The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-05-10 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD, TUESDAY, MAY 10, 1853.

WANTED.—An intended bride who is willing to begin
housekeeping in the same style in which her mother began.
UNCLE Tom AND WHAT HE 'HAS DONE.—" Uncle
Tom's Cabin" has simply exposed to the world our
nakedness. The secrets of the prison-house of slavery
are all revealed. " Uncle Tom" has uttered no false-
hoods—he has exaggerated no wrongs. He has simply
told, in tones which have thrilled upon the ear of the
world, the tragic story of the slave. And now no Ame-
rican can visit Europe without meeting with insult
wherever he is known. All that is noble in our glorious
institutions is forgotten in the deep abhorrence of slavery.
The tongue of every American is tied. The hands of
every American are fettered. The example of our coun-
try, instead of cheering the hearts of the lovers of liberty
in other lands, tends but to darken their dungeons and to
rivet their chains. And all this because thirty thousand
men refuse to pay the honest wages of free labour to those
who till their fields, wash their linen, and polish their
shoes.—New York Tri&une.

THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD AND SIR WALTER SCOTT
In a life of Sir Walter Scott, recently published, his first
interview with the Ettrick Shepherd is thus amusingly
told :—One day, while Scott was still in Edinburgh, there
came into the city a brawny, rough fellow, driving a flock
of sheep. It was James Hogg, who finding himself in the
capital, was seized with a violent desire to see himself in
print, and accordingly got somebody to strike off a few of
his verses, which, however, made no sensation. " The
Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border" set him to work at
imitating the old Scottish ballads ; and as his efforts were
warmly praised by Scott, he came down again from the
forest to pay his friend a visit. He, with William Laid-
law and others, was invited to dinner. The worthy shep-
herd appeared in his ordinary herdman's dress, with his
hands well tarred by a recent shearing. Not being accus-
tomed to the society of " grand folk," he had com-
muned with himself as to how he should act, and had
come to the conclusion that he ought to copy the lady of
the house in all things. Mrs. Scott, being unwell, re-
ceived her guest reclining on a sofa, and Jamie accord-
ingly, true to his principle, had no sooner made his best
bow, than he crossed the room, and stretched himself out
upon another. At dinner he ate, drank, laughed, and
chattered, amusing the guests by his strange, uncouth
jokes and remarks, and even songs. As the good wine
began to operate, Jamie grew familiar, and after tickling
everybody by his rapid advance from " Mr. Scott" to
" Shirra," " Scott," " Walter," and " Waffle," he at
last threw the company into convulsions:of laughter by
addressing Mrs. Scott as " Charlotte."
LIFE AT BADEN.—Hither come flocking the represen-
tatives of every nation of the world, and of almost every
class in each. Royalty, princely houses, and nobility
with twenty quarterings, are jostled in the indiscriminate
crowd with houseless adventurers, beggared spendthrifts,
and ruined debauchees. All who can contribute the clink
of their Louis-d'ors to the music are welcome to this
orchestra! And women, too, fair, delicate, and lovely,
the tenderest flowers that ever were nursed within do-
mestic care, mixed up with others, not less handsome
perhaps, but whose svren beauty is almost diabolic by
comparison. What a Babel of tongues, and what confu-
sion of characters. The Grandee of Spain, the escaped
Galley Slave, the Hungarian magnate, the London
" Swell," the old and hoary gambler with snow-white
moustachios, and the unfledged minor, anticipating man-
hood by ruining himself in his " teens." All these are
blended and commingled by the influence of play; and,
differing as they do in birth, in blood, in lineage, and
condition, yet are they members of one guild, associates
of one society—the gambling-table. And what a leveller
is play ! He who whispers in the ear of the Crown Prince
yonder is a branded felon from the Bagnes de Brest; the
dark-whiskered man yonder, who leans over the lady's
chair, is a❑ escaped forger ; the Carlist noble is asking
friendly counsel of a Christino spy; the London pick-
pocket offers his jewelled snuff-box to an Archduke of
Austria. " How goes the game to-day ?" cries a Neapo-
litan Prince of the Blood, and the question is addressed
to a red-bearded Corsican, whose livelihood is a stiletto.
Is that the beautiful Countess of Hapsburg ?" asks a
fresh-looking Oxford man ; and his friend laughingly
answers : " Not exactly ; it is Mademoiselle Varenne
of the Odeon." The fine-looking man yonder is a Mexi-
can General, who carried off the military chest from
" Guanaguato ;" the pompous little fellow beside him is
a Lucchese Count, who stole part of the Crown jewels of
his sovereign; the long-haired, broad-foreheaded man,
with open shirt-collar, so violently denouncing the
wrongs of injured Italy, is a Russia❑ spy ; and the dark
Arab behind him is a Swiss valet, more than suspected of
having murdered his master in the Mediterranean. Our
English contingent embraces Lords of the Bedchamber,
members of parliament, railroad magnates, money-
lending attorneys, legs, swells, and swindlers, and a
small sprinkling of university men, out to read and be
ruined—the fair sex, comprising women of a certain fast
set in London, divorced countesses, a long category of
the widow class, some with daughters, some without.
There is an abundance of good looks, splendid dress, and
money without limit ! The most striking feature of all,
however, is the reckless helter-skelter pace at which every
one is going, whether his pursuit be play, love, or mere
extravagance. There is no such thing as calculation—no
counting the cost of anything Life takes its tone from
the tables, and where, as wealth and beggary succeed
each other, so do every possible extreme of joy and
misery ; and one wagers their passions and their emotions
exactly as they do their bank-notes and their gold pieces.
—The Dodd Family Abroad, by Chas. Lever.

