The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-03-17 00:00:00

VARIETIES.

THE CHILTERN HUNDREDS.—There is a certain por-
tion of the high land of Buckinghamshire known by the
name of Chiltern Hills. Formerly these hills abounded
in timber, especially beech, and afforded shelter to nu-
merous banditti—
•' Under the shady greenwood tree
We merry archers ioam
—To put down these banditti, and to protect the inhabi-
tants of the neighbouring parts front their depredations,
an officer was appointed under the Crown, called " the
Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds." As it is an office
under the Crown, any member accepting it, ipso facto va-
cates his seat in Parliament.

A PRIMI' WE POST OFFICE.—A party that had landed
from the Ad/gator found a box upon the island, which an
insciption upon a board erected above it designated as the
' Post-office.' Several letters were found therein, ad-
dressed to the masters of some of the ships that were ex-
pected to pass throughout the strait by those who had
preceded them ; and a book, in which the names of the
various ships had been entered, was carefully deposited in
one corner. From this it appeared that the Essington
had passed,ahout a fortnight before UR, having spent some
time in trading among the Murray and Darnley Islands.
Sae had gone on to Port Essington to land the frame of a
church intended for the use of the settlement which form-
ed part of her cargo. We also learned that the William,
another vessel that had been fitted nut to trade with the
islands, had been wrecked on Cockburn Reef.—Tropical
Australia.

WATER IN NEW YonK.—The Croton River is brought
to the city of New York by an aqueduct 40 miles in length.
It is received into two reservoirs, one capable of contain-
ing 150 millions of imperial gallons, and the other 21 mil-
lions, at the height of 115 feet above tide. '1 here are 150
miles of mains, four miles of which are three feet in dia-
meter. The water is kept at high pressure in all the
streets, at all times, so that it is always on, and the inha-
bitants have a constant supply night and day. When the
New York report was printed, only a short time bad
elapsed since the opening of the works; hut even then.
6000 houses and manufactories, out of 30,000, had taken
the water, at an average rent of 14 dollars, which, of
course, would decrease as the number of consumers aug-
mented. All who cannot pay for water are supplied by
'public fountains and hydrants, of which there were 600;
and the number has now greatly increa-ed. "It is im-
possible to say bow much water is supplied per annum,
as the hydrants and fountains are in constant use," and
" the water is used for purposes." Fires are Lhiefly
extinguished by a hose attached to fire plugs in the mains,
the water being thrown up by the head pressure; and
since the Croton water was introduced, the losses by fire
have diminished one-halt, and insurance premiums have
fallen 25 per cent. Philadelphia is supplied on similar
principles.—Heallh of Towns'.Advocate.

