The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1852-05-18 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD, TUESDAY, MAY

CON.—Mrs. Malaprop wishes to know why the rope
that banged Pharaoh's chief baker reminds one of matri-
mony. We blush to make such a guess at the good
lady's riddle, hut we suppose she means,—Because it is
the high menial halter.

JOE HUME is indebted for his advance in life to the
late Lord Panmure, who when a gay, wild young man,
broke the shop window of a poor widow in Perth, but she
so freely forgave the offender, that he resolved to do her a
service, which he did by sending her son Joe to India,
where he made a fortune, and on his return obtained a
seat in Parliament.

WE ALL HAVE OUR TROUBLES.—Sister Sally :
" Why, Charley, dear boy, what's the matter ? You
seem quite miserable." Charley : " And aint I just !
Here's ma' says I must wear turn-down collars till
Christmas, and there's young Sidney Bowler (who's not
half so tall as I am) has had stuck-ups and white chokers
for ever so long !"—Punch.
SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES.—Even in cities, amid
the more busy haunts of men, on a Saturday evening we
toast " Sweethearts and Wives ;" but nowhere is the
custom so rigidly observed, nor is the pledge given
with so much earnestness and endearing associations, as
when we are " far at sea." This arose out of the coun-
try courtings on the Saturday eve. It was an ancient
practice to cease from all servile labour at three o'clock
on Saturday afternoon, and to attend evening prayers
preparatory to the Sabbath. This vigil afforded a con-
venient opportunity for courting, which custom continued
afterthe religious observance ceased.—Nautical Standard.
SONGS FOR ALL SEASONS.—The New York Reveille
gives a series of songs for all seasons. Here are a few :
When a stout gentleman treads on your corns—" Twere
vain to tell you all I feel." For the young lady who has
had her dress torn at a military ball—" the Soldier's Tear."
For the man who dines on three dough nuts, and lives on
the Astor House steps—" I dreamt I dwelt in marble
halls." For the brisk young widow who clears out her
weeds in three months—" Behold how brightly breaks
the morning." When your hear a party of young bucks
wrenching off your door-knocker in the small hours of the
morning—" Lo ! hear the gentle (genteel) lark." When
your husband asks after that money you spent on trim-
mings for your Bloomer chapeau—" It's all round my hat."
"Do 1-011 BELIEVE IN GHOSTS, MRS. PARTING-
TON ?" was asked of the old lady, somewhat timidly.
" To be sure I do," replied she, " as much as I believe
that bright fulminary there will rise in the yeast to-
morrow morning, if we lire and nothing happens. Two
apprehensions have sartinly appeared in our family.
Why, I saw my dear Paul, a fortnight before he died,
with my own eves, jest as plain as I see you now ; and
though it turned out afterwards to be a rosebush with a
nightcap on it, I shall always think, to the day of my
desolation, that it was a forerunner sent to me. 'Tother
one came in the night when we were asleep, and carried
away three candles and a pint of spirits, that we kept in
the house for an embarkation. Believe in ghosts, in-
deed ! I guess I do, and he must be a dreadful styptic as
doesn't."
CHARACTER OF MARLBOROUGH.—"Marlborough,"
said Bolingbroke, was " the perfection of genius, ma-
tured by experience." This was really his charac-
ter. He began life without any of the vast advantages
which knowledge affords ; but he made admirable use
of the opportunities he afterwards enjoyed. In the
school of Turenne, he imbibed the art of war; in the pa-
lace of St. James's, be learned the mysteries of the human
heart ; in the House of Peers, and at the Vague, he be-
came master of the art of diplomacy. "Itis a charac-
teristic," says Adam Smith, " almost peculiar to the great
Duke of Marlborough, that ten years of such uninter-
rupted and splendid successes as scarce any other general
could boast of, never tetrayed him into a single rash ac-
tion—scarce into a single rash word or expression." " I
take pleasure in doing justice to that great man," said his
old enemy, Bolingbroke, " whose faults I know, whose
virtues I admire, and whose memory, as the greatest ge-
neral and greatest minister that our country or any other
has produced, I honour." —Marlborough and his Times.
VINEYARDS IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE.—AIong
either side of the road the vines extend, utterly un-
protected. No raspers, no ha-ha's, no fierce denun-
ciations of trespassers, no polite notices of spring guns
and steel-traps constantly in a state of high-go-offism—
only, where the grapes are ripening, the people lay prickly
branches along the wayside to keep the dogs, foraging for
partridges among the espaliers, from taking a refreshing
mouthful from the clusters as they pass ; for it seems to
be a fact, that every body, every beast, and every bird,
whatever may be his, her, or its nature in other parts of
the world, when brought amongst grapes, eats grapes. As
for the peasants, their appetite for grapes is perfectly pre-
posterous. Unlike the surfeit-sickened grocers' boys,
who, after the first week loathe figs, and turn poorly
whenever sugar candy is hinted at, the love of grapes ap-
pears literally to grow by what it feeds on. Every garden
is full of table vines. The people eat grapes with break-
fast, lunch, dinner, and supper. The labourer plods
along the road munching his cluster. The child in its
mother's arms is lugging away with its toothless gums at
a bleeding bunch ; while, as for the vintagers, male and
female, in the less important plantations, heaven only
knows where the masses of grapes go to, which they de-
vour, labouring incessantly at the metier, as they do,
from dawn till sunset."—The Vineyards of Bourdeaux.
EFFECT OF PLACE ON POETS.—Moore was made for
cities ; all his habits were social, and he must have
languished for society. The cooing of doves and the
songs of nightingales were not the music to accompany
such verses as these—

