The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-03-24 00:00:00

JUVENILE DEPRAVITY.—At Hudderafield, on Tuesday
last, Mr. George Beaumont, an extensive manufacturer,
applied to the magistrates to cancel the indentures of
Eliza Sykes, not quite twelve years of age, who had been
put apprentice to him by the parish. It appearid that
she had attempted to poison the whole family with arse-
nic, a quantity of which had been got into the house to
destroy mice. The family were in the habit of using oat-
meal porridge for breakfast, and she had mixed some of
the poisoned meal with that which they used. Two of the
children, and one of the heads of the family, as well as the
girl herself, were taken alarmingly ill after the meal. The
prisoner had been urged to the act by being chastised for
a fault by her mistress. She said she did not intend to
kill them. The magistrates strongly reprobated such de-
pravity, and immediately cancelled the indentures.

. ,
EXTENSIVE ROBBERIES.—Two extensive robberies
were committed in Hull between Saturday night and
Monday morning last. The shop of Mr. Gardener, of
Queen-street, was entered, and an immense quantity of
valuable property carried off, consisting of gold and silver
watches, gold chains and jewels, brooches, diamond and
other rings, 100 ounces of gold and silver, a quantity of
plate pencil cases, and some silver snuff-bcxes. On Sun-
day night the shop of Mr. Isaac Daniel, a jeweller in the
same street, was also entered, and a great number of
watches, and other valuable property, was carried off. In
the case of Mr. Daniel, the daring villains poisoned a
large dog which was kept in the shop ; and in both cases
they locked the shops up again after perpetrating the rob-
beries. The booty obtained from Mr. Daniel's premises
amounted in value to about £l5OO to £2OOO ; and that
front Mr Gardner's to not far short of the former sum.
The thieves for the present have got clear off with their
booty.
DREADFUL SHIPWRECKS : EIGHTY LIVES LOST.—
Two wrecks, accompanied by a mournful loss of human
life, upwards of eighty persons having perished, were on
Monday reported at Lloyd's, namely, that of the British
barque Ida, 550 tons burthen, belonging to the port of
London, and the John Mintura, an American-built ship
of near the same tonnage, both lost while on outward-
bound voyages from their respective ports. The Ida was
commissioned by Government for the conveyance of Go-
vernment stores for Canada, and sailed for St. John's,
New Brunswick, on the 4th of January. There were on
board, besides the crew, eighteen in number, including
the master, Captain William Chamber, thirty-eight pas-
sengers. A letter, stated to be written by Mr. Sherwood,
the British Consul at Portland, thus describes her loss :
" On the 26th of January, being in lat. 44 N., lon. 52 30
W., the barque broached to, while scudding before a
severe gale from S.S.E., and was thrown on her beam
ends. The passengers and crew immediately rushed into
the long-boat, to the number of forty-five. The land bore
N.N.E., distant about thirty leagues. The boat got
about two cable•lengths from the vessel, when she shipped
a sea, filled, and all in her perished. The mate, nine men,
and one young woman remained on the wreck, in the
tops, from Monday morning until Friday, when they were
taken off by the schooner Three Sisters, of Eden, where
hey were landed much frozen, the mate being the only
one able to travel." The John Mintura, of 500 tons
burthen, bound to New York, with crew and passengers,
numbering fifty-one souls, was within three days' sail of
her destination, when, on the 14th of February, she
struck with tremendous force. The captain, with his
wife, son, daughter, servant, and cabin passengers, took
refuge in the poop cabin. The long-boat was cast adrift
and launched over the bows : five of the crew and a steer-
age passenger, a Portuguese, jumped into her. It is sup-
posed that the captain, his mate, and the pilot remained
in the poop, for they were not seen afterwards, and i❑ the
course of an hour the ship parted amidships, and the
after-part drifted away into the sea. The remaining por-
tion of the wreck then floated considerably in shore.
Those who were lashed to the forecastle instantly perish.
ed. Between eleven and twelve o'clock at night a boat
was put off to rescue those who were clinging to pieces of
the wreck, consisting of two under mates, two of the
crew, and four of the steerage passengers, and after almost
insurmountable difficulties, they were preserved. In the
remains of the forecastle sixteen bodies were found ; they
laid in a cluster round the stump of the foremast. Among
them could be recognised the captain's wife and children.
DISCHARGED PRISONERS. —On Saturday week, a
meeting was held at Willis' Rooms, London, to consider
an appeal to parliament to carry out the humane object of
establishing national houses of occupation and shelter for
discharged prisoners. Mr. Sheriff Laurie presided. The
chairman observed that Government expended £20,000
per year for the model priso❑ to reform convicts, and a
proportionate sum for the institution at Parkhurst, but
that there was no receptacle for those who were acquitted
or released at the end of their sentences. Last year, in
London, 1,500 persons were convicted and sentenced to
short terms of imprisonment, and 600 acquitted : thus
more than 2.000 persons were thrown upon the public in
one year. During the same period, 26,000 persons were
convicted in England and Wales, exclusive of those who
were summarily convicted. He then alluded to the bene-
volent exertions of Mr. Wright, of Manchester, by whom,
in four years, ninety-six of those who had been turned
loose upon the country, with no resource but to commit
further crime, had been reclaimed; but private exertions
could not meet the evil. They ought to petition the Le-
gislature to provide employment for what might be
termed the gaol population.—The Bishop of London
thought that Government and the community ought to
unite in promoting the reformation of criminals in the
manner mentioned. It might be, however, that various
considerations would prevent the Government from mov-
ing promptly in the matter; and, as delays were danger-
ous, he hoped to see private individuals taking it up zeal-
ously and effectively, and the results, he had no doubt,
would convince the Government of the duty of co-opera-
ting. He was glad to observe that great improvements
had of late years been effected in prison discipline ; and
he bore testimony to the beneficial results of the systems
acted upon at Penton vine and Parkhurst. Attached to
most of the hospitals were " Samaritan Institutions," de-
signed to afford shelter and subsistence to poor persons
discharged from hospitals, who were not sufficiently re-
covered to enable them to follow their usual avocations ;
and he hoped to see like institutions for those who were
discharged from prison.—Mr. Monkton Milnes, M.P.,
stated that there were similar societies in Boston, Phila-
delphia, and other towns in the United States, and they
had been productive of the very best results. Mr. Alder-
man Sydney read a number of returns, which showed that
the separate system in prison discipline had diminished
crime wherever it had been adopted. In Liverpool, where
the old system was still adhered to, the contrary was the.
fact. A resolution was passed, that the expense of erect-
ing and maintaining the proposed establishments should
be borne by the State, and a committee was appointed to
communicate with the various corporations in the country.