CHAT MOSS.—Within a couple of hundred yards of this
fertile valley, but separated from it by a ridge of manly
bills, commences the great waste known by the names of
Barton Moss, Chat Moss, and Astley Mo-s, of which from
two to three thousand acres, or perhaps about one third of
the whole, arc situated in the township of Barton. This
moss, or bog, as it would be called in Ireland, is,in many
places from twenty to thirty feet in depth, and though the ,
genius arid enterprise of Geolge Stepbenson have bridged
it over by a railway, for a length of upwaras of four miles,
it is still so wet in many parts as not to he transferable by
foot passengers without great danger. The readers of ro-
mances will remember that this moss is the scene of a
tragic adventure in Ainsworth's history of Guy Fawkes,
where the officers of justice are swallowed up and lost in
pursuing the heroine of the story. At the present day,
houses, gardens, and woods stand upon the scene of this
supposed adventure; but we know from Camden's Bri-
tanna that a few years before—that is, in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth,—this great moss burst, and discharged
enormous masses of mud and water into the Irwell, kil ing
'he fish, and in its course overspreading many acres of
fertile land. There is no historical document from which
it is possible to ascertain precisely the point where this
catastrophe occurred, but from the directisn of the land
and the course of the streams, it is most probable that it
occurred near the point at which Ainsworth supposes the
above-mentivaed catastrophe. to have happened—that is,
at the hollow which crosses the Manchester Road, on the
Baystrone form, where a thin coat of dry moss is still to
be found within 150 yards of the river.—Times.
A VISIT FROM AN ALLIGATOR.—One of the men em-
ployed, while steeping in a hammock suspended between
two trees, was disturbed during the night by something
dragging away the blanket that covered him, and on look-
ing over the side of the hammock he discovered, to his
intense horror, that the intruder was a large alligator.
His shouts alarmed the animal, which retreated in great
haste into the sea. The man's story was t»t at first cre-
dited by those who came to his assistance, but in the
morning, sure enough, the blanket was found on the
beach half immersed in water. and the animal itself was
shot a few nights afterwards, the ball striking the forehead
above the eye, and splintering off a portion of the skull,
thus exposing the brain. tie did not die, however, until
after a violent struggle of many minutes, during which he
lashed the sea around him into a foam. Some of the men
returned the compliment lie was supposed to have in-
tended for their companion, by eating a considerable por-
tion of his remains. From the knowledge that we subse-
quently gained concerning these animals, I very much
doubt whither the one in question really intended mis-
chief. Tree natives, whose encampments are generally
close to the beach, ate never carried off ; and the alli-
gator is such a cowerdly animal that it very rarely ven-
tures to molest them even in the water, which may be
considered as its proper element. Certainly, upon one
occasion, a woman and seven children were attacked by
an alligator as they were leisurely swimming towards the
shore from a vessel in the roads. It came up behind
them unperceived, and endeavoured to seize the woman
with one of its.claws, but it soon desisted, and the entire
party succeeded in escaping to the shore. I bad been
alarmed—as was the case, I believe, with all the people in
the settlement—by their screams, arid arrived on the
beach as they were landing. The woman was terribly
scratched upon her shoulder, but the gra west sufferer ap-
peared to be a poor little girl about eight years of age who
stood upon the beach the very picture of paralyzed terror.
Tropical Australia.
UN HANDSOME CONDUCT.—Many years ago a counsel,
yet living, I believe, and enjoying a pension granted on his
retirement from a high office, to which he war subse-
quently elevated, was a celebrated leader on the circuit. it
happened at one of the assizes, a cause of ejectment, if I
remember rightly, was set down for trial, and the plaintiff's
attorney, anxious to secure his assistance, not only sent a
special retainer, but a brief with a satisfactory fee, at least
three weeks be'ore the circuit commenced, and conse-
quently, while the learned gentleman' was in town. He
had thus an opportunity, of which he availed himself, to
study the plaintiff's case. On his arrival at the
.assize
town one of the defendant's attorneys called at his lodgings
with a brief for the latter, when he was apprized by the
clerk of the pre-engagement. I should mention, that this
attorney with his partners formed an influential firm, hav-
ing a superior business, and being "good" and constant
clients of Mr.—, while the solicitor on the other side
was nearer the reverse in all respects. Blaming the clerk
fur not writing to them in the first instance (though there
was no general retainer) to learn in what cases they re-
quired his master, the attorney immediately had an inter-
view with the lsttsr, in which be urged the necessity of
last adoning the first, and undertaking the second case.
There is no doubt his arguments were c r vincing, for, at
a ]ate hour of the evening, the plaintifl's attorney was in-
formed, that by neglect of the clerk, a pi for retainer (which
had no existence) by the defendant, had be -n overlooked,
and consequently that Mr. P—could not be his counsel.
His brief and fees were therefore returned. another coun-
sel was engaged within a few hours of the trial, and the
ill-used plaintiff lost that verdict of which he felt himself
secure, probably more by the knowledge which his adver-
sary's advocate had obtained of both sides of the question
than the merits of the case, while the clerk was obliged to
endure all the obloquy. His master, however, avoided
offending a " good" client, who might otherwise have been
"good" no longer, and, this object being attained, it mat-
tered not who suffered. I most add, by the by, that none
but a senior could have achieved this exploit without ser-
ious consequences.—Hood's Magazine.