The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1852-09-28 00:00:00

rst, and let out its boweled stores

ge now remains—that opposite the Royal Hotel, and
that is in imminent danger of being carried away. To
inst this emergency they have constructed
age above the present one by means of long
trees of timber, hoisted on trussels at each end, to enable
people to pass and repass in case of need. A more fearful
flood it never fell to my lot to witness."
" Chamouni, Sept. 17, 1852."

FOREIGN

MISCELLANY

AUSTRIA.—The Milan Gazelle of the 16,11 gives an
terrible inundation which has laid waste all
between Milan and the Lago Mag-

.ccount of

THE WnoLn PRUSSIAN ARMY has been ordered to
wear mourning for three days for the Duke of Wellington.
A deputation of Prussian officers will probably proceed to
London to attend the funeral of their late and only field-
marshal.

REPORTS OF THE HARVEST FROM FRANCE speak of
its being nearly an average one, better in quantity than
q iality. The grape disease is telling already on the price
of wines. New ordinary Bordeaux wine cannot be had at
less than from 75f. to 851. the hogshead, and the wine of
the Cher at from 70f. to 75f. The dropping of the grapes
in the vineyards in the neighbourhood of Perigneux has
caused so much injury that it is feared that the produce
will be less by one third than that of an ordinary year.
At Anjers there is an additional rise of 10f. the cask.
Wine has risen thirty per cent. at Saurnur' owing to the
disease of the vines. At the fair of Issoudun, last week,
wines of last year were sold at 451. the cask ; old wines at
from 75f. to 80f. Wine of superior quality is scarce in
the vineyards of Beaune and Nuits ; hut at Garnet, which
produces only ordinary wine, the crop will be abundant.
There has, been a rise of if. the hectolitre in the price of
brandy.

kCCIDENT TO THE I

JRLEANS.-
The Swiss papers report an accident which has befallen
the Duchess of Orleans. On the 17th inst., the duchess,

accompanied by her two sons and fifteen persons of her
suite, was going from Lausanne to Berne, hut, on arriving
at Maudon, she learned that the bridge at Courtilles had
been carried away by the floods on the previous night ;
and she was thus compelled to return with her two travel-
ling carriages and to take the route of Romont, Fribourg,
&c. She had passed Oron about noon, and about two
o'clock one of the carriages returned containing the
duchess, the two princes, her lady of honour, &c., all
drenched to the skin, and the duchess having sustained an
injury. It appeared that her carriage, owing to the im-
prudence of the coachman, had fallen into a wide ditch
full of water at the entrance of the village of Promasens,
and had been turned completely upside down. The
duchess had her right collar bone broken, and the other
travellers have escaped with some bruises. Drs. Mellet,
of Oron, Guisan of Mezieres, and Pellis of Lausanne,
were immediately sent for. A letter from Lausanne, on
the 18th, says that the duchess had had a good night, and
her state gave no cause for uneasiness. The young
princes had not received a single bruise.
EARTHQUAKES IN JAMAICA.—On Friday morning
last we were visited with three shocks of the earth. The
first occurred at half-past eight o'clock, and was quickly
followed by a second shock, accompanied by a very loud
rushing noise, not unlike that which usually accompanies
the first burst of a storm over the vast and mighty deep—
the ocean. These two shocks did not last beyond three
seconds, and appear to have passed from the northward to
the southward. The third shock was felt at nine o'clock,
but so slight was it that we did not experience the effect
of it. These three shocks of earthquake were distinctly
observable in various parts of this parish and the sister
parish of St. James. A gentleman, writing to us from a
central part of Trelawny, states iat " there happened
three shocks of the earth at half-past eight o'clock on
Friday morning, the second of which was the severest I
ever felt." We have not heard of any casualty resulting
from the effects of these earthquakes. On Saturday
morning, at twenty minutes to four o'clock, we were
awakened by another and severe shock of earthquake,
which must have lasted three or four seconds. There
happened, as we are informed by one of our family circle
who was awake at the time, two distinct shocks, the second
following rapidly upon the first.-7'relawny Advertiser.

