The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-06-19 00:00:00

VARIETIES.

Prejudice is opinion without judgment.
They who are very indulgent to themselves, seldom
have much consideration for others.
Good intentions will never justify evil actions ; nor will
good actions ever justify evil intentions.
PANIC AND POPIILATION.—The Berlin correspondent
of the Medical Times gives a curious fact. " The popu-
lation of Berlin, from 1843 to 1847, kept steadily increasing
by 14,000 to 17,500 souls annually : it has, in the troubled
year 1848, decreased by 3,000."
Dr. W. B. Carpenter, in a lecture at Ipswich, allowed
the possession of reason, to a certain extent, in animals.
He instanced that the young ladies in a Bristol school
used to lunch in the garden at twelve, and crumb-picking
sparrows congregated a little before ; but on Sundays, as
the girls did not lunch, the sparrows never appeared.
AFFECTING MEMORIALS.---The Duchess of Angouleme,
daughter of Louis the Sixteenth and Marie Antoinette,
and now about seventy years old, lives with the Duke of
Bordeaux (Henry V.) at Frohsdorf, on the Hungarian
frontier. She keeps in her bed-chamber, the austerity of
which is almost monastic, only such objects as are calcu-
lated to revive the tragic scenes of her early youth,—the
portraits of her father, her mother, and her mother's
friend, the Princess de Lamballo, and near her bed, which
has not even a curtain, stands a prie-dieu full of objects
most sacred in her eyes,—the black vest which her father
wore when he ascended the scaffold—the lace cap which
her mother made with her own hands to appear in before
the revolutionary tribunal. She alone has the key of
these sad relics, and once a-year, on the 21st of January,
she takes them from the reliquary in which they are in-
closed, and surrounds herself with them, in order to
bring herself into closer communion with the beloved
dead by whom they were worn. On that day she buries
her tears in complete seclusion ; she sanctifies the blood-
stained anniversary by solitude and prayer.
ri:A GALLANT OLD OFFICER.—The late Admiral Sir N.
J. Willoughby was a singular instance of intrepidity, in
an individual escaping the most imminent dangers. He
was thrice shipwrecked, once upset in a boat, and kept
himself afloat on an oar for nineteen hours. He was two
years in slavery at Tripoli, and escaped by beating out
the brains of two Moors, and swimming an board a French
ship in the bay, lying two miles from the shore. He en-
tered the harbour of the Isle of France with a single fri-
gate, and cut out two rich ships, though opposed by sixty
pieces of cannon. He was eleven times wounded with
balls, three with splinters, and was cut in every part of
his body with sabres and tomahawks ; his face was disfi-
gured by being blown up with gunpowder, and he lost an
eye, and had part of his neck and jaw shot away. When
unemployed, he joined the Russian army under Kutuzoff,
and was made a colonel : he was thrice wounded, and, at
Leipsic, had his right arm shattered by a cannon shot.
He had pensions from the Russian government. Amongst
sailors in his day he was called " The Immortal,"—at
any rate he seems to have possessed more lives than a cat,
with all the courage of a British lion.
TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD.—" The simple truth often
sounds harsh," replied Arnold, " but it must be spoken,
nevertheless." "Not the whole truth," pleaded Miss
Egerton again. " There are instances occurring every
day, in which to speak the whole truth would be madness."
" Amongst near connexions ?" asked Arnold. " Yes, I
should think so," replied the lady. " Miss Egerton,"
said he, " I have had my dreams like other men, and I
have dreamed of a connexion so close, so sacred, that the
whole truth might be told without injury to its purity, its
blessedness. It is not for me to dream of this connexion
now ; but I am still of the opinion, that the nearer we
approach in any of our relationships to that perfect trust,
confidence, and integrity towards each other, the happier
are the parties so connected: and the more honourable
and lasting is the bond by which they are held together."
"But are there not morbid and sensitive minds, to whom
the whole truth would be misery or death." " Yes, no
doubt, if they had been pampered and fed on falsehoods."
" Put the case in a less repulsive form ; say, if they
have been blinded for their own good." " Bind down
their eyes, if you like, with a silken bandage, make the
delusion as pleasant as you will, some time or other the
scales will fall, and—then—?" " Ah ! then, I grant you ;
but suppose this never happens to them until they die ?"
—And suppose that you do keep them deceived until they
die, and, meeting them in eternity, the first look of a
father, a husband, or a brother, convicts you of falehood
and deception ? If it be terrible to be found out in this
world, how much more terrible in the next ? Besides
which, do you believe it possible, in any instance, really
to serve your fellow-creatures while we are offending
God ?"—Social Distinction.