FREE TRADE AND REDUCED WAGES OF OUR
SHIPWRIGHTS AND SAILORS.

0..1e of the strongest protestations of the advocates of
a repeal of the corn law has ever been that it was not at
all within their contemplation that it should be followed
by reduction of the wages of the labourer. Yet con-
tinually the cloven foot of selfishness has crept out froni
under the cloak of hypocrisy by which it was sought to
be concealed. It seems that at last the time has arrived
when no such concealment is necessary. The real object
of the cheap bread mongers is avowed; and the British
artisan may at once set about putting his house in order,
and abandon the bright dream of inflated prosperity, with
which his senses have been sought to be deluded. Let the
shipwrights and seamen of this port weigh well the mean-
ing of the following remarks, which fell from Mr. Joseph
Hume, during the debate of Friday night, upon the re-
duction of the timber duties :

" In this country the construction of ships was more expensive
by R 5 a ton than ou the continent; and a foreigner could build
three ships with the same money with which an Englishman
could build only two. The reduction of the timber duties would
lessen the price of a ship's hull built in this country by one-half,
or even perhaps two-thirds."

The absurdity of Mr. Hume's calculation that the re-
duction of the price of timber only can reduce the cost of
a ship's hull one-half or two-thirds, or that any reduction
of duties upon materials used in its construction c -
the cost of the entire ship by £5 a ton, is perfect)
We must go therefore a little further to ascertain
reduction of cost is to be attained. We have it

y absurd

following passage :—,

"The disadvcintages under which the English shipowners la-
boured might be classed under four heads; first, the cost of the
hull and rigging, which if this measure was adopted could be

world ; secondly, the rate of wages, which would now be equalized;
thirdly, the price of provisions, in which there would now be a
considerable reduction; and, fourthly, the duties on insurance."

'The five or ten pounds per ton saving in construction
are to be screwed out of the wages of the shipwright, the
block maker, the roper, and other artizans employed, whose
pay is to be equalized with the sour krout-eating artizans of
Denmark, or Norway, Russia—men to whom a meal of tal-
low or refuse fat, at which the stomach of an Enelish dog
would turn, is a luxury; and the hardy seamen who man
our ships will doubtless have their wages " equalized"
after the same fashion. llere are the blessings of free
trade and a " cheap loaf !" _