The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-07-31 00:00:00

DR. HAWTHORNE AGAIN.

A correspondent of the Mercury, after half a column of
puffery of this personage, remarks in a postcript

" P.S.—ls it not very provoking to hear the impertinence of
the parish surgeons here to Dr. Hawthorne, when it is well
known to those acquainted With his character that he is a
medical man of the first standing, of great skill, and very ex-
tensive practice. and was considered the most eminent physician
in the north of Ireland ?"

It is rather unusual for " most eminent physicians" to
leave the localities in which their high abilities are known,
to try new ground, with nothing but the puffery of a
newspaper to bring them into notoriety. The doctor has
not treated Ireland well to aesert her.

MADAME COSTA CABRAL, COUNTESS DE THoMAR.—
Some years ago the widow of a butcher's assistant, in
Aldgate, went out to the Portuguese island of St.
Michael's, one of the Azores, with a view to establish a
lodging-house for sailors. She was accompanied, in the
smack that took her out, by her three young children—
two girls and a boy. The woman's name was Read ;
and, etrange to say, she almost immediately on her arri-
val married the English Consul on the island, who was
also named Read—the new bride thus twice changing her
condition, but only once her name. Here was the first
rise in life, from her humble station as the widow of the
journeyman butcher to the honourable position of a lady
to a British Consul-General. Iu the course of time the
family became still further promoted. The eldest daugh-
ter by the former marriage, Eliza Read, became the wife
of the celebrated Costa Cabral, now Count de Thomar,
and Prime Minister of Portugal, and is consequently
Countess de Thomar, and a Portuguese peeress. .The
son of Mrs. Read, and brother of the Countess, has
r?cently (although an Englishman) been nominated to
one of the most lucrative situations in the gift of the
Minister—that of sole Director of the Custom-house at
Ponta Delgado ; not, it will readily be supposed, without
creating much heart-burning and jealousy among the
native cinprobA who remember the humble position of
Mr. William Read when his family first landed on the
island of St. Michael's. Costa Cabral, himself the son of
a small country grocer in the town of Fornos d'Algodres,
was at that time a small lawyer, but so great a demagogue
that he could not even have dreamed of his present Con-
servatism, his Courtship, his Premiership, or, much less,
of the sumptuous palaces, valuable estates, magnificent
chateaux, and splendid establishments, of which, with
most praiseworthy ingenuity, he has contrived to make
himself master out of the savings from an official income
of not quite £7OO sterling per annum.—Morning Post.
TAKING THE STARCH OUT OF 'EM.—A COLD WATER
SKETCH.—A knot of idlers stood upon the end of a pier
which ran out into the Hudson River, in one of the small
towns near Albany a few days ago, amusing themselves
with hurling stones into the broad stream, each vieing
with his neighbour in the endeavour to pitch a missile to
the farthest distance from the shore, when a tall, rugged-
built Vermonter direct from the Green Hills suddenly
made his appearance in their midst, and for a while re-
mained a quiet observer of their movements. He was a
very brawny strong looking Yankee, and was very decently
clad. The efforts of the little party had been exhibited
over and over again, when the stranger picked up half a
brick which lay near him, and giving it a jerk it fell in the
water a long way beyond the line which had as yet been
reached by the foremost of the crowd. At the conclusion
of this feat a loud " bravo !" went up from half a dozen
voices around him. It was a cold, clear day in October,
and the men determined not to be outdone renewed their
attempts; but the Vermonter without saying a syllable
to any one continued to pitch the pebbles far out into the
stream, which seemed to annoy one of them in a green
jacket, the apparent leader of the gang, who declared he
would'nt be beaten by a fellow right and straight out of
the woods, any how ; and sliding up to the stranger he
determined to make his acquaintance. " Where do you
come from, neighbour ?" enquired the other. "Me ?
Wal, I hails form Vermont, jes now, friend." " Haint
been in these parts long, I reckon ?" " Wal—no. Not
edzactly yere—but up and daown, sorter." " Yis, so I
'sposed.' " Yaas," continued the green 'un carelessly,
and seizing a big billet of wood he twirled it over his
head and it landed several rods from the shore in the
water. "You've a little strength in your arms,neighbour."
" Some pumkins—is them flippers, stranger, up in our
taown, mone'n a month ago, I driv them are knuckles rite
strait thur a board more'n a ninch 'naff thick." " Haw,
