The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-01-13 00:00:00

tain'ng hand

also;—and from that consoling thought, there grew such
energy, lhat his limbs received new strength thereby, and
he prosecuted his path anew, and arrived safely at the
village he had despaired to reach. And this little robin,
—this humble robin, dearly beloved by tale and fable,
and homely rhyme—of the music of its speech, of its
chirp, chirp, ehirp—were begotten such resolution and
courage in the heart of the sinking child, that there was
no longer any question of her drooping and dying; but
a certainty that she ghoul(' behold her grandmother again,
and live, please God, to bless him in after years for pre-

serving her amidst the dangers of that afternoon.
The robin, too, became her guide. Not that she could
have missed her way, but the trodden path being hidden
by the snow, one direction, so that she did not wander
farfrom the conjectured track, was as go ,d as another.
And the robin went right onward, hopping now,—now
flying, and ever strengthening her resolution. And so she
found herself, ere long, at the door of her grandmother's
cottage, and then she saw the robin no more.
She related the story to ber grandmother while warm-
ing herself at the fire which blazed on the hearth. And
oh, what fervent thanksgivings ascended that night from
that lowly roof to the throne of Glory !
The next morning there came a knock at the cottage
door, and when Jane opened it, who should present him.
self but the sailor who had given her five shillings on the
previous afternoon. He started with surprise at seeing
Jane, and enquired whether Dame Foster lived there.
When Jane replied that she did, the seaman gave a cry of
joy._ . . _ _ _ _

."
That's Richard's voice," exclaimed the old woman
from within. " I know it is. God be praised. He has
sent me back my son•"

" My mother, my dear mother," cried the sailor rush-
ing into the cottage.

We pass the seine which followed.
" And so this is my Jane,—my own child," said the
seaman, presently, taking her in his lap, and kissing her
for full five minutes without drawing breath.
"Yes, that is poor dead Mary's child," said the grand-
" It was her mother's wedding-ring that she
pawned yesterday."

The old woman, the neighbours, Jane herself, all assert
that it was no robin; but an angel from the skies, that
led her over the moor that afternoon. Who shall dare
laugh at thtir belief? For are not the resolves which,
nobly taken, enable us to battle successfully with the
storms of life, and conduct us safely Home—angels, and.
guardian angels, too?- So, here's God speed the Winter
on repeated missions !

NEW YORK BOARDING-HOUSES.—I went to several
boarding-houses before finally making a selection. In
answer to inquiries for the terms, they were generally
reasonable enough z the highest two dollars a day, about
Is. 6d. sterling; and the lowest, one•dollar. At these last
I inquired their hours. Breakfast at six o'clock, and
half-past: hot beef-steaks, much and milk, hommaney,
rice and molasses, mackerel, salmon, shad, hot cakes, and
rolls of every description ; tea and coffee. Dinner at
teelve o'clock, and supper at si3. The bill of fare on
reading, looks abundant enough; but really, on inspec-
tion. this well-covered table offers to an Englishman very
little that is even eatable, much less palatable. Though
every one must admire the early hours and temperance of
the Americans, yet only imagine a Londoner, and an old
hand, not used to any thing much worse than the shady
side of Pall-mall, assembling at six o'clock at the noise of
a great bell—washed and shaved, mind, by six o'clock—
to look at an immense rump-steak at the head of the
table swimming in fat, net half cooked ;: then, lower
down, a dish of enormous salt mackerel, one of which
would make two of our English markerel ; then some Ha-
lifax salmon, just as taken from the barrel, and as salt as
brine; then two or three small dishes, some white mush,
a food for pigs, and others with hommaney, only differing
from mush in that this last is white maize, ground and
boiled in water, whilst mush is yellow corn, ground and
boiled. As this sort of food is not known in England,
thank God, except in the penitentiaries, I have been ra-
ther particular in describing it. No caution is required
to my countrymen to avoid it, because the very sight of
it will make them sick. The remainder of the table was
filled up with some warmed-up tough old hen, called
chicken fixings ; all washed down with the most execra-
ble coffee in the whole world. I used to think that Eng-
land might defy all creation for bad coffee : but the Ame-
ricans beat us hollow.—Rambles in the United States and
Canada. _

HE STAGE NEGRO.—This personation has become a
vulgar dancing brute, with a banjo in his hand, - and
without a bit of sentiment at his heart; a wretch con-
stantly jumping about, wheeling about, and turning about,
but wholly devoid of that solemn admiration for the 13r;-
tish constitution, and for the liberating influence of
sands of Margate, or the shingles of Dover, which we
once used to hear with a feeling of pride at being natives
of a land that admitted of so much puffing on the part of
our dramatists. The stage negro of the present day can
only indulge in frivolous allusions to Miss Lucy Long,
Coal Black Rose, and other light characters, or call upon
some imaginary individual of the name of Josey, to Jim
along—a process that we are at a loss to form a conception
of. Thus much for the moral attributes of the stage
negro, whose physical peculiarities remain, for the most
part, unchanged ; and to those who can, therefore, turn
our attention without any feeling of disappointment at
the alteration which has occurred in the intellectual cha-
racter. The stage negro still exhibits that remarkable
peculiarity of the skin, which is shown by the dark colour,
generally finishing abruptly at the wrist, the hand being
nerfectly the same as that of one of the white population.
The variety of hues is also very remarkable ; for, while
the arm is the colour of a black worsted stocking, the
face is somewhat less opaque, and, indeed, it would ap-
pear that nature dealt for her blacking with two different
manufacturers, trying Warren for the limbs, and using
Day and Martin for the features of the stage negro.-
-Cruikshank's Table-Bo,k•