The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-02-01 00:00:00

FOREIGN MISCELLANY.

AMR.HENN,who has started a newspaper at lowa, hopes
by hard scratching to make a living for himself and his
little chickens.
AN INQUEST was held recently at New York on the
body of a man who committed suicide by cutting his
throat while in a temporary fit of insanity caused by at-
tending " circle" meetings.
MR. CHAMBERS, a smith, at North Adelaide, Australia,
and a native of Heanor, in Derbyshire, was robbed, one
night in Aug. last, of £lOO, though the thieves fortunately
threw aside as valueless a packet of notes to the amount
of £9OO.

NEW FRENCH Conn's. DRESS.—The dress prescribed
is a green velvet coat, with a border (of any width, ac-
cording to the taste of the wearer,) small clothes of the
same material and colour, and white waistcoat and silk
stockings.
CARE OF YOUTH.—A remarkable order has been pro-
mulgated at Troyes, by which young persons under age
are forbidden to enter public balls. The police are sta-
tioned at the doors, in order to prevent any infringement
of the regulations.
VERY OBLIGING.—We read in the Pattie :—" The
Portuguese government, desirous of giving to France a
proof of the good understanding which it wishes to see
reign between the two governments, has suppressed a
journal published at Lisbon, and which had expressed
hostility against the re-establishment of the Empire."
THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH of Savoy was opened on
the 18th of January at Turin, in the presence of the pre-
sident of the council, several of the ministers, and many
high functionaries. The first message was sent to Charr-
bery. Another was sent from :Chambery to Genoa, and
afterwards to several intermediate stations, all with per-
fect success.
THE DARIEN SHIP CANAL.—Sir Henry Bulwer and
Mr. Clayton have finally exchanged the ratification of the
convention signed at Washington, on the 19th of April,
1850, between Her Britannic Nlajesty and the United
States, relative to the establishment of a communication
by ship canal between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans.
Mr. Clayton invites Sir Henry Bulwer to determine the
distance from the two ends of the canal within which
vessels of the United States and Great Britain, traversing
the said canal, shall, in case of war between the two con-
tracting parties, be exempt from blockade, detention, or
capture, by either of the belligerents.
'MORTALITY IN NEW YORK.—The number of deaths
which occurred in New York during the past year was
about 21,670, which is somewhat less than the number
for 1851. If the increase of population be taken into ac-
count, the decrease of mortality is nearly 8 per
cent. of the whole number. 5,296 died under one
year of age ; 2,895 between one and two years ; 2,488
between two and five years ; 945 between nine and ten ;
797 between ten and twenty; 2,171 between twenty and
thirty ; and from this age the number decreases. Only 3
have died aged more than 100 years. Of the deceased,
14,871 had their nativity in the United States, 4,124 in
Ireland, and 1,265 in Germany. 1,475 died on Ward's
Island, 398 on Blackwell's Island, and 631 at the Belle-
vue Hospital. At all the public institutions the total
was 3,151. The total of coloured persons deceased was
4151

TEIE CORN SWlNDLE.—Letters from Rotterdam an-
nounce the failure of Messrs. Hirsch and Co., for £125,000,
consequent upon the recent suspension of Messrs. Coll-
mann, Stolterfoht, and Co. Although their transactions
were important, the firm were never reputed to possess
much capital, and it is feared that the liquidation will be
unfavourable, and also extremely complicated, from the
variety of interests involved.
AN IMPRUDENT MIXTURE.—John Taison, an Indian
native of Connecticut, being found dead on a winter
morning, not far from a tavern where lie had been drink-
ing freely of spirituous liquors the evening before, the
Indians immediately assembled a jury of their own
tribe, who, after examining the body of the defunct, una-
nimously agreed :—" That the said Taisan's death was
occasioned by the freezing of a large quantity of water in
his body, that had been imprudently mixed with the rum
he drank."

JENNY LlND.—Madame Jenny Lind Goldschmidt has
just presented a considerable sum in money, clothes, bed-
ding, and provisions, to two charitable institutions re-
cently established at Stockholm, the Hospital of St. Mag-
dalen and the Institution of the Deaconesses. The
celebrated cantatrice, who is at present residing atDresden,
has promised to visit Stockholm in the holy week, to take
part in two religious concerts, in which Mendelssohn's
oratorio of " Saint Paul," and Handel's oratorio of the
" Messiah," with the instrumentation of Mozart, are to
be performed.
SLAVES PURCHASING THEMSELVES.—The Java Bode,
a journal published at Batavia, gives an account of a recent
sale of slaves at the Chinese camp. The slaves, 12 in num-
ber. having been placed upon the table of the exposition,
disposed in four lots, rattled some money in their hands,
and addressed a few words, timidly and in low tones, to
the assembly. A person who acted as their agent here
stepped forward, and stated that his clients, having accu-
mulated by long and painful labours some small saving,
solicited the favour of being allowed to make a bidding
for the purchase of their own persons. No opposition
being offered the first lot was cried, and made an offer,
through their agent, of 40f. No advance being made upon
this sum the slaves were knocked down to themselves.
The next lot, encouraged by their predecessors, offered
only 24f. The public preserved the same silence, and they
became their own purchasers. The third lot took the
hint, and were even more fortunate, picking themselves
up a decided bargain, for the modest sum of 101.
EXTRAVAGANCE IN NEW YORK.—The New York
Express says :—" The extravagance the people of the city
are going into exceeds anything in our history. Costly
houses of 75,000 and 100,000 dollars, with furniture, mir-
frp9enes. &r., toatch, are not
uncommon ; but there are dinners, soirees,m Mies, dresses,
&c., to match. We hear of balls the past week in which
diamonds and emeralds worth 30,000 dollars were worn
on the person. Thousand-dollar dresses are not uncom-
mon. Dinner parties are spoken of, when ladies appear
in cloaks embroidered with pearls, 4i c. What are we
coming to ? The fever is indeed high, and it may be
feared that before long there will be a re-action. It is
right and proper for those who have enough and to spare,
or who are rolling in wealth, as the phrase is, to spend
their money freely. Mechanics, working men, manteau-
makers, storekeepers, and the industrial classes generally,
are benefited by such a policy. But there is reason in
all things."

