coal; while in MessrT. Lean's report for the last
month, the average duty of sixty-one pumping-engines was
found to be 54,000,000 lbs. Those sixty-one engines con-
sumed, for a month, 4,283 tons of.coal, and lifted 31,000,000
tons of water 100 fathoms high. The same number of en-
gines in Watt's time, would do the same work, consume
15,418 tons of coal, which at 15s. would be £11,563 ; from
which, deducting 3,211, the cost of working at the present
day, there would remain £8,352 .per month, or upwards of
£100,500 a-year saved in fuel on sixty-one engines. The
greatest load lifted by any engine now at work in this county
was by one in the Consolidated Mines, which raised a load
of 9,000 lbs. every double stroke it made, and did this nine
times a minute, amounting to 567,022 tons lifted 7 ft. 6 in.
in twenty-four hours ; and this astonishing machine could he
started, stopped, or regulated, by a little boy.—Mechanics'
Magazine.
MISSIONARIES IN NEW ZEALAND.-Why is it, then,
that the Christian religion, as exhibited iu the teaching of the
missionaries of the Church Missionary Soeiety, has hitherto
-taken so slight a bold-for such is unquestionably the tact—
on the hearts and affections of the New Zealanders ' • for
while the baptized .natives do not exceed two hundred and
fifty altogetlusr, there are. frequent instances of apostacy even.
among them ? Why, my .Lord, although the ministers of the
gospel are in no respect responsible for the,. success of their
ministry, provided they discharge. the duties of their office
• honestly and conscientiously, it is nevertheless undeniable,
that if they do not engage in their work with a single eye to
the glory of. God and the extension of the kingdom of Christ,
but endeavour to serve " God and Mammon,', their %Worts
will undoubtedly issue in disappointment, aria their failure
be chargeable entirely upon themselves. Now I apprehend,
my Lord, that this is exactly the case of the New Zealand
mission, and the true source of that want of success which
has hitherto been experienced by the missionaries, and is so
generally complained of in the- island. For, instead of con-•
fining themselves, with the disinterestedness which became
their office,
.to the conscientious discharge of their important
duties, as he professed disciples of " Him who, though rich,.
for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might
be rich," the missionaries of the Church Missionary Society
in New Zealand, utterly incredible as it may appear in Eng-
land, have actually been the principals in the grand conspiracy
of the European inhabitants of the island to rob and plunder
the natives of their lande—Dr. Lang's New Zealand in 1839.
BANNISTER IN TRAGEDY.—Bannister began his own stage
career in tragedy, and played the hero in Voltaire's Mahomet.
Garrick, who had trained him to the part, met him the next
day, after he had acquired some applauses in Mahomet, and
asked him, with his usual abundance of gesture and eh, ehs,
what character he wished to play next. " Why," said Ban-
nister, "I was thinking of Orconoka." " Eh," said David;
staring at Bannister, who was at that time very thin, " yon
will look as much like Oroonoka as a • chimney-sweeper in a
consumption." Bannister told me that, at these words of
Garrick, his knees slackened, and he had almost sunk down
on the pavement. At another interview, be ventured to tell
the English Roscius that he had some thoughts of attempting •
comedy. " Eh, eh ? " said Garrick, " why no, don't think
of that, you may humbug the town for some time longer as a
tragedian ; but comedy is a serious thing, so don't try it yet."
Bannister, however, attempted comedy; • and his Don W/iis-
kerandos (as he himself says) laughed his tragedy out of
fashion.—Campbell's Life of Mrs. Siddons.
SCOTCH APPLAUSE.—I remember Mrs. Siddons describing
to me the scene of her probation on the Edinburgh boards,
with no small humour. The grave attention of my Scottish
countrymen, and their canny reservation of praise till they
were sure she deserved it, she said, had well-nigh worn out
her patience. She had been used to speak to animated clay;
but she now felt as if she had been speaking to stones. Suc-
cessive flashes of her elocution, that had always been sure
to electrify the south, fell in -rain on those northern flints:
At last, as 1 well remember, she told me she coiled up her
powers to the most emphatic possible utterance of one pas-
sage, having previously vowed in her heart, that if this could
not touch the Scotch, she would never again cross the Tweed.
When it was finished, she paused, and looked to the audience.
'Thedeep silence was only broken by a single voice exclaim-
ing, " That's no bad !" This ludicrous parsimony of praise
convulsed the Edinburgh audience with laughter. But the
laugh was followed by such thunders of applause, that amidst
her stunned and nervous agitation, she was not without fears
of the galleries coming - down.—Campbell's Life of. Mrs.
Siddons.

