The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-07-03 00:00:00

M. Simon, the lieutenant of police, who succeeded in
arresting, at Liverpool, the run-away book-keeper of the
Berlin Corporation, M. Felgentret, has received a purse
of £lOO for the zeal and activity which he showed in the
exectitjon of his duty. Another gift of £3O has been
awarded to SOMA person in England, whose name is not
stated. •

STEAM COMMUNICATION BEff*qm LIVERPOOL AND
HAVRE.—We learn from Mr. 1114.teef that he and his
friends intend putting on some first-class steamers between
this port and Havre early next spring (when the act for
repealing the Navigation Laws will take effect), for the
purpose of bringing over French goods for transhipment
to the United States, &c., so opening up to the British
and North American Royal Mail steamers, a traffic from
which they have hitherto been excluded.
On Tuesday, a Welsh main of bowls (the fourth this
season) was played upon the green attached to the house
of Mr. Tillotson, Strawberry Gardens, West Derby-road.
Amongst the players, sixteen in number, we observed
some of the best in Liverpool, viz., Mr. Massey, Mr.
Wilkinson, Mr. Lunt, Mr. Hargreaves, and Mr. Allan-
son. After some excellent bowling, the contest finally
lay between Mr. Sykes and Mr. Allanson, the latter even-
tually proving himself the conqueror.
LAUNCH OF AN IRON STEAMER.—On Saturday week,
at the ship-building yard of Mr. Thomas Vernon, Bruns-
wick Dock, an iron steamer, called " The Sylph," was
launched. The following are the dimensions of the ves-
sel :--110 feet in length of keel and fore rake, 17 feet 6 in-
ches in breadth of beam, and 8 feet 9 inches in depth of
hold. She is about 162 tons old measurement. The
proprietor of the vessel is Mr. Crippin, of Runcorn.
The vessel is expected to be put on the station between
Liverpool and Runcorn, and is admirably adapted either
for towing or for carrying passengers.
DISTRESS IN IRELAND.—The Rev. Edward Feeny,
the Roman Catholic minister of Riverstown, a remote
parish in the county of Sligo, is at present in Liverpool,
to solicit subscriptions for the relief of the distressed
poor in his parish, who are weighed down with the greatest
deprivations, and are likely during the next two months
to endure still greater sufferings if prompt exertions are not
made to relieve them. Mr. Feeny is at present staying
at Parkfield, Birkenhead, and will be glad to receive sub-
scriptions, however small, as will Mr. Aspinall, the
treasurer to the fund now raising, in consequence of a
public meeting recently held at the Music-hall.
CURIOUS CASE OF CHOLERA.—The following curious
incident will show that all is not cholera that is called
cholera, or treated as such :—" The other day a poor
woman was taken suddenly ill, as she As returning from
supplying her husband with his mid-day meal. Suffering
from severe pains in the abdomen, she apprehended an
attack of cholera, and immediately sent off for a neigh-
bouring medical man, who declared it to be a visitation of
that fearful disorder. Mustard plasters were applied,
without loss of time, to the stomach and bowels of the
patient, and, of course, suitable medicines prescribed.
Esculapius having given the necessary directions,departed.
The pains of the poor woman increased, and a charwoman
was sent for. After a short time the medicine of nature
performed a manifest cure, the woman having been re-
lieved from her attack of cholera, and delivered of a fine
healthy baby at the same moment !"
ALLEGED DEATH FROM VIOLENCE.—OR Thursday
evening, an inquest was held before M. Churton, Esq.,
at the Angel Hotel, Birkenhead, on the body of a wo-
man named Mary Farrel, whose death, it was alleged,
had been caused by a man named Michael Fleming. The
husband of the deceased stated that he let part of
his house to Fleming. In consequence of the filthy state
in which he kept the premises, and taking more lodgers
in them than he bargained for, he got Mr. Burgess, the
inspector of nuisances for the township, to examine the
house. On the night of the day on which Mr. Burgess
called, deceased told Fleming what had taken place. The
witness also gave Fleming notice to quit. On this Flem-
ing became very violent, and threatened to chop his head
off with his hatchet. Deceased had occasion to go into
a closet, containing coals ; on her coming out, Fleming
jammed her between the door and the door-post, holding
her there for some time. Deceased was between seven
and eight months advanced in pregnancy. On being re-
leased she complained of being very seriously hurt, ex-
perienced great pain in the small of her back and chest.
She lingered until Tuesday last, when she died. The
inquest was postponed until this day, (Tuesday).
BOARD OF EXAMINERS OF MASTERS AND MATES.—
At the general half-yearly meeting of this board for the
port of Liverpool, at the Underwriters' Room, on
Saturday last, Robert S. Henderson, Esq., in the chair,
the half-yearly accounts, showing a balance at the credit
after payment of all expenses, were produced, passed, and
were ordered to be transmitted to the Board of Trade.