haw," shouted the hearers, the man in the green jacket
laughing loudest. " May be you don't believe it." " Not
much," answered the crowd ; " we ain't very green down
here in York—we ain't," said the fellow in the green
jacket ; " we've been about you see." " Wal, jes you
look yere, friend," continued the Vermonter in the most
plausible manner, "up in aour country, we've a purty big
river considerin—lnvun River its called, and may be
you've hearn on it. Wal, I hove a man clean across that
river t'other day, and he came down fair and square on
t'other side." " Ha, ha, ha," yelled the auditors.
" Wal, naow, you may laff, but I can deu it agin." "Do
what ?" said the green jacket quickly. " I kin take and
hove you across river jilt like open and shut." " Bet
you ten dollars of it." •‘ Done," said the Yankee, and
drawing forth (upon a broken Down East Bank) he
covered the shin plaster. " Kin yon swim, feller ?"
" Like a duck," said green jacket ; and without further
parley the Vermonter seized the knowing Yorker stoutly
by the nape of the neck and the seat of his pants, jerked
him from his foothold, and with an almost superhuman
effort dashed him heels over head from the end of the
dock, some ten yards out into the Hudson River. A
terrific shout ran through the crowd as he floundered into
the water, and amidst the jeers and screams of his compa-
nions the duck loafer put back on the shore and scratched
up the bank half frozen by his sudden and involuntary
cold bath. " I'll take that tenspots, if you please," said
he, shivering rapidly to the stakeholder. "You took us
for green-horns, eh ? We'll show you how we do things
here in York"—and the fellow claimed the twenty dollars.
" Wal, I reckon you won't take no tenspots yet,
cap'n." " Why ? You've lost the bet." " Not edzactly.
I did'nt kalkilate on dueing it the fust time—but I tell
you I kin due it—and again, in spite of the loafer's utmost
efforts to escape him, he seized him by the neck and the
seat of his over-ails, and pitched him three yards farther
into the river than upon the first trial ! Again green
jacket returded amid the shouts of his mates, who enjoyed
the sport immensely. " Third time never fails," said the
Yankee, stripping off his coat ; " I kin due it I tell ye."
" Hold on !" said the almost petrified victim. " And I
will duo it—ef I try tell to-morrow mornin." " I give it
up I" shouted the sufferer between his teeth, which now
chattered like a mad badger's—" take the money." The
Vermonter very coolly pocketed the stakes, and as he
turned away, remarked, " We aint much acquainted with
you smart folks daown here'n York, but we sometimes
take the starch out of 'em up our way—and p'raps you
won't try it on strangers agin. I reck'n you wunt," he
continued, and putting on a broad grin of good humour,
he left the company to their reflections.—Flag of our
Union.
JULLIEN'S CONCERT.—As usual, this concert went off
with great eclat, the chief attraction being Mme. Persiani,
who is taking her leave of so many triumphs, while yet in
the full enjoyment of her glory: Her voice seems as fresh
and brilliant as ever, and the pieces selected by her were
" Come per me sereno" (Sonnambula), and " Una voce
poco fa " (Barber of Seville), both airs which she has
made entirely her own, and in which she will very likely
never be surpassed. The celebrated singer certainly did
everything to assure the public of her undiminished power,
for the amount of fioriture which she threw into the music,
and the ease with which she accomplished the most asto-
nishing feats were almost incredible, particularly the
" Una voce," was hardly to be recognised amidst the
crowd of sparkling cadences and variations with which she
overwhelmed it. We do not approve of this as a rule in the
delineation of a character—as Persiam's custom is—but
we cannot but admire such a talent whenever it is dis-
played on an occasion like this. The other chief features
of the evening's entertainment were the " Allegretto
Scherzo, from Mendelssohn's symphony in A minor, the
gem of the orchestral part of the concert, a part of Beet-
hoven's " Sinfonie Pastorale," and a selection from
Meyerbeer's new opera—" The Prophete," which has
just been put on the stage in the Italian Opera, Covent-
garden, with unprecedented splendour. We confess we are
disappointed in our expectations as to this work : it
contains, so far as we can judge by these extracts, little
new and original ; but, of course, it is idle to form any
judgment from this fragment. The band was, as usual,
most excellent, and the numerous audience gave ample
signs of their satisfaction. We must still mention in high
terms the performance of the celebrated " Tremolo " on
the violin, by a young and very talented artist—Mr. Day.
Jullien, we see, is going to give a second concert on next
Monday, on which occasion Mine. Persian will again
appear.