" Fly not yet, 'tie just the hour,
When pleasure, like the midnight flower,
That scorns the eye of vulgar light,
Begins to bloom for sons of night,
And maids who love the moon."
We can imagine the look of melancholy with which, after
having finished his stanzas, Moore gave a moonlight
glance to the woods and wilds, as he stood at his cottage
door, and thought of the lively scenes at that moment
glittering in London. Solitude may be the place of the
philosopher, and universities the stronghold of science;
but, for the knowledge of life, the play of character, the
vigour of manly competitorship, and even the variety of
views, events, and character, which make the true mate-
rials of the poetic faculty, association with our kind is in-
dispensable. The poet in retirement either becomes the
worship of a circle of women, who pamper him with pane-
gyric, until he degenerates into silliness; or, living alone,
becomes the worse thing—a worshipper of himself. Like
a garrison cut off from its supplies, he lives on short al-
lowance of ideas ; like a hermit, thinks his rags sanctity,
and his nonsense Oracles ; or, like Robinson Crusoe,
imagines his geese conversible, and his island an empire.
We never heard of a great poet living a hundred miles
from a metropolis. Contiguity to the world of men and
women was essential. All the leaders of the tribe lived
as near London as they could. Cowley lived within a
walk, Pope within a drive, Milton within sight, of the
walls—Shakspeare saw London Bridge every day of his
life—Dryden lived in the Grecian Coffee-house—Byron,
with his own good-will, would never have stirred out of
Bond-street; and when the newspapers and Doctors'
Commons at length drove him abroad, he nestled down in
Venice, instead of singing among the slopes of the Apen-
nines, or acting distraction among the pinnacles of the
Alps. It is even not improbable that the last few and
melancholy years of Moore's life owed some of their de-
pression to the weariness of this unnatural solitude.—
Blackwood's Magazine.

