The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-05-25 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDAED.

THE NEEDLE.—HOW often have I blessed my needle
for rescuing me from the temptations which assail the
other sex. Bright and innocent little implement, whether
plied over tasteful luxuries, or gaining the poor pittance
of a day, thou art equally the friend of her whose visions
tend to wander amid the regions of higher abstractions,
and of her whose thoughts are pinned down to the tread-
mill of thy minute progress. Quiet rescuer from clubs
and midnight revels, amid the minor blessings of woman's
lot thou shalt not be forgotten.! Still come, and let thy
fairy wand shine on her; still lend an ambitious joy to
the play-things of the girl; still move unconsciously un-
der the glittering smile of the maiden planning thy trium-
phant results ; still beguile the mother whose thought
roves to her boy on the distant ocean, or the daughter
watching by the sick bed of one who has heretofore toiled
for her; still soothe the long dreary moments of faithful
love ; and though a tear sometimes falls on thy shining
point, it shall not gather the rust of despair, since employ-
ment is thy dower.—Mrs. Gilmer's Recollections of a
Southern Matron.

MIXED COMMISSIONCOURTS OF SIERRA LEONE.—The
Mixed Commission Courts form a conspicuous feature in
the history of the colony of Sierra Leone, from the cir-
cumstance of its being by their fiat that thousands of
negroes have obtained their freedom. They are termed
mixed, from those nations with which England has treaties
for the abolition of the slave trade having a right to send
commissioners to judge in their respective cases. This
right, however, has seldom been claimed, except in a few
late instances by Spain and Brazil. But it requires little
penetration to perceive that they came, not for abolition,
but to preserve vessels engaged in the illegal traffic. Spain
is not to be trusted ; and the Brazilian flag, like charity,
"covereth a multitude of sins." The expiration of the
Brazilian treaty has already given• a powerful impetus to
the trade, and the harbour of Sierra Leone has become
swarmed with vessels bearing that flag. This treaty does
not, like that with Spain, allow the condemned vessel to
be cut up; by it, they must be sold, hence, the same
vessels have been known to come in for adjudication seve-
ral times under a new name, as per example sharp-

.tine, within the year in which she was con-
demned as a slaver, was purchased by a German house in
the colony, freighted, and sent to Hamburgh, and in a
few months returned as a prize under a new name, proving
that she must have made a voyage to Brazil, or elsewhere,
and was again sold to a slave-dealer. She was then a
second time purchased by the same house for £6OO, and
no doubt will make her appearance a third time for adju-
dication. The "Atala" is another instance. This vessel
was purchased by a Mr. Machado, a Brazilian merchant
in the colony, and fitted out for a voyage to the Leeward
coast, but in a few months put back as a prize as the
"Ecuador."—Simmonds's Colonial Magazine.

TAKING A TUCK OUT.—I declare it really wasn't pru-
dent to trust that Emma to do a thing, and even that little
lamb of a Kitty of mine was scarcely safe with a stupid,
like her, in the house. For I recollect once, I had been
thinking the simpleton had a great deal of spare time on
her hands, and might jpst as well do a little needlework,
as sit twiddling her finga and thumb on an evening, so •I
told her that my little poppet cf a Kitty was growing so
fast that all her things were getting too short for her, and
she really wanted a tuck out in her best frock, and would
certainly look all the better for it, so I would thank her
to attend to it that night, and let it be done before she
went to bed. In the evening, I

was in the parlour, boil-
ing down some quince pips to make a nice fixature for my
hair, and all the while I could heat that sweet little che-
rub of mine down stairs crying; so I said to myself what
the dickens can that idiot be doing with the child in the
kitchen at this time of night, when it ought to have been
undressed and in bed a good hour ago ? Off I trotted to
see what precious bit of stupidity my lady was at now.
When I reached the kitchen I thought I should have
fainted, for there sat Emma, with my little angel on her
knee, dressed out in its best frock, and with its dear little
innocent face daubed all over with treacle, just as if it had
been tarred. " 'What on earth have you been doing with
the child, Emma ?" I exclaimed. " I thought as you said
it was to have a tuck out in its best frock, ma'am," she
)lied, " it could have nothing nicer than plenty of bread
!lend then to my horror I learnt from her,
I her I fancied the child would look all the
better for having a tuck out in it's best frock, bless and
save us, if the stupid oaf didn't imagine that I wished it
to have a grandfeast in its Sunday clothes ! "Oh ! you
stupid, studid thing !" I said, and what business have
you to go giving the darling all that mess, when the doc-
tor has ordered me to let it have nothing but slops ?"
" Nothing but slops, mum !" she exclaimed, with her
mouth wide open with astonishment. " Yes, you stupid,
nothing but slops," I answered ; " don't you even know
what slops are now ?" "In course I do, mum,
—augh !—oh, la !" she replied ; and from the way
in which she turned up her nose, and the wry

and treacle

face she made, I could easily see that she fancied
that the dear babe was to be fed with the grouts of the
tea-cups, or whatever else might be in the slop-basin,
when the breakfast things came down.—The Greatest
Plague of Life.

