The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-11-09 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

He had not proceeded much further on the outside car,
on which he was returning, when three men overtook
him : one had a flail, the second a loaded whip, and the
ird a heavy stick, and they quickly evinced their"object
a combined and furious attack on Mr. Fitzpatrick,
characterised by that murderous and unrelenting cruelty
which too often distinguiShes the peasantry of this coun-
try. The car was stopped, Mr. Fitzpatrick was forcibly
dragged off, and beaten to that degree that he was left for
dead on 'the road. The driver of the car had made off.
Having wreaked their vengeance on Mr. Fitzpatrick, they
left him lying on the road in a pool of blood ; but one of
the miscreants, imagining that be had not been suffi-
ciently punished, returned and beat him over the body
with the flail. Having remained motionless for some
time on the road, his senses returned, and with difficulty
he was able to crawl to the car, the horse of which fortu-
nately remained on the spot-, and thus go into Macroom,
where Dr. M'Sweenv's assistant kindly proceeded to dress
the wound. While thus endeavouring to reach Macroom
on the car, a fourth man struck him on the back with a
heavy stone. Mr. Fitzpatrick was subsequently brought
to his father's residence in this city, where he now lies in
a perilous condition.=cork Consfitvtion.

RAILWAY AFFAIRS.

The Preston and Longridge declare a dividend of 12s. 3d.
per share. The progress of the alterations was reported
as satisfactory.
A new fog signal was tried at the railway station, Rom-
sey. on Wcdnesday night. 'I he light was distinctly
visible at a distance of seven miles.

SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE.—The portion of lire at Wal-
sall, effecting the junction with the London and North-wes-
tern, was opened on Monday. The length is about 2 miles.
A mill-owner near the Ouse obtained £l,OOO from the
company for " loss of wind " by the erection of the em-
bankment for the bridge, by the Lynn and Ely Railway,
the opening of which line we noticed last week.
LANCASHIRE AND YORKSHIRE.—On Wednesday, the
remaining portion of the Oldham Extension line, extend-
ing between the western and eastern parts of the town,
was open for passenger traffic.

GREAT WESTERN SHARES.—In August, 1845, the
Great Western shares, with £BO paid, were done at £235
or 200 per cent. premium. In August, 1846, with £B5
paid, at £155. In October, 1847, at par. and now a few
pounds premium !
On Thursday week, as a luggage train was proceeding
from Sheffield to Manchester, an iron pipe fell from one
of the truckS upon the rails, whilst the train was passing
under the great tunnel, and threw off and smashed seven
of the carriages behind. There being only one line of
rails, communication was effectually stopped for two or
three days, whilst the passengers went over the hill,
known as the " backbone of England." _

ACCIDENT ON THE MIDLAND- RAILWAY--0H Thurs-
day morning, a fatal accident occurred near the Woodles-
ford station, about six miles from Leeds, on the Midland
line of railway. The Manchester train which leaves Leeds
at half-past 7 a.m. came in contact with a truck which
was being removed from the main line on to a siding.
The engine struck the, truck before it had cleared the
main line, and a porter named Henry Doncaster was
thereby killed on the spot.
AMDERGATE, NOTTINGHAM, BOSTON, AND EASTERN
JUNCTION RAILWAY.—A special meeting of this Com-
pany was held at Nottingham on Friday, to consider the
proposed amalgamation with the Great Northern Com-
pany. On a division, there appeared against the amalga-
mation 34,903 proxies—or 11,934 votes ; for the amalga-
mation 11,375 proxies, or 3619 votes. There were also
present in.the room the representatives of 10,000 shares
against the amalgamation, and 40 for it.
LANCASTER AND PRESTON JUNCTION RAILWAY.—
On Thursday a special meeting of the shareholders in this
line was held at Lancaster, Joseph Bushell. Esq., chair-
man of the board of directors, presiding, when it was re-
solved, with but few dissentients, that the resolution
passed in June, 1843, empowering the directors to com-
plete a lease of the line to the canal company, should be
rescinded. The meeting was adjourned to the 25th inst.,
when the propriety of serving an ejectment on the com-
pany will be considered.

THE TELEGRAPH versus VENUS.—A young lady left
Cambridge last week by the Defiance, for the Ware rail-
way terminus, en route to meet her lover in London.
_ _

