The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-01-22 00:00:00

MEETING OF THE DOCK COMMITTEE

The usual weekly meeting of the Dock Committee was
held yesterday. The following members were present :
Messrs. Benu, Barclay, T. Holt, H. Holmes, Booth, Hors-
fall, Mellor, Chapman, Evans, Tobin, Middleton, Aikin,
G. Holt, and Sands. Mr. Benn, deputy-chairman of the
committee, presided.

The weekly bills and other accounts were passed without
eliciting any remark.

The Sub-,
committee of Works presented a report, recom-
mending certain alterations to be made in the shed on the
west side of George's Dock, and the north end of the shed to
be boarded up, in order to protect the goods placed within
from the severity of the weather. The committee confirmed
the recommendation.

The same Sub-committee reported that they had received
a letter from the Dublin Steam Packet Company, suggesting
that lights be placed at the side of the shed nearest the water
on the east side of Clarence Dock, and offering to pay the
expense. The object of these lights was to prevent accidents
in the night to passengers, and to facilitate the loading and
unloading of steamers. The recommendation of the Sub-

committee was, that the application be granted, provided the
lights be placed to the satisfaction of the Surveyor.—Con-
firmed.

A letter was read from Mr. J. S. Leigh, consenting to take
ss. a year as a nominal rent for the site of the intended sea-
mark on Grange Bill, and offering to supply the stone for
th• erection, and also approving of the design. The column
is to have the following inscription—" This column was
erected by the Trustees of the Liverpool Docks, by permis-
sion of John Shaw Leigh, Esq., Lord of the Manor, who
also granted the stone for the erection, in the year 1841, as
a beacon for mariners in the vicinity." The Secretary was
directed to address a letter to Mr. Leigh, in the name of the
committee, thanking him for his liberality.

The MARINE SURVEYOR, in cotnphance with a wish of
the committee, that he should consider the subject, reported
that it would be injudicious, on many grounds, to remove the
Telegraph Station on Hilbre Island to Grange Hill.
Two portable cranes were ordered to be erected on the
north-west quay of George's Basin, of the power of three
tons each, for the use of vessels paying dock dues, free of ex-
pense, but subject to the regulations in force as to other
cranes.

The Sub-committee of Finance reported that they could
not' recommend any abatement in the Graving Dock dues,
charged for the American ship Rob Roy, noticed in our last.
The CHAIRMAN stated that the committee would have to
authorise the chairman to affix their seal to the petition to
the House of Commons for the dock bill; but the chairman
being absent, it was necessary that the seal should be affixed
by the senior member of the committee, being a member of
the Council. The Town-Clerk had been requested to state
upon whom this duty would fall ; his reply had not yet been
received, but when it had the seal would be affixed.
Mr. TORIN.—I shall object to its being sealed by any of
the rejected of the people. (Laughter.)
The Sub-committee of Finance reported that they had made
certain arrangements for an improved method of keeping the
books in the treasurer's ilepartment, which would shew the
constituency under the dock acts, and give the other infor-
mation which had been spoken of at a former meeting, as be-
ing very desirable. The three clerks in the office would be
put to some extra trouble by it, for which it was proposed to
increase their present salaries by an addition of £5O to each.
With the exception of fitting up a vacant room for an office,
this was described as being the only expense attendant upon
the introduction of the improved system. It will commence
on the 25th June next.—The report was confirmed.
The CHAIRMAN reported that the Marine Surveyor
(Lieutenant Lord, R.N.) had received a letter from the Ad-
miralty, requiring him to prepare for service, or his commis-
sion would be forfeited. This letter had been laid before
some members of the committee, and it had been suggested
that Lord Sandon should be written to with a view to use
his interest with the Admiralty to procure the order to be
rescinded.

Mr. MELLOR observed that the committee could not dis-
pense with Lieut. Lord's services.

Mr. HORSFALL thought that Mr. Creswell, as well as
Lord Sandon, should be requested to use his influence with
the Admiralty.

Mr. G. HOLT inquired at what period Lieut. Lord was re-
quired to be ready for active service?
The CHAIRMAN replied on the Ist bf April next.
The matter then dropped, it being understood that the
members for the borough should be written to concerning it.
This being all the business on the paper the committee
separated.

INFLAMMABLE AIR FROM ALCOHOL.—Pelouze and Mil-
lon, by passing alcohol over anhydrous barytes, elevated to a
dull red temperature, found that carbonate of barytes was
formed, and carburetted hydrogen given off., This is the
first instance in which this gas has been form9d artificially ;
when formic acid is heated with an oxide, it is decomposed
into carbonic acid, which unites with the oxide, and into
pure hydrogen. In this case, the half of the hydrogen
comes from the water which has been decomposed by the
carbon of the formic acid under the influence of potash.
This action it occurred to the chemists mentioned, might
also extend to alcohol. They passed carburetted hydrogen
procured from alcohol over hydrate of barytes, and obtained
hydrogen in large quantities. Naphthaline disengaged the
same product. The anhydrous oxaltes, when heated with
barytes, afford, as is well known, carbonic oxide. By sub-
stituting hydrate of barytes, hydrogen is procured; carbonic
oxide, also, under the same circumstances, affords pure hy-
drogen ; even charcoal itself does the same. Pelouze and
Millon have drawn the following conclusions :—anhydrous
barytes takes up from organic substances all the carbonic
acid which their elementary composition permits them to
furnish ; hydrate of barytes extends the decomposition fur-
ther, and tends to burn all the carbon, while the hydrogen
which proceeds from the decomposition of the water is dis-
engaged in a free state.--Athenceum.