THE WHIGS AND THE SUNDAY-TRADING BILL.

The termination of the parliamentary session has stifled
numerous abortive measures, some of which were never-
theless worthy of a matured existence. Amongst. this
class may fairly be set down Mr. Hindley's bill to prevent
Sunday trading. If ministers had felt the smallest regard
for the integrity of that day which still is hailed by the
majority of Englishmen as sacred, there could have been
no difficulty in accelerating a bill of the deseription al-
luded to in its passage through parliament. But the
liberal-minded Whigs have no sympathy with either men
or measures whose characteristics are of a stricter nature
than their own ; hence the checks that from time to time
have been given to the Sunday-Trading Bill, until Sir G.
Grey the other night found himself in a position to inform
its proposer that the advanced period of the session ren-
dered any further consideration of the bill impossible.
The cause of religion and morality is, however, not surely
at so low an ebb, that some other champion will not re-
turn to the charge, prepared to carry his point against
every opposition. The evils arising from Sunday trading
are exceedingly numerous, and by no means confined to
the simple flagitious act : a thousand consequences
threaten to follow in the train of this violation of the
spirit of Christianity, just as is the case in every wilful
departure from the law of God. That which commenced
by the seemingly venial offence of serving out a few tri-
fling, but necessary, articles of domestic consumption,
bids fair to accomplish the destruction of the sanctity of
the Sabbath, not only as a day appointed for religious
worship, but also as one immemorially appointed for the
rest of man and the animals employed by him. And in
this particular it is, if on no higher principle, that the
measure in question ought to present itself to the serious
consideration of the working classes, from whom, by de-
grees, this priceless privilege is being withdrawn. Most
persons are inclined to connive at the unseemly practices
at present allowed, from pure ignorance of their enor-
mity. Their notion is, that any law prohibiting the me-
chanic from purchasing that dinner on the Sunday morn-
ing, which the want of consideration on the part of his
employer prevented being bought on the previous night,
would act very harshly. The system complained of is
much more serious than this ; indeed, though bad enough
in all our large manufacturing and commercial towns, it
is to be seen in its true deformity only in the metropolis.
Few country readers will be prepared to believe, that in
London are to be seen whole streets of shops open for
business on the Sunday : wearing apparel, and almost
everything, may be purchased in the open mart, just as
easily, in fact, as on any other day of the week. There
is no laudable shame evinced at offending against decency,
on the part of purchasers, as is the case in towns less de-
based, where a poor woman seeks admission to the baker's
back door, to obtain the loaf which may not be dispensed
with, but which could not be got before. We are sur-
prised when we are told that in Paris the theatres are
open on the Sabbath, but the same result will assuredly
follow in London if no check be put to the rapidly-
increasing demoralisation of the day of rest. Hundreds,
nay thousaeas of people know no day of rest in London :
they are engaged for seven days in the labour or business
which ought only to be followed as dependent on the
higher duties which claim their attention. If the working
classes regard Sunday trading as a privilege, they are de-
ceiving themselves, for they will eventually be the suf-
ferers.

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.