The chairman drew the attention of the meeting to the
increased number of candidates examined during the last
six months; it was evident that merchants and ship-
owners were becoming sensible of the utility of the
institution; and now that our mercantile marine would
meet with powerful foreign competition, it was especially
desirable that we should possess a body of intelligent and
well educated officers, to carry our ships to all parts of
the world. Nothing tended more to promote so desirable
an object than au institution of that kind, which would
also prove highly beneficial to the masters and mates, by
giving them an opportunity of placing themselves before
the public, to have their merits duly appreciated. The
thanks of the board were then voted unanimously to the
nautical examiners for the energy they had evinced in
carrying out the design of the institution. It is con-
fidently expected that the next half year will show a
continued increase in the number of officers examined.
Those parties voluntarily present themselves for examina-
tion, and the system is found to work well.
THE LONDON AND PROVINCIAL PRESS.—The Liver-
pool Courier, in noticing the hoax practised on the Lon-
don Times and other metropolitan papers with reference
to the premature announcement of the floating of the
Britannia Bridge, says :—" There is a fashion in every-
thing; and it is the fashion to regard the London press as
the concentrated of all the talent, all the intelligence, all
the liberality and enterprise of the nation. What is dim
elsewhere shines with resplendent lustre in the atmos-
phere of the world's metropolis. Many illustrations
might be given of this. Look at the case of Mr. Rintoul,
of the Spectator. As the conductor of a provincial jour-
nal, his name was unknown beyond the circle of his im-
mediate friends, and his writings were almost unnoticed.
He goes up to London, and forthwith becomes a first-rate
political authority, and his compositions are held up as
models of style. And as with men so with opinion?. Some
time ago a very considerable sensation was caused by an
article which appeared in the Times, purporting to be a
translation from a German paper. We forget the precise
subject, nor is it material to the point at issue. The article
was really a translation from the German, but it happened
to have been previously translated into German from a
Liverpool paper, whose editor came forward to claim its
parentage, or otherwise, it is probable, so little attention
had it excited on its first appearance . that no one would
have had the slightest suspicion but that it was a genuine
foreign production ! In priority of intelligence, London
may claim an advantage over the provinces; but even
here there is more in the imagination than in the reality.
News received in London at five o'clock in the evening is
published in the Liverpool papers of the following morn-
ing, and is on the breakfast tables of the subscribers to
those papers considerably before the hour at which it
ordinarily meets the eye of the merchant on 'Change, in
the columns in which it originally appears. With regard
to the most important foreign intelligence, indeed, we
are beforehand with the London press. Our communica-
tion with the United States is direct, and by the time that
the American news reaches Liverpool by way of the
metropolis it is stale. The poetical idea of the way in
which Napoleon crossed the Alps is that for which we are
indebted to the fancy of the painter, who has represented
him in full military array, mounted on a fiery war steed,
which seems ready to scale, not the Alps only, but the
very clouds themselves. Could we have witnessed the
achievement as it was really accomplished, we should have
seen the hero muffled in a common frieze cloak or coat,
and slowly picking his way upon a mule—as sober and
unpoetical a figure as Commodore Napier in some of his
gallant exploits on the coast of Syria, when his uniform
was a blanket and his charger a humble donkey. The
truth in this case does not dispel a denser mist of miscon-
ception than will be removed from the minds of most per-
sons when they are informed, that the principal purveyors
for provincial news to the metropolitan press are persons
connected with the provincial papers, in the capacity of
reporters, assistant reporters, or penny-a-liners, who are
under no engagement to the London journals, but merely
take the chance of getting paid for what they send up.
Everybody has heard of the Times Commissioner :"
but everybody does not know that the gentleman so desig-
nated was, up to a very short time of his assuming the
commissionership, the reporter to the Liverpool Standard.
Such, however, was the fact; and we may be permitted,
without any disrespect to our local contemporary to ask,
who would have attached any importance to his lucruba-
tions, had they originally appeared in the columns of that
j ournal ? Would their author, in that case, have even
reached the dignity of being nicknamed by Mr. O'Connell
' The Gutter Commissioner ?' Yet he did not, so far as
we are aware, go through any process on his way to Lon-
don which could transform him from an individual of no
particular " mark or likelihood" into a great authority,
whose statements every person was bound to talk about,
if not to believe. But thus it is that the world is led.
The forms of cant are innumerable ; and the number of
people who think and judge for themselves bears no pro-
portion to the number of those who are prepared, with
Polonius. to call the same thing a ' camel' or a whale,'
just as the cue is given them."