The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-11-15 00:00:00

NEW MUSIC.

Calm is the deep ; The Morning Star Polka ;
and one of three sacred melodies, " Sound the
loud timbrel," published by Jewel and Letchford.
The first is a descriptive ballad, the poetry by T.
Chamberlain, the music by W. H. Birch. The
melody of this song is well suited to the words ;
the other pieces named will be found a fair accession
to our general musical stores.

The Violante Waltz. London : Cramer, Beale.
Amidst the multitude of new dance music which
is offered to public patronage, it is often difficult
to point out any special claims to recommendation.
This is not, however, the case with the piece before
us. It is not only exceedingly pretty, something
more than mere keeping time with the step, but
what to many will prove an attraction, it may be
played by any young lady of ordinary proficiency
on the piano-forte, with satisfaction to herself and
her hearers. It is the production of Charles H.
Compton, a young composer of great promise,
and will do much to extend his reputation.

Wray's Musical Casket. Liverpool : Beswick.
The congregation of the Church for the.
Blind must be familiar with the great musical
talent of Mr. Wray, the organist ; but he has a
more extended reputation through his compositions,
of which not the least valuable is the work before
us. It contains three songs, entitled " Attach-
ment," " Constancy," and " Friendship ;" the
words by John Murphy, Esq. ; a charming Polka,
and a Schottisch. The work is dedicated by per-
mission to the Countess of Sefton, whose patronage
of the composer has been earned solely by his own
genius. The Musical Casket will form an appro-
priate and at the same time a very acceptable present
to piano-forte players at the approaching festive
season, when the Elizabeth Polka and the Mary
Aries Schottisch will give animation to many a
brilliant party.

CHOOSING A HITSBAND.—An extraordinary custom
prevails among the Vizies, a tribe occupying an extensive
district in Cabul, among the mountains between Persia and
India. The women choose the husbands, not the hus-
bands their wives. If a woman be pleased with a man,
she sends the drummer of the camp to pin a handkerchief
to his cap with the pin she uses to fasten her hair. The
drummer watches his opportunity and does this in public,
naming the woman, and the man 1$ obliged to many if be
can pay her price to her father.

THE LIVERPOOL STANDA RIJ, AND. GENERAL COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER.

