The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-10-25 00:00:00

ENcrpcot etaribarb,

FROM OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT.

MONDAY MORNING.
"NECER-ENDING, still beginning," continues applicable
to the Turkish question. The matter appears now, how-
ever, to be coming to a head, The non-publication of the
Russian manifesto in the French papers shows that NAPO-
LEON is touched in a tender part—that, in short, France is
insulted—defied. Ministers meet the QUEEN in Council
to-day, at Windsor, to settle about the prorogation—not
the meeting of Parliament. No ministers, however popu-
lar—which our, present ones are not—have a strong desire
to meet Parliament, until they cannot help it—say about
the first Tuesday in February ; and I believe such will be
the case at the present juncture. Downing-street is " quite
serene." ABERDEEN is killing rabbits at Windsor, LANs-
DOWNE has gone to Bowood for the winter; the imperial
daßghter of the CZAR left our shores—l may not say sud-
denly— two days ago, but probably it was consequent on
LEOPOLD'S arrival, though there is not much apparent
connection.

I shall not afflict your readers with a long story touching
the high price of the necessaries of life, and the still higher
pfice anticipated ; for, like my old Conservative friend, Sir '
Jour; TYRELL, I almost now begin to think that before
long food will cost a " shilling a mouthful," caused by
"rogues in grain." It is a fact, however, that with regard
to that prime vegetable, the potato, a week about the
wharVes, where the esculent is housed on its arrival from
the north—Scotland especially—enables me to state, that
the root has rarely been in better condition, or more plen-
tiful, than it is at this present writing; at all events, since
the disease broke out. Why, then, are potatoes double the
usual price ? The dealers only can tell. We have had an
indifferent harvest ; equally indifferent in most parts of the
continent. We had many previous good seasons the last,
for example—exceedingly so. There are two or three
capital hostels in the metropolis, where " bagmen " meet ;
intelligent, independent fellows, and gentlemanly withal,—
though designated bagmen by intimate friends; in short,
they are travellers for wholesale houses, with fonr
or five hundred a-year and more. Their conversation
after a journey is fraught with valuable informa-
tion. They are all men of figures,—two and two make
four, with these men, and four only. They speak
from the true avouch of their own senses, and
corroborate all I have said about the potatoes.
What about oats, and wheat, and barley, and pease, and
beans ? This :—That, throughout the greater part of
England, last year's crop of the whole varieties enume-
rated, in district after district, are still standing untouched
in the farmyards ; nay, further, that in many instances,
during the last three weeks—that is, about the time an
advance of prices began-:-Farmer OLD HUNKS was to be
seen thatching in last year's crop to keep it longer. Well,
if the plead " can I not do what I like with my own," is
atall reasonable, surely it ought to be so considered with
one's stock—thresh, and winnow, and sell as suits you, but
it is coming it too strong, surely, to keep back grain under
the present circumstances ; and kept back it will be, in
the expectation of a rise ; to this cause more than to a
scarcity must rest the high price of provisions, for all the
subsidiary articles are dependent on the " rule" of the
above-named staple commodities. May the weevil eat
every particle of ill-stored grain. The farmer cannot ob-
ject to such a wish.
The Times tickled the public the other day by "coming
out" with a " dainty device" in the form of a neatly-
executed penny stamp engraving, cheek by jowl with our
time-honoured friends,—

" The lion and the unicorn

Fighting for the crown,"
in lieu of the nasty red obliterating stamp-office daub per-
petrated by the officials at Somerset-house. Various were
the conjectures as to the cause of the change. "Anoth9r
sop," said one. " Ah, the Times is always favoured,"said
another quid none. Let us look at the question; itis an
interesting one, and, it may be, will lead to a wonderful
change in the modus operandi in QUEEN VICTORIA'S
Stamp-office. In the basement of Somerset-house, on the
river side, and below the level of the Thames, steam is at
work for the purpose of stamping everything stampable
by act of parliament, from the new penny receipt up to the
missive of lease, of I know not how many hundreds of
pounds value ; nor shall I inquire much into this part of
the business, contenting myself with stamps on knowledge.
In the principal quarter of the quadrangle of Somerset-
house, as indicated, facing the visitor as lie enters from the
Strand, all the year through, save on Sundays, he may
notice huge covered waggons, with huger horses attached,
lazily casting their nose-bags about. These waggons have
brought tons of paper, packed in reams, from the wholesale
stationer sometimes, but most commonly from the manu-
facturers' paper-mills, situated ou some pleasant andpeaceful
stream, tributary to the Thames chiefly. Close to the
gateway of the department of stamps, you perceive a gaping
aperture, with a throat of ample dimensions, at an angle
of 45', down this is slid ream after ream of material to be
stamped for the newspapers. In due time, but after long
delay, the, sheets come up stamped, fit to be taken to the
printing-office. Those who do business on a large scale
pay on the nail with a crossed cheque. The Times
pay now, even with the penny stamp, at least
£59,000 a year ; they stamp two tons of paper on an
average daily. Cash down, of course, is out of the
question for this ; the crossed cheque presents a greater
facility of doing business. Woe betide the small pub-
lisher who may only require £l5 or £2O worth stamped,
and tenders his tin, over the well-used stamp-office coun-
ter; the slightest flaw in silver threepenny, fourpenny,
and so on, upwards to half-sovereign and sovereign, is
pushed back—refused. The stamp people are right ;
they pay their money slick to the mint, and there's no
higgling there. Well, the stamp:office men are all busy ;
you can see by the smoke of the QUEEN'S chimney, which
does not