THE AMERICAN INDIANS AND THEIR SLAVES.—
Of all the numerous Comanches and Kiowas, whom we
met on the Arkansas in the neighbourhood of Fort Atkin-
son and the crossing of the river, there was indeed
scarcely one who had not one or several male or female
Mexican children with them, whom they themselves
boasted of having kidnapped in Mexico, telling us the
places were they were from. To conclude from what we
saw, there must be, not hundreds, but thousands of
Mexicans, most of them of a tender age, in slavery
among the Indians of the plains. Others were full-
grown men and women, the former entirely barbarians
like their Indian masters among whom they had lived
from their youth, the latter in some cases a good deal
more cultivated on account of their having been kid-
napped at a more advanced age, which is never the case
with a male captive, full-grown men being always killed
when they fall into the hands of these savages. Some of
the Mexican men whom we met in this state of captivity
looked worn-out and poor, and complained of being ill-
treated and not getting food enough, while others de-
clared that they would by no means, even if they could,
return to their native country, and confessed that they
were themselves used to participate in those horse-stealing
and kidnapping expeditions which the Comanches and
Kiowas proudly call " campanas," speaking with an ex-
pression of cupidity of the " cavallas, mulas, mugeres
muchachas." the horses, mules, women and girls, of
Mexico. The boys appeared to be generally well-treated.
Some of them had even been adopted as children by the
Indians. An old Kiowa chief who visited our camp, bad
three boys with him whom he declared to be his children,
telling us at the same time that of two of them he was the
real father, while he had brought the third one from
Mexico, in one of his military expeditions. This third
boy was evidently kept as well as the two real sons of the
old man, and when we asked the chief, as well as the
boy, whether they would like to separate in case we
should pay him a good price for the boy for the purpose
of taking him along with us to his native place, both
laughed with a sort of contempt, showing fully that both
were as well satisfied with each other as with their situa-
tion in general. The fate of the girls kidnapped in a
tender age is even less painful. They are generally
brought up by those who capture them to make the wives
of their sons. The chiefs visiting our camp with their
families, all had Mexican wives. The fate of a full-
grown woman falling into the hands of the Indians is
often not so easy as this. She seldom escapes violence
and brutality.—Correspondence of the New York Tribune.
TEA. AND ITS ADULTERATIONS.—AduIteration with
simple leaves of trees is innocent enough compared with
some of the abominations to which the competing prin-
ciple has resort, and can practise with impunity. On the
continent the natives have not waited for that propitious-
ness of site and climate which the Chinese tea-plant has
been proved to require. English tea having first served
them as a foliage, is next seized to satisfy our national
appetite. Many a wry face have our wandering country-
men made over the tea-pots of Rhineland and of Flan-
ders. A. lady, a friend of ours, once met an old Belgian
peasant gathering leaves from some wayside trees and
hedges, a little distance out of Brughes ; and upon asking
him what he was storing so carefully in his basket, the
old man, taking her for a countrywoman, answered, to
her horror, " tea for the English !" He looked as old
in his task as Wordsworth's leech-gatherer 4 But al-
though it is sufficiently unpleasant to be mocked in our
pilgrimages in search of the picturesque by the very vege-
table kingdom, still, this is harmless, comparatively,
when we read the accounts given by Mr. Twining and
others of the villanous mixtures and disgusting ingre-
dients detected in the compositions of convicted spurious
tea-dealers in England. If it is difficult for the expe-
rienced to detect the true from the false, difficult teas
may defy the scrutiny of the public. When the company
were merchants, this system of adulteration did not and
could not exist. They had the first choice of all the teas
which were imported from the tea districts into Canton.
These were there submitted to the inspection of a gentle-
man, chosen from among the tea-brokers of London, who,
at the head of the regular servants of the company, care-
fully examined the teas several times previous to corn-
pleting the purchase, and then fixed their valuation ; and
so great was then the confidence of the Hongmen in the
spirit of honourable dealing which always influenced the
i
company, that they invariably acquiesced in every reduc-
tion of price that was decided upon. Again, on being
exposed to sale in London, every chest of tea was sub-
mitted to another examination from the tea-brokers,
and their report published. These gentlemen were entirely
independent of the company, and could have been actu-
ated by no ulterior motive in the good report they did
constantly give. Inferior teas were thus rejected—adul-
terated teas impossible. Moreover, the cultivation of the
finest descriptions of tea was encouraged by the genero-
sity of the company. For the delicate flavoured black
souchong, which is now so rare, and only to be had in
England in the shape of a choice present from some
friend in China, the company paid higher prices than
were given for green tea, and pains were consequently
taken to foster its growth. And this the company did
without regard to profit. They imported some teas, as
they exported certain British productions (to promote re-
ciprocal commerce) at a positive loss ; confiding for
remuneration to their aggregate profits. But the free im-
porter, whose object is necessarily immediate gain, and
who is not sufficiently conspicuous before the public to
induce him to make generous sacrifices for the sake of
high character, can neither afford nor care to flatter the
discriminating tastes of the rich, or satisfy the demands
of the poor, by such rare principles of conduct. His ob-
ject is simply to get rid of his stock ; he has no feeling of
responsibility to the nation, and experience, latterly
somewhat painfully bought, teaches us that, without
some wholesale check upon private rapacity, the public
universalmust
aCo iedaanbelyry. become victims,
this the
to
ha
position, interest,
of almost
and honour of the company were ample guarantee. But
the artists, both of China and England, have now full
swing, and, with all vegetable nature for their material,
and the entire population of the British isles and colonies
for their subjects, there is reason to believe, that when
they have destroyed our palates, they will soon be able to
compete openly with the genuine tea growth itself.—
Fraser's Magazin?.