CORRESPONDENCE,

IRELAND

(FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.)
Dublin, January 20, 1811.
The agitator's visit to Belfast has turned out to be a greater
disappointment to his hopes than his bitterest adversary had
reckoned upon. It has proved more clearly than any a priori
reasoning could possibly do, that the repeal is an object of
desire only with a religious sect in the country—the sect to
which the agitator himself belongs. In the south and west,
where the religion of Rome is predominant, and where the
agitator is confessedly the man of the people, repeal operates

ai a charm, and exerts an influence exactly co-extensive with
the spread of the Roman Catholic religion, but no farther.
For the Protestant, it has no attractions,—over him it wields
no power. Our liberal gentlemen of this profession, who are
in general ready enough to go the entire swine with the Ro-
manist party, have drawn back on this point. There was
something in it demanding such a complete coincidence and
identification with the " animal"—to the very snout and ears
—that they could not bring their courage to the sticking
place sufficiently to attempt it. Consequently, even where
Protestants are few and far between, and sorely beset and co-
erced by Popish neighbours, they took leave to keep aloof
from this particular move and agitation. As to the true con-
servative Protestants or Orangemen, as they are invariably
designated by the enemy, the.agitator had early found them
to be impracticable, and when he discovered, after stooping
to the lowest acts of sycophancy and meanness, that even
pledging King William of glorious memory in the pure wa-
ters of the Boyne, produced no effect on their flinty hearts,
he returned once more to his congenial habit of pronouncing
upon them every species of anatheina. He has lately " turned"
again—for Daniel can turn and turn ad infinitum, and be a
' false knave" still • and in the strength of a silly presumption,
he persuaded himself that he might go down amongst them to
the black north in one chain of continued orations. But the
result proves how egregiously he deceived himself. The bare
announcement of his intention caused an electric shock to be
felt through every fibre of toryism ; and the government be-
coming alarmed, judged it necessary to take strong measures
to guard against evil consequences. The infection of alarm
spread even to the breast of the intrepid Daniel himself, and
the papers have already told you, how instead of passing the
barrier, in southern fashion, with horns blowing, and repeal
flags ying, this man of the Romanist populace thought
better of it, and stole down incog, desirous of nothing so
much as that he might escape all notice whatever. And well
it was that he chose this " better part of valour ;" for it
now appears that the " Orangemen" were fully prepared to
give him a reception of a much warmer kind than could
have been at all pleasing. On reaching Belfast he remained
a close prisoner in his hotel, and did not venture out even to
his chapel on Sunday. On Monday he continued still in
confinement, and in fine departed without venturing to
ascertain for himself the progress of ruin in that locality,
brought into operation of course by that terrible scourge of
Ireland—the act of union. And perhaps it is as well for his
own peace of mind, as for his personal security, that be was
thus cribbed and confined ; for assuming it as an axiom that
Daniel never tells truth but when it is his interest to do so,
he would have found that nothing but the most enormous
lying would carry him through in any reference he might
hereafter make td the flourishing capital of the Protestant
North; for Belfast supplies a flat contradiction to all his
theories and declamation touching the impious effects of the
union. Belfast is a great and prosperous town, and the
union has not in the least impeded its advancement; how
would the agitator reply to that stubborn fact ? But a truce
with his extravagancies. It would be an insult to the com-
mon sense of your readers to notice them. With regard to
this northern campaign of his, I can only say that the man
seems to me to have been infatuated when he undertook it.
Quos Deus vult perdere, pries dementat, saith the school-
boy proverb—and perhaps we arc now come in earnest to the
" beginning of the end.
From certain preparations making in the neighbourhood of
Leeds, I doubt if our agitating Quixote will meet with a better
fate in that quarter than he has just experienced here. It is
surely fair to hope that desert may meet with its just reward
under all circumstances.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL:ST.4NDARD.

SIR,--T beg to enquire by what act of Parliament or au-
thority a fair is now holding in the very heart of thig town?
If any one doubts this, I beg they will step down to the
Custom House, and in the open ground opposite they will
perceive an assemblage of all the ragtag-and-bobtail that
usually attend such places. It may be very well for the
publicans and tobacconists in the neighbourhood that there
should be nightly an assemblage of the refuse of the town, to
frequent the twopenny shows and other rubbish there exhi-
bited; but to the peaceable and quiet-loving inhabitants the
scenes that take place are most disagreeable, and call for the
interference of the authorities to disperse the temporary
tenants of the vacant• ground. If the corporation let this
land to the persons assembled, the Council ought to be in-
dicted for a nuisance.—Yours, &c.,
19th January, 1841. A HOUSEHOLDER.