The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-10-12 00:00:00

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, uuClf way boldly, anct
,wing, and play as merrily as any other children. That
school is a little world of people with four senses—not so
happy a one as if they had five, but a very good one, ne-
vertheless ; sufficiently busy safe, and cheerful for those
who use heartily such powers as they have.—Miss Mar-
tineau in the People's Journal.
MR. MINTZ, M.P. FOR BIRMIVGIIAM.—Looking at
the exterior of Mr. Muntz, one would be far, indeed, from
believing that he is so sensible a man as, his vagaries of
dress set aside, he really is. Of all the oddities in Parlia-
ment, he is the one who especially goes out of his way to
make himself an object for laughter; by flying in the face
of all ordinary custom as to dress and manners. How he
could have at first brought himself to adopt the semi-bar-
barous costume he wears, it is almost impossible for any
man of ordinary habits of mind to conceive ; but he cer-
tainly has persisted in it with a steadfastness, and has de-
fied public opinion with a bravery, worthy of a better
cause. Mr. Muntz is naturally a man-of herculean pro-
portions : he has a large head, largehody, large limbs.
But he is also what is called a " heavy', man, especially in
his gait. He has, however, a handsome countenance, and
a well-formed person ; and, with a very slight attention to
the choice of his dress, he would be universally regarded
as a very-fine and striking exception to the usual forms of
humanity in these days of degeneracy- and effeminacy,
when men seem to think that they approach the nearer to
the highest standard of gentility the more they adopt the
habits and manners of women. Rubens would have glo-
ried in Mr. Muntz for a model. Forget his outre dress,
and you might think you had before you some magnificent
old feudal baron, with nobility and command in every
look and gesture. But the Mr. Muntz whom you see in
the House. of Commons, or whom you meet in the street,
stalking along with the strides of a Seven-league-Boots,—
like an ogre, with club in hand, seeking his breakfast,—is
a very different person. His face is almost covered with
an enormous mass of dark hair ; his coat large and loose,
might fit a giant ; and his trousers are two sacks, joined
at the hither end. At each long stride he disposes of
nearly a yard of ground, and he bears in his hand, where-
with he strikes the ground, as if with a paving-rammer,
something between a stick and the trunk of a tree, —a sort
of gigantic club, or shillelagh, the like of which, for size,
you would not find in Tipperary. Surely it is Tee-fi-fo-fum
come out for his morning walk ! Or, fancy a Cossack
dropped in London, and straying into the Minories, fitting
himself out at Moses and Son's, hap-hazard, with the
largest clothes he could find ! Lately, Mr. Muntz visited
a continental capital, famous for the enormous beards of
its male inhabitants, where the hair, in fact, is gaining
such an ascendancy, is encroaching so, on the nobler fea-
tures of the face, that, ere long, it will leave but the eyes
ungarnished, so that a man will literally look like an owl
in a bush. Well, here, one would have thought, Mr.
Muntz might have expected to be at home—to pass unno-
ticed, among.the hirsute monsters who abound. But, no.
What was the fact ? You heard him spoken of only as
" the Englishman with the beard !" This was the sole
name by which he was known. And the most singular
part of the matter-is, that this propensity for outre dress
appears to run in the family. Occasionally, you may see
in London, and often in Birmingham, three living things,
walking abreast in the street, that make you think invo-
luntarily of a certain establishment in the Regent's Park.

They belong to no order known to naturalists, yet are evi-
dently of the same species. The largest of the three is as
we have described him. There is then a second, with not
quite such a large club, and not quite such loose dress, not
quite so elephantine a stride ; and on the other side, there
is a third, a young specimen of the species, not fully deve-
loped, but rapidly approaching, the hirsute state. They
naturally excite great interest in the passers-by, who, at
first somewhat alarmed by this fierce looking trio, soon
become reassured when they discover that they are singu-
larly mild in their habits, and that there is an orderly
effect produced by their striding simultaneously, and rap-
ping their clubs on the ground in exact- time. This at
once removes all idea of wildness or ferocity, and wholly
dissipates fear.—Fraser's Magazine for October.