RUSSIAN PILGRIMS.—''e rolled on all day without any
thing to annoy us, or even to interest us, except processions
of pilgrims on their way to Mori. They travelled on foot
in bands of one or two-hundrecr men, women, and children,
headed by a white-bearded monk, barefooted and leaning on
a staff. During the night I was roused by aloud chant, and,
looking out, saw a group of more than a hundred pilgrims
gathered round a fire, with an old monk in the midst of
them, breaking the stillness of the night with songs of devo-
tion ; and all the night long, as we rode swiftly by, I saw, by
the bright moonlight, groups of forty, fifty, or a hundred
lying by the roadside asleep under the trees. More than
50,000 pilgrims that year visited the catacombs of Kiev,
coming from every part of the immense empire of Russia,
and many from Kamtschatka and the most distant region of
Siberia, performing the whole journey on foot, seldom sleep-
ing, under a roof, and living upon the precarious charity of
the miserable peasants on the road. I have since seen the
gathering of pilgrims at Jerusalem, and the whole body
moving together from the gates of the city to bathe in the
Jordan, and I have seen the great caravan of 40,000 true be-
lievers tracking their desolate way through the deserts of
Arabia to the tomb of the prophet of Mecca; but I remem-
ber, as if they were before me now, the groups of Russian
pilgrims strewed along the road, and sleeping under the pale
moonlight, the bare earth their bed, the heavens their only
covering.—Stephen's Incidents of Travel.
COSTUME OF PRAIRIE TRAVELLERS.—My companion
V—, whose last pair of trousers had yielded to the com-
bined influence of time and hard riding, was dressed in a pair
of shrivelled, tight, 'wash-leather drawers, no stockings, and
a pair of mocassins over his feet, while his shoulders were
enveloped in a blanket which covered the remains of what
had been shirt and jacket. I was sitting with an old woollen
coloured nightcap on my head, a faded shirt of printed calico,
without a neckcloth, and with beard' and moustachios of un-
shorn irregular growth; while my nether man was protected
by. a pair of coarse corduroy breeches without drawers, and
plastered to my skin with wet, grey worsted stockings full cf
holes, and shoes full of water. Our two attendants were no
bad companions to the preceding portraits, especially any
Scotch servant, who added to the picturesque scarcity of his
habiliments, a visage of most dolorous and ridiculous length.
The passage through the late thickets had literally torn to
shreds what had once been a pair of cloth trousers, and his
knees and shins, thus exposed to view, bore many marks of
the greetings which they had met from various kinds of brush-
wood. No less ragged was the dirty blanket which en-
veloped his shoulders ; and his condition would have moved
pity rather than mirth, had it not been for the determination
he evinced to be miserable, which contrasted strongly with
the good-humoured efforts of time younger lad to make the
best of the case, and to cheer himself and the rest of the party
with such sallies of mirth and hope as naturally arose out of
our condition. Among those, none were more frequent than
his anticipations of the havoc he would make (as soon as we
reached the fort) among his mother's buck-wheat cakes, and
" the sort of way" in which he would dip his muzzle into a
great bowl of buttermilk !—Murrali's Travels in North
America.

-g.4)i)lpp 3intriligrircr.

TUESDAY, J cLY -

—V.lnd S.S.E.

ARRlVED—Reliance, Robertson, from Bombay—Dmdalus, Wylie,
from Old Calabar ;• sailed lath June—Atlantic, —, from Apali-
chicola—Thetis, —, from St. John, N.B.—Brown, —, from
Quebec

SAlLED.—Hibernia, Cobb, for New York—Token, Patterson, for
Quebec—James, Ford, for Labrahor—Jeannette, Lechere, for Ant-
werp—Spring, Mures, for St. Petersburg—Nais, Gething, for New-
foundland—Bellona, Ramm, tor Elsinore—Rover, Duckells, for
Denia—John Porter, Crowder, for Halifax—Georgiana, Farsons,
for New York—and Rebecca, Drake, for St. John,

Belvidere, I‘l'Kewn, from Charleston, at this port, detained in
Quarantine

Tynwald, -, hence to Montreal, was spoken Ist July, in lat.
45, long. 52
Wm. Jardine, Crosbie, sailed from Portsmouth for Calcutta, 28th
July
Mary, M'Auley, for Sydney, N.S.W. and Enmore, Strickland, for
Ceylon, sailed from Gravesend 28th July
Manchester, Bosworth, hence off Philadelphia
Joseph Porter, Porter, hence at New York bth July
Ganges, Jones, hence at ditto gth July
Virginian, Harris, hence at ditto 10th July
• Pr. Porcia, Supor ; Romaldo, Nicolish, and Papa 6th, Catarinich,
hence at Malta
Watt, 111"faggart, hence at Carnarvon
Hope, Bayes, Irons Harlingen for this port, off the Isle of Wight
Johnstone, Spence, hence for Bombay, was spoken 7th May, in
lat. 28 S, lona. 47 E
Lagoda, , hence for Virginia, was spoken 21st July, in lat.
48, long. 18 •
Rachel, -, hence at Quebec
Mary, Storey, hence arid Demerara, at Honduras
New Tbon-ms, Adams, sailed from the Cape of Good Hope for
Liverpool h May, and Heber, for New South Wales, 29th May
Calcutta, Brown, from Bombay, at St. Helena, and sailed sth
June for Liverpool
Levant, Cundy, sailed from Zante for Liverpool sth Jnly
Fli7-4, Lowry, hence at Naples
Sphynx, Luscombe, hence at Gibraltar
Flora, Houghton, from Smyrna, at Gibraltar, and sailed 15th inst.
for Liverpool
Diligent, Nichols, sailed from Gibraltar lath July, and Ada, Tre-
g-ci.rt.hen, Seth, Unlit for Liverpool
Sir H. Parnell, Airth, and Prehene, Fredricksen, hence at Lisbon
Adriana, Ball, sailed from Lisbon for Monte Video 16th July
Jur. Heruirikr, Scholtens, hence for Groningen, at Zoltkamp
Theodore, I'iil, from Triesta at Malta, and sailed WI July for this
port
Agnes, Cobb, fr(an 'Bahia, off St. Alban's Head

Irt. Ludlow, frum ditto, off Swanage
Eli Whitney,' Dyer, from Savannah sailed 9th July. On the 21st
July, lat. 4.5, long. 31, spoke the Catherine, hence to Quebec. On
the 25th, in lat iii. long 20, the American hence to Quebec