JOHN PALMER, THE ACTOR.•.--It is universally known
that the eminent actor, John Palmer, died on the stage, at
Liverpool, on the 2nd of August, 1798, while performing in
the character of The Stranger; and to make the tragic in-
cident morecompleteand memorable, it is generally record-
ed, that he expired immediately after uttering these memo-
rable words, which occur in the third act—" There is another
and a better world." So strong was this belief, and so com-
mon the report, that on the first occasion of Kenible's ap-
pearance in " The Stranger," at Drury-lane, after the
melancholy event (being for the benefit of the deceased
actor's family), a strong excitement prevailed with the audi-
ence until be had pronounced the dangerous sentence ; and
an audible expression of relief went round the house when
he did so, and no catastrophe ensued. But the fact dif-
fers materially from the current version. It was in the
fourth act, in the scene with Baron Steinfort, and at the
close of his story, that Palmer was stricken by the hand
of death. He crossed the stage as usual at the end of his
long recital, ending with the climax of passion—" What
are chains or death compared to the tortures of a de-
ceived, yet doting husband !" He tottered, and appeared
exhausted ; and at the following words, in reply to the in-
quiry of his friend, as to where his wife was now ? " I
know not, nor do I wish to know," became speechless,
fell, and was carried off the stage by his brother actor.
Whitfield, who personated the Baron, published this cor-
rect statement, which appeared in a Liverpool paper; and
the same has often been corroborated to me by the elder
Hamerton, many years a member of the Dublin company,
and who also acted in the play of " The Stranger" on the
night of Palmer's death. With reference to this event a
singular anecdote is related by Mr. Dendy, in his volume
entitled the " Philosophy of Mystery. 1841." " The
tragedian, John Palmer, died on the stage at Liverpool.
At the same hour and minute, a shopman in London,
sleeping under a counter, saw distinctly his shade glide
U-rough the shop, open the door, and pass into the street.
This, an hour or two after, he mentioned very coolly, as
if Mr. Palmer himself had been there."—Leaves from the
Portfolio of a Manager.
THE EFFECTS OF DEPRESSION.—This involves one of
the most curious phenomena in economical science. When
aninterestisdepressed,itdoesnotalwayshappen—especially
in the first stage of depression—that the labourers attached
to the interest feel immediately the consequences of the de-
cline. Agricultural wages, for example, do not fluctuate
according to the price of wheat. The retrenchment which
necessary in consequence of lessened returns is usually be-
comes effected, in the first instance at least, by curtailment
of personal expenditure on the part of the cultivator—by
abstinence from purchases, not necessary indeed, but
convenient—and by that species of circumspect, but
nameless thrift, which, at the end of a year, makes a very
considerable difference in the amount of tradesmen's
bills. This kind of retrenchment is the easiest, the
safest, and the most humane • and it is not until the de-
pression is so great as to render other and more stringent
modes of economising necessary, that the agricultural
labourer is actually made to feel his entire dependance
upon the land, and the interest which be has in its returns.
The small tradesmen and dealers in the country and mar-
ket towns are usually the first to discern what is called
the pressure of the times. They find that the farmers
are no longer taking from them the same quantity of
goods as before; that their stocks, especially of the more
expensive articles, remain on their hands unsold ; and
that there is no demand for novelties. If the depression
goes so far as to necessitate a diminution of rental, then
the same economy, but on a wider scale, is practised by
the landlord. Expensive luxuries are given up, establish-
ments contracted, and the town's-people begin to com-
plain of a dull season, for which they find it impossible to
account, seeing that money is declared to be cheap. All
this reacts upon the artisans very severely; because in
towns labour has a far less certain tenure than in the
country ; and when there is a cessation of demand, work-
' men, however skilled, are not only liable, but certain to
be dismissed.
Iftheshopkeeper cannot get his goods off
his hands, the
manufacturer need not expect to prevail
upon him to give anyfarther
and
orde
manufacturer,rs. T hedema finding
demand upo n
the mills becomes slack, the
that there is no immediate Proftimreevi_vaTl.4ceonvseidneior.s
it his duty to have
shortrecoursetoospect
(Tat ic Confederacy, in Blackwood's Maga:. ine.

CORRESPONDENCE.

Letters addressed to the Editor should be accompanied by the
real name and address of the writer, not for publication, but
as a guarantee of good faith ; this is indispensably requisite
in any statement of facts.
The Editor wishes it to be understood that he does not hold
himself responsible for the opinions or statements of his
correspondents.

HORTICULTURE.

ECCLESIASTICAL.

8, 1852

MEETINGS OF THE CHURCH MISSIONARY
SOCIETY.

Yesterday the anniversary of the Chur eh Missionary
Society was celebrated in this town by a morning and
evening meeting in the theatre of the Collegiate Institution.

MORNING MEETING,

This meeting was most respectably, though not nume-
rously attended. The Worshipful the Rev. H. Raikes,
Chancellor of the Diocese, occupied the chair, and amongst
the company we noticed the Revs. H. Stowell, Dr. M'Neile ,
D. Wilson, Vicar of Islington, London, Wm. Knight,
one of the secretaries to the Parent Society, J. B. Mars-
den, W. W. Ewbank, F. Barker, F. Parry, H. Carpenter,
C. W. Lawrence, J. 0. Powell, J. Jones, J. Bardsley,
Wright, Z. S. Barry, D. Anderson, W. Williams, J. H.
Jones, W. Rawson, J. R. Conor, W. Hughes, J.

M'Naught, Marsden, and Messrs. Charles Inman,
Wm. Jones, J. P. Mather. Rd. Evans, T. D. Anderson,
R. Fry, J. 0. Duncan, W. Maples, Josias Booker, J.
Dutton, &c., &c.

On the Rev. Chancellor taking the chair, the proceed-
ings of the day commenced with a suitable prayer by the
Rev. H. Carpenter.
The CHAIRMAN said he was very unwilling to trespass,
even for a short time, upon the attention of the meeting,
though it was not numerous, for he was disposed to look
upon it rather as a kind of nucleus from whence informa-
tion was to emanate respecting the operations of the
society, and which was of the most abundant and gratify-
ing kind. It was too abundantly plain that there was the
utmost cause for thankfulness that it had pleased God to
open out so wide a field for the exertion of Christian
missionary efforts. There never was in the history of the
church so extensive an opening for the spread of the
Gospel as at the present moment, and he trusted that
there would be a thankful response to the call for in-
creased missionaries ; that numbers would " come to the
help of the Lord—to the help of the Lord against the
mighty."
The CHAIRMAN then called upon the Rev. H. Carpenter,
who read the following important