LARGE DIAMOND.—The public journals of Amsterdam
contain the following paragraph :—" Some time back
letters from Brazil stated that a slave had found at Baga-
gem a large diamond. We learn that it has been pur-
chased by M. Willep, minister of Holland at Rio Janeiro,
for 881,250 f."
PROFESSOR PHILLIPS states that in a comparatively
modern geological period every part of Yorkshire below
the level of 1,500 feet . was covered by the waters of a
glacial sea. Icebergs appear to have floated over the
whole of the Hull district, depositing, where they melted
or overturned, the materials brought from the higher
hills. Amongst those were blocks of stone from Cumber-
land and the West Riding, now found perched on the
limestone hills. Some of them must have come over the
Pass of Stainmoor, a height of 1,44) feet.
A HOMCEOPA.THIC DIIEL.—In the height of the quarrel
between the Homoeopathists and the Faculty of Paris, the
editor of a medical journal, having somewhat severely
attacked the disciples of Hahnemann, was called out by
one of the tribe. " Rather hard," said he, "to have to
risk one's life for pointing out the importance of an in-
finitesimal dose." No great risk surely," rejoined Jules
Janin, who was present at the discussion ; " such a duel
ought, of course, to represent the principles of homoeopathic
science—the hundredth part of a grain of gunpowder to
the thousandth part of a bullet !"
ARTIFICIAL PEARLS.—An oyster, or rather a water
muscle, in which the artificial pearls are formed by the
Chinese, has recently been sent to this country. These
pearls are only obtained near Ning-po, and until lately
very little was known of the manner in which they were
formed. The steamer Hermes, however, on a late visit to
that place, was able to obtain several live ones, in which,
on being opened, several pearls, as many as eighteen or
twenty, were found in the course of formation. The one
sent only contains simple pearls adhering to the shell. It
appears they are formed by introducing some pieces of
wood or baked earth into the animal while alive, which,
irritating it, causes it to cover the extraneous substance
with a pearly deposit. Little figures made of metal are
frequently introduced, and, when covered with the de-
posit, are valued by the Chinese as charms. These figures •
generally represent Buddha in the sitting posture, in
which that image is most frequently pourtrayed. Several
specimens have, it is said, been preserved alive in spirits,
and others slightly opened, so as to show the pearls.
THE COOK.—Moralists do not cease to repeat that
Rome would never have had sumptuary laws had it not
been corrupted by the cooks from Athens and Syracuse.
This is an error. All the ordinances of the consuls pro;
scribed profusion, excess—in a word, all the ruinous
expenses of a passionate and ridiculous gastrophagy, at
the same time respecting the magiric art itself; that is to
say, that industrious chemistry which composes, decom-
poses, combines, and mixes—in a word, prepares different
substances which gluttony, delicacy, the fashion, or luxury.
may confide to it for the space of a few minutes. Why
render the cook responsible for the extravagant tastes and
follies of his age ? Is it for him to reform mankind ?
Has he either the means or the right ? What is asked of
him, and what can be asked ? To understand exactly the
properties of everything he employs, to perfect, and
correct, if necessary, the savours on which he operates ;
to judge with a true taste, to degustate with a delicate
palate, to join the skilful address of the hand, and the
prompt and comprehensive glance; to the bold but pro-
found conceptions of the brain ; and, above all—it cannot
be too often repeated—to identify himself so well with
the habits, the wants, even the caprices and gastro-
nomic eccentricities, of those whose existence he embel-
lishes, that he may be able, not to obey them, but to guess
them, and even have a presentiment of them.—Soyer's
Pantropheon.
RECEIPT FOR MAKING CHEAP BREAD.—At a time
when bread is so dear, and when a further advance is
not improbable, the following receipt, which we have
received from the wife of a clergyman in the north, is of
such practical importance to all classes, that we consider it
a duty to give it a prominent place :—" Take a pound and
a half of whole rice, boil it gently over a slow fire, in three
quarts of water, about five hours, stirring it• occasionally,
and afterwards beat it up into a smooth paste. Mix this,
while warm, into 14 pounds of flour, adding. to it, at the
same time, the usual quantity of yeast. Allow the dough
to work a eertain time near the fire, after which divide it
into loaves, and it will be found, when baked, to produce
28 or 30 pounds of excellent white bread." Our corres-
pondent writes :—" It answers perfectly. The quantity is
doubled, you will perceive. I have tried it several times
in different quantities of flour, but it has not once failed.
I have had it weighed each time, and the proportion was
the same on every occasion. The bread is remarkably
light, and at this time especially, when cholera is fearfully
severe in our parish. it is particularly wholesome. The
poor are all delighted at the saving which it causes in
their consumption of flour." Perhaps some of our readers
who make the experiment, and recommend it to their
poorer neighbours, will also let us know the result. We
apprehend teat the best rice would be found to answer
much the best.—English Churchman.
IRvnsci AT HoME.—I went in the forenoon, with Mary
H. to Washington Irving's. His house, or villa, which
stands on the banks of the Hudson, resembles a peaceful
idyll ; thick masses of ivy clothe one portion of the white
walls and garland the eaves. Fat cows fed in a meadow
just before the window. Within, the rooms seemed to be
full of summer warmth, and had a peaceful and cheerful
aspect. One felt that a cordial spirit, full of the best
sentiment of the soul, lived and worked there. Washington
Irving, although possessing the politeness of a man of the
world, and with great natural good temper, has, neverthe-
less, somewhat of that nervous shyness which so easily
attaches! itself to the author, and in particular to one gifted
with delicacy of feeling and refinement. The poetical
mind, by its intercourse with the divine spheres, is often
brought somewhat into disharmony with clumsy earthly
realities. To these belong especially the visits of strangers
and the forms of social life, as we make them in good
oocicty upon earth, and which are shells that must be
cracked if one would get at the juice of either kernel or
fruit. But that is a difficulty for which one often has not
time. A portrait which hangs in Washington Irving's
drawing-room, and which was painted many years since,
represents him as a remarkably handsome man, with dark
hair and eyes, a head which might have belonged to a
Spaniard. When young, he must have been unusually
handsome. He was engaged to a young lady of rare beauty
and excellence ; it would have been difficult to find a more
handsome pair ; but she died, and Washington Irving
never sought for another bride. He has been wise enough
to content himself with the memory of a perfect love, and
to live for literature, friendship, and nature.—Bremer's
Houses of the New World.