AGED LADIES.—A correspondent of the Newburyporl
(Mass.) Daily Union, writing from Ryegate (Vt.), de-
scribes two old ladies residing in that town. Mrs. White-
law, formerly Mrs. Harvey, the mother of Peter Harvey,
of Boston, the confidential friend of Daniel Webster, is
now 85 years of age. She came to this place when it was
an entire wilderness. Her first husband was the agent of
a Scottish company. She thus has been the wife of two
of the first men of what are now two wealthy and populous
towns. The first husband was nearly 40 years old when
they married ; yet she was so young that the united ages
of her first three children combined with her own made
but 16 years, and when her young acquaintance called to
see her, the husband would tell her that she might "get
the babies asleep and go out and play !" She was after-
wards the mother of twelve other children, of whom she
calls Peter "my baby." Mrs. Brock, now 90 years old,
and among the first settlers, seems to have been equally
well adapted to living in and peopling a new place as the
one named above, and has now living no less than five
generations of her descendants. She can say to her
daughter, what but few could ever say—" Arise, my
daughter, and go to thy daughter, for thy daughter's
daughter has got a daughter."
THE THREATENED FAMINE IN MADEIRA.—In con-
sequence of the complete failure of the last year's vine
crop, the inhabitants of Madeira are reduced to a state of
destitution. The population, which is about 110,000,
seems to resemble, in some respects that of Ireland a
short time ago, being almost entirely dependent for sup-
port upon one precarious species of produce, and having
the soil so minutely subdivided that a bare subsistence
is all that can be obtained, in the best of times, by the
peasantry. The quantity of wine made in the island in
good years is about 25,000 pipes, but this has lately been
reduced to 15,000 pipes, and only one-fifth of the corn
and pulse required by the inhabitants is grown by them-
selves. They have thus to import 45,000 quarters, which
they have hitherto been enabled to do. Last year, how-
ever, in consequence of the vine crops having failed, in-
stead of 15,000 pipes only 400 have been produced, and
the quality of that is so bad as to be fit only for vinegar.
Famine, therefore, is imminent, unless assistance be
afforded, for the supplies of vegetables which have hither-
to kept the people alive are nearly exhausted. The
landed proprietors are unable to afford any aid, nor can
relief be looked for from the embarrassed Government of
Portugal. Under these circumstances, an appeal has
been made to this country for assistance.

SHOCKING MURDERS BY WOMEN TN PRUSSIA.—TWO
women named Meyer, mother and daughter, the one aged
64, the other 23, were sentenced to death by the assize
court of Justerburg, in East Prussia, last week,for a double
murder perpetrated under circumstances of peculiarly cold
blooded atrocity and premeditation :—Some time last
spring an aged Polish Jew huckster, accompanied by his
son, aged 15, came to the village of Swainea, and was in-
veigled, under pretext of dealing, to the lonely cottage
inhabited by these two women. Whilst pretending to
deal, the women requested the father to send his son to
fetch a neighbour residing at some distance, who, as they
affirmed, was desirous of making purchases. He having
complied, and the boy having departed, the two women
suddenly fell upon the Jew with heavy wooden mallets,
dashed out his brains, broke in his chest, stabbed him
with knives, and then dragged him to a bole already ex-
cavated fir the purpose in the cow-stall.. Scarcely had
they effected this deed ere the son returned, and before
the boy could open his lips the two furies fell upon him
also in the same manner, and, having despatched him,
threw him into the same hole with his father, which they
covered up, after rifling the pockets of both. The object
of this crime was to obtain the large sum of money sup-
posed to be carried in the victim's girdle ; but, to the utter
disappointment of the criminals, they only found six..
pence, in small Polish money. The crime soon came to light,
however, and the perpetrators were convicted upon their
own confession, made with all details, but with the most
astounding proof of the prejudices that exist in many
parts of those wild countries against the Jews. "To kill
Jews," exclaimed the elder woman in her defence, "where
is the sin of that ? Who ever heard of poor people being
troubled about Jew killing ?"