." So gracefully curl,"
that the engine is at work—stokers, cokers, porters,
stampers, characters of all descriptions—too numerous to
mention—are engaged. Hundreds of thousands of sheets
are stamped, each sheet has to be counted,men and horses
are waiting outside, the stamped sheets, when they are got,
have to be carted home, stamps having been previously
affixed to the wrappers. All this and much more has to be
achieved before the machine-man at the newspaper office
can manipulate a single sheet. The Times people have
been known to order 1,000,000 of the old supplement
stamps at a time to be ready, and to save trouble when
time could not be afforded. Such is a cursory glance at
the business of the newspaper stamping office ; the receipts
are prodigious ; the out-goings are also heavy. But touch-
ing the new dodge of the Times—the " dainty device "
aforesaid ! See how easy ! a bit of machinery works a die,
marked one penny in the centre, the copy is thrown off in
the Times office without going to Somerset-house at all.
Surveillance ? To be sure. Do not excisemen lock up
soap-boilers ? Yea. The exciseman at the Times office,
at a salary of £4 a-week, may supersede a hundred times
the amount at Somerset-house. What do you think of
that, Mr. GLADSTONE ? You can save a vast sum by the
dodge, and simplify business. Of course, though the Times
has got the honour of introducing the new plan, if it work,
and work it must, it will be extended to the other papers.
Let me break out in a fresh place. The " Life of JOHN
ABERNETHY," by one of his pupils, just published, has
undeceived many thousands not only belonging to the pro-
fession, but among the elder branches of the upper
classes—those who remember the wonderful eccentricities,
the apparently coarse and gruff manner, yet undoubted
amenity, of the great surgeon of St. Bartholomew's Hos-
pital. Everybody believed JOHNNIE ABERNETHY U. be a I
Scotchman, and, in truth, in many respects he resembled
his confreres, the two Huicruus, who were bona fide
Scotch lads. ABERNETHY was a Cockney, of Milesian
origin. Many curious anecdotes are told of him in the
work referred to—many more that I know of are untold,—
probably because they are too racy, or unknown to the
author. A boy of moderate comprehension could carry
away three-quarters of one of ABERNETHY'S lectures—so
plain—so well arranged—so anecdotical. Who, that heard
will ever forget his lecture on the first application—or
exhibition—of that powerful medicine—Croton oil ?No
one. I doubt not that there be some of your Liverpool
professional gentlemen who were auditors on the occasion ;
it was delivered in the College of Surgeons when Sir
ASTLEY was president ; that courteous baronet sat in the
chair, and was compelled, during nearly the whole of ABER-
ICETITY' slecture,to conceal his face—or at least the laughing
partof it—by placing his handbefore it, as it would have been
deemed contra bonos mores for the president to be seen
smiling—let alone laughing ! The theatre resounded;
LISTON (the actor, not the surgeon) never produced more,
nor heartier laughter, than JOHN ABERNETHY, de-
scribing the cathartic effects of the first dose of Croton
in England—or, for the matter of that—anywhere else—
on a sailor. Does ABERNETHY'S biographer notice this ? I
think not. We have in the metropolis now scarcely an
operating surgeon worth mentioning. BRANSBY COOPER,
in midtime of his days, has
cgone, after acquiring some
fame and some obloquy, with my uncle's knife." Poor
fortune ; it appears he has left personal property to the
amount of £6OOO. Those confounded horses and carriages
swallow up a fortune per annum. Sir BENJAMIN BRODIE,
the Sergeant-Surgeon, I keep out of the rerord, as he is
only seen among the rich from night to morn, dining late
in the evening, anyhow,—then out again to extirpate
carbuncles and look after broken legs,—badly set ; about
one or two o'clock in the morning you may have a
friendly epistle written to you. This is his only period of
relaxation. What a life ! Such is BRODIE'S ;it has re-
diced him to the appearance—l had nearly said, con-
sistency—of an animated mummy ! In no profession,
probably, has such a change . come o'er the spirit
of it, as has been the case in the twin pro-
fessions—physician and surgeon—and one regrets that
the change does not tend to support the hitherto
well-earned and proud position of metropolitan professors,
with your HALFORDS and COOPERS, BABINGTONS, and
other great names of the ancien regime. The glory has
departed. Instead of sound science, in connection with
the healing art, being always discussed, as heretofore, at
medical re-unions, what have we for the most part ?
-"leorY and muffins—homoeopathy—animal magnetism—
Phrenolo good enough subjects, but
Scawi7o7l7 having stamina for the learned physician, at
the eipi,'ees, not many years since, I have mixed with
of eve,: of society—bishops and archbishops, dignitaries
shire:Ve_gree, dukes down to barons and knights of the
the Yon might have a quiet gossip with STANLEY,
tied Bishop of Norwich, on the habits of that
Duke
of isioirthered varlet, the house sparrow—with the
gum, with a denunciation on a new disease in aspara-
and " reform" gareition, it may be, against new-fangled
,t the
had hand either abeon-ing. LUCIEN BONA.PARTE was no
hold forth most co habits of birds : he used to
copiously about the migratory character