MODERN EFFEMINACY.—After all, deny it who may,
we are over-refining in our habits : we run too much to
mind and mental exertion, and too little to muscle and
muscular exercise ; we become too much, far too much, the
slaves of an elaborate civilisation—of a subdivision in the
labour of social intercourse : too much dependent on each
other—too little dependent on ourselves. 'A statistical
return of the number of persons in the higher classes of
life, who have ever seen the sun rise for a week together,
or who are fit for anything before breakfast, would be a
warning and a caution to us all. How very bald the pre-
sent generation is—how very much older it looks than it
really is—how little we ourselves observe—how much we
take for granted the observations and the conclusions of
others—how much the imagination is worked at the ex-
pense of the judgment—how much we associate with those
who think like ourselves—how little with those who think
otherwise ; and what an affinity of trash and prejudice is
talked, and written, and thought, and acted on, that a little
brisk travelling in a practical country would go far to
strangle in its birth ! Where is the parent among us who
would not compound for the sweep of the grassy prairie,
with all its possible risks and all its certain benefits, against
the card and the billiard table—those green and fatal levels
with all their paltry aims, and all their corrupting at-
mosphere ? Who is there who does not turn with some-
thing like contempt from some young gentleman who smells
of bread and butter and pachouli, stars about through all
the insipid pleasures of a London season, and retires for
the autumn to shoot in shiny boots for a bow-and-arrow-
breast-pin, among the white-gloved toxophilites of St.
Leonards-on-Sea, to a man who has faced—unnecessarily
it may be, but still has faced—a grisly bear, in all the
terrors of his five-inch claws, with nothing between his
personal security and an unpublished work but a charge
of ball and powder and decent nerve to back it ? We do ,
not, for an instant, wish to commend all the world to hunt
in the far West ; nor do we despair of the man whose
means do not enable him to choose his way of life. We
only hint that, even under difficulties—in a position of life
far removed from independence, compelled by stern fate to
a sedentary and a studious existence—he may still spend
his intervals of labour in a manner calculated to open the
mind and strengthen the body : and whether he be born
to mete tape by the yard, or to the enjoyment of ten
thousand a-year, he may still open his eyes to the big
world that is stirring about him, and endeavour, as far as
in him lies, to acquire, not a proficiency in accomplish-
ments whose end is but the accomplishments themselves
—not the mastery of.acquirements whose main merit it is
that they keep the mind free from depravity and idleness
—but rather a knowledge of mankind and of himself—the
unfettered use of all the better functions of mind, and
body, the head to conceive, the heart to resolve, and the
hand to execute every good thing. Think of some of the
evils that beset the social world in which the wealthy
among us live ! The one large meal, the business and
the pleasures of life so needlessly carried out into the
small hours—the drowsy lengthened sleep—the dawdling
breakfast unenjoyed, or only got down by the free use of
the whip and spur of the palate—the eschalot and the
pepperbox, or the homoeopathic treatment of devilled kid-
neys, for those whom over-indulgence shall have left not
untouched in this particular—the constant tonic, the in-
evitable bitter, that in the tea, the coffee, the sherry, the
pale ale, of every-day existence, literally pervades the cup
of life : the blessed dawn unenjoyed, the morning saun-
tered through, the reckless misuse, or worse than that—
the non-use—of the best and the noblest faculties. Over-
drawn, declamatory as all this seems—inapplicable as it
is to the better and the worthier—who can deny that,
with the wisest and the best, there is much margin left
for the improvement of mind and body, and their prac-
tical application to the great duties of life.—Church of
England Quarterly.

A SCENE AT CASSEL.—Herr Hassenpflug, since 1850
the Elector of Hesse's Prime Minister, has again been the
chief actor in and the victim of a scandalous scene. On
Y
the occasion of the annual shooting expedition in honour
of St. Hubertus, the patron of German
urg, the
sportsmen, Herr
EirlasecstoenrPsfisligon-i quarrelled with Count
son-in-law. In the course of the evening of the
same day the Count proceeded to Herr Hassenpflug's
house, to demand an explanation of certain expressions
which had escaped his Excellency's lips in the dispute.
Herr Hassenpflug was at the theatre, and to the theatre
the Count followed him, and, inviting him to come out,
he took into the public square, where he made a
peremptory
explanation
and apology. It
him
demand for an
appears that Herr HassenPfing would not explain, and
that he treated the proposal to apologize with the utmost
scorn, for Count Ysenburg, who was accompanied by a
servant holding a cane, stepped back, took the cane from
the servant's hands, and commenced belabouring his
His cries attracted a
Ex-
cellency,crowd, the interference of the
populace by saying, " Good. People, I am Count Ysenburg,
and the man I am beating Is the Minister Hassenpflug."
Saying which, he continued thrashing his unfortunate
uwthtohcericoedu lnutstilpyrev forenhtedelp.
Excellency until the cane broke in his hands, and then
left the Premier covered with blood. The greatest ex-
ent prevails at Cassel, and the embarragsment of the
Court b all description. Count Ysenbarg has left
Cassel grgVurt.-101ner Zeigung.