The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-12-14 00:00:00

He was in easy circumst

snug life-annuity—tolerable securities for happiness. But
the honeymoon had hardly "filled its horn ' ere the bride
became false to her husband. Several suitors were at
first encouraged, but in a short time
with a shoemaker, a married man and

Itled down

injured husband entered the arm

together before they were forcibly separated, the shoe-
maker returning home, and his depraved companion going
nobody knew where. Lately, however, an acquaintance
received a letter from her, inquiring after her guilty lover,

And took it to her bus'barid's father. He, strangely
enough, entered into correspondence with her in the
name of the shoemaker, and several letters have been ex-

unbecoming, a correspondence should have been

PENINSITLAR AND ORIENTAL STEAM NAVIGATION

COMPANY.—The seventh annual meeting of this company
was held on Wednesday. This powerful association,
composed of the wealth of the merchant princes of En-
gland, which has opened up such extensive facilities for

communication with our important possessions in India,
and, still more distant, China, is progressing most satis-
factorily. An additional capital of half a million sterling
is about to be raised, for the purpose of extending opera-
tions in the East; and. in all probability, a line of coin-
munica

n will be established with Australia, under con-
tract with the Government, for the conveyance of the
mails between those colonies and the mother country,
and which is to be effected by stated voyages from Singa-
pore to Sydney—a route at present almost totally unfre-
quented, but which, with government aid, it is expected
would be rendered profitable. Such an establishment
would be of tie utmost advantage to the rising colonies
of New Holland, as tending to open new and extensive
markets for their agricultural and mineral produce, and
the supplying, with greater facility, many articles of
merchandise which they now import. The financial
statement is highly satisfactory—a dividend, for the whole
year, being paid of 8 per cent., free of income-tax, with
large reserves, in the shape of " depreciation" and " in-
surance" funds, and the ordinary reserve fund, preparing
them for any casualties to their vessels, without a fear of
being obliged to encroach upon the capital. Upon the
whole, it would appear, that this important company was
~ •

. . .
never in a more prosperous state
position, *ith the vastly extended un

ly stamps it as t

rtaking for a coy
-ablished in the histo
THE INFLUENZA IN LONDON
ring the last twenty days has been somethin

any_ of private me

the civ

d world

The ra

its, ever

think, very far beyond what our bestinfor

The autumnal we

of mortality

In the week

ending Sattirday, Nov. 27, the total deaths were 1677,
being 631, or 90 a day above the average. In the week
ending Saturday, Dec. 4, the returns of which will not be
published till to-morrow, the total number of deaths was
2454, being 1408, or 200 a day, above the average. In
the fourteen days, therefore, ending last Saturday. there
2038 deaths more than usual, and as such to be

ascribed to the epidemic, or the prevailing unhealthiness
of the season. We are now informed, though we hope
and trust without sufficient grounds, that since last Satur-
day,. the rate of mortality has continued to increase. It
is scarcely necessary to remind the public that this is a
greAter mortality than any which this generation has
known. The total deaths from Asiatic cholera in the me-
tropolis and its vicinity in 1832 was not more than 5275.
The most important feature of the epidemic is that which
every household has probably experienced for itself, and
which is borne out by the returns of the Registrar-Gene-
ral. It operates rather as a noxious and lethal element,
attacking each particular infirmity of constitution, assist-

ing ill tendencies, an,

weakness,

3e last blow to si

he weak

the weak throat, ave had to stand the brunt of the in-
fliction. In the last published returns, i. e., for the week
ending Nov. 27, very little is set down to the head of
" influenza," which has, of course, a more limited signi-
fication in medicine than in popular parlance. The
greatest increase is in what are called the zymotic class
of diseases, and in diseases of the lungs and other organs
of respiration.—Times.
THE CHARTIST ESTATE.—A correspondent of the
Gloucester Journal thus describes the politico-agricul-
tural colony recently founded in that locality. I deter-
mined to judge for myself, and there being 'a, fine day, last
week, off I started for Lowbands. The first glance of the
estate is anything but attractive to an Englishman—to an
Irishman it must appear a kind of " model Tipperary."
here the resemblance ends. The settlers are an intelli-
gent, sensible, and civil body of mechanics, who have left
their profitable occupations in the north to enjoy, in the
west, what they describe as a profitable independence.—
Well, good luck to them—Mr. O'Connor's judgment was
sadly at fault in his selection of the spot upon which to try
his plan. The distance of the Lowbands estate from
Gloucester is about nine miles ; it is nearly all arable, and
the soil, in most parts, a strong, wet clay, unfit, since the
last rains, to be much worked until the spring. They
have not a draught horse upon the place, and consequently
they are compelled to pay others for hauling their coal.
Mr. O'Connor has had the estate partially drained, but the
drainage is miserably defective. The morning I was there,
several of the allottees were engaged in letting down the
water from their allotment upon those of their neighbours.
Unless some more main drains are speedily cut to suit the
convenience of the holders, they will find that, after a deep
fall of snow and a sudden thaw, it will be next to impos-
sible to live there in health. The young wheat is just
above the ground, but not a barn or straw house is there
on the estate ; there must, therefore, at additional expense,
be erected on each allotment a barn and straw house be-
fore next harvest. The allottees will have no vegetables
till spring, and no bread corn till harvest ; and I could not
but notice that many of them were sorely puzzled to say
how they were to exist till next harvest—how those who