LETTERS FROM STRASBURG of the 19th instant state
that the waters of the Rhine had swollen in a sudden and
extraordinary manner, in consequence of the copious rains
which had fallen of late in Switzerland and in Alsace.
On the 17th they had reached four feet and a-half above
the water-mark ; and at 6 a.m. on the 19th they had risen
to twelve feet, that is, a few inches lower than last year;
but the flood was increasing. On the 18th troops were
placed at the disposal of the chief engineer, who occupied
them the whole ni,dit in erecting embankments. Another
battalion left Strasburg the same night with lighted torches
to construct similar works on other points. In several
rural districts the tocsi❑ was ringing to call the inhabitants
to the embankments, to close any aperture that might be
made in them by the water. At Strasburg the authorities
had also demanded workmen for the same purpose. The
Rhine was said to have committed extensive ravages on
the side of Huninguen. The Basle Gazette, which did
not appear on the 18th, had forwarded the following
bulletin to its subscribers :—" It is impossible for us to
print cur journal to-day. The waters of the Rhine have
risen to a height they had not reached since 1817. The
whole town is overflowed. Our offices are filled with
water. The present notice to our subscribers has been
printed in another establishment, which kindly placed its
presses at our disposal."
SHOCKING SCENES AT GERMAN EXECUTIONS.—The
two following paragraphs are extracted from letters from
Munich and Dresden :—" Munich, Sept. 10.—When the
scaffold for the execution of the murderer, Treiber, was
erected, several lad;es ' ascended it, and sat down in
the seat of blood ' (the chair to which the criminal is
tied to receive the fatal stroke), to see bow they looked
there.' While the procession was going through the
streets to the place of execution, a woman excited the
charity of the crowd by representing a child she carried as
that of the criminal's. Around the scaffold several rob-
beries were committed, and some pickpockets arrested.
After the execution men and women rushed to dip hand-
kerchiefs and rags in the flowing blood, as remedies for
the epilepsy and consumption, and as a means of drawing
lucky numbers in the lottery."—" Dresden, Sept. 10.—
At seven o'clock this morning we had the sad spectacle of
a public execution. The criminal was a single woman
who had murdered her illegitimate child, two and a-half
years old, in a most barbarous mariner, that it might not
be an obstacle to her marriage. The execution, which
was by the sword, miscarried in a frightful manner,
though the headsman is a practical hand, having already
beheaded twenty-seven persons. The woman made a
movement at the moment the blow was struck, and it tell
on the bark of her head, and she shrieked aloud, to the
terror of the spectators. The head only fell at the third
stroke. The executioner could hardly be recognised, he
was so covered with blood."

SPIRITUAL RAPPERS. MORE GO-A-HEAD
JONATHANISM.—The transatlantic spiritual manifestation
impostors and their dupes have organised an association,
with the object of having periodical meetings at which
" spirits could hold free converse with their friends on
earth, without disturbance." The initiation fee is a
dollar, with a quarterly assessment of fifty cents. The
conference is to be governed by five directors, of whom
two are " strong-minded women," Mrs. Baldwin, pre-
sident of the Physiological Institute, and Mrs. E. H. C.
Culvert, of Boston, a well-known champion of woman's
rights. The proceedings of one of the recent meetings
were pleasantly diversified by the iterations of a few un-
believing married men, who were heard to exclaim, in
tones which augured badly for matrimonial felicity, " My
wife shan't have a dollar to join this infernal band of
lunatics, by thunder !" "If my wife thinks to attend
these crazy meetings every week, she'll have to come
alone, by jingo ! I won't bring her here, no ho aw !"
The St. Louis Intelligences- says, "We were informed
last evening, by a gentleman who is posted up in spiritual
matters, that mediums' are multiplying rapidly in all
portions of the city. He had heard of one family wherein
a daughter and three niggers' were mediums, and in
whose presence temporal abiders in this mundane sphere
were enabled to communicate with the spirits of departed
friends." The " mediums " do not appear to be favoured
with much special information by their " spiritual " cor-
respondents, or they would adopt means to stop the pro-
ceedings which are filling the asylums with their ecstatic
friends and followers. Mr. Gray, a prominent " medium,"
had been sent, amongst a number of others, to the Ohio
Asylum.

MARRIAGE BY SURPRISE,—The Florence correspond-
ent of the Daily News says :—I met in society, a few days
ago, an English lady who had just been released from
prison, where she had undergone two months of solitary
confinement, for having contracted marriage with a Tus-
can officer, in the manner termed in this country matri-
monio di sorpresa, which may be considered equivalent to
a Gretna Green match in England. The parties being
much attached to each other, although family obstacles
prevented their immediately marrying in forma, they re-
solved to adopt the plan above mentioned, which consists
in the couple presenting themselves before the curate of
the parish, and stating to him in the presence of two wit-
nesses that they arc man and wife. This forms a valid
marriage, according to the law of the Church of Rome,
The lady in the present case, being a Roman Catholic
sent to the curate to inform him that she wished to con-
fess, and requesied him to mention the hour that would
suit him to hear her. At the hour named she repaired to
the confessional, and had fully engaged the priest's at-
tention, when her lover, attended by two witnesses, sud •
denly presented himself—the lady arose and gave him her
hand, the fatal words were pronounced, the witnesses at-
tested, and the curate became the unwilling instrument
of a " marriage by surprise." But, although the mar-
riage contracted in this manner is perfectly valid, it is
ble in Tuscany as a civil misdemeanour. sn amt.

the law condemns what the church sanctions. The officer
was first confined in a military fortress, deprived of his
rank and dismissed the service, and then snot to expiate
his offence, in a cival point of view, by two months' so-
litary confinement ha the Muratte cellular prisons, and his
wife had to undergo a similar term in another prison.
Another instance of this kind occurred here recently,
wherein the priest was sent for as if to attend a dying per-
son ; but one of the witnesses getting alarmed before the
curate arrived, went dewn stairs and warned his reverence
that a snare was prepared for him. The curate very in-
dignant, sent for a couple of gendarmes, and with them
presented himself to arrest the culpable parties : the other

witness got Gut of an upper windo.w, and escaped over the
tiles; but the bridegroom, nothing daunted by the priest
and his posse comitatus, and resolved not to miss his mar-
riage for want of witnesses, tddressed the curate in the
usual formula, "This is my wife," said he, "and this
r

usband," responded the lady ; and these two genth
men," resumed the bridegroom, pointing to the astound(
gendarmes, "are witnesses !" The priest was d
the marriage wti6 valid,

one, and