- -
CASE OF SOMNAMBULISM .—Altogether, the most in-
teresting case of somnambulism on record, is that of a
young ecclesiastic, the narrative of which, from the im-

mediate communication of an Archbishop of Bordeaux, is
given under the head of somnambulism in the French En-
cyclopaedia. This young ecclesiastic, when the archbishop
was at the same seminary, used to rise every night, and
write out either sermons or pieces of music. To study his
condition, the archbishop betook himself several nights to
the chamber of the young man, where he made the fol-
lowing observations. The young man used to rise, to take
paper, and to write. Before he wrote music he would take
a stick and rule the lines with it. He wrote the notes,
together with the words corresponding with them, with
perfect correctness. Or, when he had written the words
too wide, he altered them. The notes that were to be
black, he filled in after he had completed the whole.
After completing a sermon, he read it aloud from begin-
ning to end. If any passage displeased him, he erased it,
and wrote the amended passage correctly over the other ;
on one occasion he had to substitute the word "adorable"

for " divin

but he did not omit to alter the preceding

" ce" into " cet," by adding the letter " t" with exact
precision to the word first written. To ascertain whether
he used his eyes, the archbishop interpOsed a sheet of
pasteboard between the writing and his face. He took
not the least notice, but went on writing as before. The

limitation of his perceptions to what-he was thinking
about was very curious. A bit of aniseed cake, that he
had sought for, he eat approvingly ; but when, on another
occasion, a piece of the same cake was put in his mouth,
he spit it out without observation. The following instance
of the dependence of his perceptions upon, or rather their
subordination to, his preconceived ideas is truly wonder-
ful. It is to be observed that he always knew when his
pen had ink in it. Likewise, if they adroitly changed his

. -
papers, when he was writing, he knew it, if the sheet sub-
stituted was of different size from the former, and he ap-
peared embarassed in that case. But if the fresh sheet of
paper, which was substituted for that written on, was ex-
actly of the same size with the former, he appeared not to
be aware of the change. And he would continue to read
off his composition from the blank sheet of paper, as
fluently as when the manuscript itself lay before him ;
nay, more, he would continue his corrections, and intro-
duce the amended passage, writing it upon exactly the
place on the blank sheet which it would have occupied on
the written page.—Blackwood's Magazine.

CANADIAN DISCOMFORTS.—The accommodations for
for

the "beast" were usually good, but those proyic
the "man" were not always of the most tern

R kind

The beds were sometimes good, but much Oftener bad,

while the meals, except in the city and some tew of the
towns through which I passed, were the least inviting that
could have been placed before a hungry traveller. Let
the reader imagine to himself—sour, home-made bread—
tea which resembles, in flavour, a decoction of hay, and
sweetened with what 1 never could endure, the maple
sugar of the country—a rasher of bacon or ham exceed-
ingly salt, and oftener rancid than sweet, and as thick as
a beef-steak ought to be, but never is in this country—
potatoes infamously cooked—eggs fried and overdone in
grease-- a saucer or two filled with preserved apples, em-
browned in the same eternal maple sugar—a few other
fruits, such as raspberries, currants, &c., spoiled in the
same manner—a couple of large plates of potted butter,
with huge particles of salt oozing from them like drops of
hoar frost from a damp wall—cheese resembling hard
prepared bees' wax, and tasteless and tough as leather—
let the stranger, I repeat, imagine this galimatias of eat-
ables, (he must not forget to add huge slices not of crisp,
but saddened toast) and he will know what sort of a break-
fast or supper he may expect to find in Canada, should he
induced to travel through it. Sometimes a fowl
d to what they pertinaciously insist upon calling
if you partake of it after one o'clock in the

ever be

day, but which you, having only breakfasted, may incline
to regard as your dinner ; and this, if plainly roasted, is
passable enough, but I confess that I never saw a piece
of beef (for they have no joints) or mutton, or veal,
placed on one of those "country inn" tables that was not
smothered in grease, and altogether most uninviting in

appearance

Eight Years in Canada, Fire,

A WORD ABOUT THE PAUPERS OF THE ETERNAL
CITY.—The quality of everything I looked at was very in-
different, the prices enormous; and the shopkeepers, with
an audacity and dishonesty inconceivable to a stranger,
invariably take half the original price they demand for
ng. The filth and stench of the streets give one
inary fever as one drives through them. I wonder
ple don't have the plague every year in this city.
airs leading up from the Piazza

di Siagnaimmediately to the door of our lodging are the
favourite haunt of all the painter's models—old men with
izzled beards and hair, and lads with blue-black locks,
all round the most wonderful eyes ever beheld ;
pie costume of the lower orders here,
-Id shoulders, and scarlet jackets,
I‘sir—here

th splendid head
d daggers thrust

SECOND EDITION.

Standard Office, Ten o'clock.