leave no money from other sources can ever live there an

than I can see or they can tell. Again, upon the death of
the present owners, the estate must be either sold or di-
vided ; and, if it should come to a division amongst the
children, I shall feel that the landowners of Redmarley
will deserve sympathy. Mr. O'Connor has got the wrong
men for the work, and, more than that, he has brought
them to the wrong place. _ _

EDUCATION INVALES.—COMMISSIONERS' REPORTS.
—ln the session of 1846 a motion was made, praying her
Majesty " to direct an' inquiry to be made into the state
of education in the principality of Wales, especially into
the means afforded to the labouring classes of acquiring a
knowledge of the English language." The Secretary of
State undertook to have this inquiry conducted under the
authority of the Committee of Council on Education.
Three Commissioners, Mr. R. R. W. Lingen, Mr. Jelin-
ger C. Symons, and Mr. Vaughan Johnson, were sent
into Wales. The first undertook the inspection of the
counties of Carmarthen, Glamorgan, and Pembroke; the
second of Brecknock, Cardigan, Radnor, and Monmouth ;
the third of North Wales. The reports, therefore natur-
ally divide themselves into three parts. Our present bu-
siness is with the first part. The object of the govern-
ment was to have a full and exact account of the state of
education in the principality ; every facility, for this pur-
pose, was given—each commissioner having the permis-
sion to associate with him two or more assistants versed
in the Welsh language. The area inspected by Mr. Lin-
gen contained 2376 square miles, and a population (1841)
of 365,388. The number of day schools, excluding the
few where the lowest terms exceeded 6d. a-week, were 712
day-schools, said to contain 30,910, or about 1 to 12 of
the population, and 913 Sunday-schools, said to contain
i 2,392, or just about 1 in 5 of the population. The edu-
cation of the district is therefore carried on principally by
the means of Sunday-schools. Through them the younger
portion of the labouring classes in Wales can generally
read, or are in course of learning to read, the Scriptures in
Welsh. A fifth of the population are in them, about half
this number is returned as able to read the Scriptures.
These schools organized some of them well, some of them
ill, are especially attractive to the Welsh people. They
are the best conception of the wants and objects of edu-
cation and of the means of applying it, which the volun-
tary principle, acting with great energy, has been able to
work out for itself. Whatever the amount of instruction
conveyed in them, they are stated " to be. real fields of
mental activity." The activity, though, is within a piti-
able narrow range, and often of a most pernicious or waste-
ful tendency. "The topics current in them are those of
the most general (religious) interest, and are treated in a
mode partly didactic, partly polemical, partly rhetorical,
the most universally appreciated. Whatever ignorance is
shown there, whatever mistakes made, whatever strange
Speculations started, there are no superiors to smile and
open their eyes."
FEARFUL MURDERS AND SUICIDE.-011 Wednesday
this town was horrified by the news of a tragedy, such as
Was never before known to have taken place within its
precincts—the murder of four children by their mother,
having cut their throats with a razor, and the taking of
her own life by the same means. The woman who per-
petrated these crimes was the wife of a jobbing brewer,
named Ridout, who, at the time of the occurrence was
absent from home. The cottage in which the family re-

sided is situated in a garden, and the way to it is so in-
tricate; and the situation so lonely, that very few of the
inhabitants cf Bath, perhaps, have ever been to the spot ;
died, but, for this horrid occurrence, such a humble and
retired recess would have remained unnoticed except by

the occupants of some of the straggling houses in its vici-
nity: This• cottage has but one floor, which is divided in-
to two apartments, the one a kitchen or sitting room, and
the other a sleeping chamber. A poorwoman, named Seers,
lives in another cottaze, not far from it. and was- in the

Ridotit

but on trying to open the door

was then induced to look in at th

window, when the horrid spectacle presented to her eye
was the wretched woman lying on the kitchen floor
steeped in her blood. She immediately called the atten
tion of another neighbour, a labourer, to the shockinj
sight, who gave information to the police. Passing thi
dead body of the woman, whom they found with he
throat cut, and a razor lying by her side, the next objet

which met

joining room, wer

which h
throats.

flowed from the fatal wounds inflietE