BURIALS IN THE EARLY AGES OF CHRISTIANITY.—
Christianity has the great merit of having discovered the
poesy of the grave. From the outset it abhorred the Pa-
gan custom of burning the dead, and faithful to its Jewish
origin, and mindful of Christ's burial, it renewed the old
Roman custom of interring the departed. This was the
origin of the catacombs. The early Christians loved to be
deposited with, or near the Martyrs, and grounds for bu-
rial capable of receiving a large number of the dead were
wholly wanting. The population of Rome, Naples, Alex-
andria, and Syracuse was so great, that there was scarcely
room enough for the living. To find,new receptacles for
the dead became an urgent necessity. It is true, that
digging into the bowels of the earth for the purpose of
entombing the bodies of the dead was no new operation.
Egypt and Etruria had in their time set the example. The
one idea of immortality, led to similar results in different
creeds. The early Christians found their cities of the dead
already prepared for them. Paris, in our own time,
stands upon a soil which' is hollowed throughout. The
limestone upon which Paris standswas taken from beneath
to supply the wants of the builders. Rome, in like man-
ner, has a second and subterraneous town of vast extent,
with its streets and squares in endless number. Nor it is
without its inhabitants. In this town did Christians seek
refuge from Pagan persecution' and here did they likewise
inter their dead. The caves and passages were not dug by
Christian hands, but were discovered already made. They
date from the last century of the republic, when the clay
upon which Rome stands was required by the mania then
raging for extensive and magnificent structures. The
Christians took possession of the hollows and enlarged
them ; the work was by no means difficult, for the clay
was soft and plastic. It was after the time of Constantine
that the catacombs came into more general use. Martyrs_
were more revered subsequently to the reign of this Em-
peror than before it, for martyrdom became less easy of
achievement. The chief martyrs had found a resting-place
in the catacombs. Churches rose above their remains,
from which secret and sacred doors led into the City of
the Dead, the cemetery of the saints. It was at the pe-
riod to which we refer that the regularly-formed spacious
catacombs were first fashioned—a fact established by the
date of the coffins, all of which belong to a time later than
that of the Emperor Constantine. The wealthier mem-
bers of the community constructed small chapels in the
catacombs for the reception of the bodies of their relations
and friends. These chapels are for the most part situated
at the crossing of passages or at the end of them, in which
latter case the chapels forms the termination of one parti-,
cular passage. They are most important as indices to the
development of art. Besides the curious character and
beauty of the architecture, they afford specimens of the
most ancient grave paintings that we know of. Their
walls and ceilings are covered with a thin crust of gypsum,
upon which the colours were laid. Not unfrequently we
find ornaments of stucco and marble. Altars and stone
seats, too, are found in these chapels. An astonishing
number of skeletons have been discovered in the passages
by which the chapels are connected : it was not the cus-
tom, as now, to bury the dead beneath the floor and to
cover the grave with a stone slab. The bodies were placed
in niches of from three to six feet in length. Sometimes
four and six together, one above the other. The corse of
a departed brother was thrust into one of these niches ; a
lamp and some tool, explanatory of the trade he had fol-
lowed in life, were placed beside him, and then the aper-
ture was walled up, and lastly covered with a thin marble
slab, bearing an inscription and the particulars of the life
and death of the departed. Church service was frequently
performed in the catacombs, yet not in the days of perse-
cution. It was after Constantine that these tombs were
used for such a purpose. On Sabbath days they were
open to the public and were much visited. Devotion, love
for departed relatives, and mere curiosity, carried vast
numbers to these silent halls. Saint Jerome tells us of
his having often explored them with his comrades whilst
he was still a student in Rome ; and he lived some three
hundred and fifty years after the death of Christ. The
catacombs were but badly lighted at first, light being ad-
mitted by a few apertures only in the roofs of the chapels.
At a later period, great care was taken to prevent visitors
losing their way amidst the labyrinth of passages. The
guardianship of the catacombs was confided to a certain
body of the clergy, who went under the name offossores,
or gravediggers. It was their office to inspect the cha-
pels and passages, to point out the places where new pas-
sages might be formed, and to portion out and sell the
spots in which burials might take place. The water in the
wells of the catacombs was subsequently found to possess
the virtue of healing to a marvellous degree. Nay, even
the use of the drinking-cups found in the catacombs was
sufficient to cure several diseases,—Blackwood's Mag.