. .
The father missed his daughter soon after she left, and
the telegraph having been set in motion, two lettered and
labelled gents, dressed in blue, made themselves known
to the fair runaway at the Ware station, and by their soft
insinuations induced her to accompany them back to
Cambridge, where she had to endure parental frowns
instead of being received in the open arms of her lover at
the Shoreditch station.
BANKING UTILITY OF RAILWAYS AND TELEGRAPHS.
—ln the late run on the Newcastle banks, a curious in-
stance of the value of the railway and telegraph system
was made known. The Branch Bank of England at that
place having necessity for a further supply of gold, sent
by telegraph to the sister establishment at Leeds to ob-
tain the required amount. The transmission of the mes-
sage was of course immediate, and the arrival of gold al-
most as rapid, a little more than an hour being consumed
by the special train, which brought £40,000 to the assist-
ance of the bank which was in want.
STOPPAGE OF RAILWAY WORKS.—The contractors for
the London and North-Western Railway have already
discharged 2,500 men, and are about to discharge a still
larger number. On Saturday last one contractor on the
Great Western line gave notice to 1400 men. In Lanca-
shire the works in hand are almost wholly stopped, and
above 10,000 men are already dismissed. On the whole,
up to Saturday last, at least 30,000 navigators had been
discharged ; and it is estimated that before the end of the
present month that number will be doubled. Besides
these there will be 10,000 mechanics thrown out of em-
ployment, most of whom have families dependent on them.
Taking the whole into the account, we may reckon on
having to support, this winter, about 150,000 persons of
the railway class, either by poor-rates or by rapine.
RAILWAY SAFETY BREAK.—At a meeting of the Me-
chanics' Institute, Glasgow, Robert Montgomery, Esq.,
read a lecture on a plan invented by him for the protection
of life in railway travelling. Mr. Montgomery exhibited
a variety of experiments with his carriages, placed on a
model railway 15 feet long. His two carriages weighed
about 50 lbs. each. He put one of his models in motion,
and when he took off its momentum by a contrivance he
had for that purpose, the carriage was immediately stop-
ped by the break, wrought into self-action. He again put
two model carriages in motion, attached to each other,
and when he stopped the momentum of the first, the last
carriage stopped, without coming into contact with the
buffer of the first : the last carriage was in this instance
also stopped by the action of the self-acting break. He
exhibited another important experiment on the incline, to
show that if railway carriages were supplied with his self-
acting breaks, no such accident as that which lately occur-
red in Glasgow, on the incline there, could have happened.
CONWAY BRIDGE.—The tube for a single line of
railway over the Conway is now on the eve of completion,
and the chains and presses for raising it to its scat on the
piers, will be sent off from London this week, by the
London and North Western Railway, to the Birkenhead
Docks, thence to be shipped to Conway. ' There is no
doubt that by the end of the month we shall be able to
record that the tube is spanning the Conway. We believe
that at the beginning of this week the tube will be tested,
which will be completed by the time the raising apparatus
reaches Conway. The pumps are placed on the same axis
as the steam cylinder, which, being in a horizontal posi-
tion, and with one pump at each end of the cylinder, having
a double piston rod, to work both pumps simultaneously,
produces one regular stream into the hydraulic presses.
The stroke of the cylinder is 16 inches ; the pump bore
14 inch ; the number of strokes per minute will be about
45, so that the tube may be expected to be raised , (allowing for
the delays of shifting the chain, &c.,) about 2 feet per min.
COMMUNICATION WITH LONDON via THE TRENT
VALLEY RAILWAY.—The official time-bill forthe northern
mail trains, via' the Trent Valley Railway has been pub-
lished. The mails are to be transferred to the Trent
Valley line on the Ist of .next month. The journey be-
tween Liverpool and London will be made in 5 hours, and
between London and Manchester in about 4 hours 40
minutes. The early morning, or " newspaper" train,
which now leaves London at 6.15, and arrives in Liver-
pool at 3.15, and Manchester at 2.40, will depart from
Easton-square at the same time, and reach Liverpool at
2.12, and Manchester at 1.50. The ten o'clock morning
mail, now due at Liverpool at 5.10, will arrive at that
place at 4.45. The same "through" train reaches Man-
chester at five o'clock ; it will reach that city at 4.19.
The five o'clock afternoon express, now arriving at Liver-
pool at 11.10, and Manchester at 10.40, will arrive respec- ,
tively at 10 o'clock and 9.40. The 8.45 night mail from
London now arrives at Liverpool at 5.25 ; it will arrive
at 4.41. It reaches Manchester at 4.45 ; it will reach
' that city at 4.11. The 6 o'clock a.m. post-office express
from Liverpool will leave at 6.45, and arrive in London at
1 its present time, viz. 1 o'clock. The same " through"
i train leaves Manchester at 6.15 ; it will leave at 6.45.
instead of arriving at on
" train leaves
Euston-square at 5.30. The same "thr9ugh
The 9.15 a.m. from LiveLrpoodlownillaltea6voe,acitorit,o
Manchester at 9.40; it will leave. 20 minutes,.
\ later. The
1 leave
'weli°llct and
shalf o man Lhlovtetrrpeoaorllie"rith an it
Liverpool will
leave at 8.30, and reach. London 33 minutes before its
I present
ana tnt d4p.ra3er:reianyftet.eartnToll6: en.3Bo7lspyriers' mail train from
_present time, or at 4.45, instead of 5.18. The same
" through" train will leave Manchester 10 minutes later
than at present.
• . _

SOUTH EASTERN RAILWAY.--Some of the most
absurdly ridiculous rumours have lately referred to the
South Eastern Company, which we should in no way have
alluded to but that several contemporaries had noticed
them. The officers in London, and every station on that
extensive line, have actually been besieged by anxious
enquirers, who expected that the engines, carriages, rails,
and all the stock of the company were aboutito be sold,
and the concern wound- up. " The Duke'whimself ap-
plied to the superintendent, Mr. Walter, to know whether,
if he went down to Walmer, he would be able to return
by railway.
.We are able to assure those persons who
have been weak enough to believe that Rothschild was in
possession, and had a person at every station to collect
the money, that the company is not indebted
,to him a
single sixpence, and that any money the compariy borrows
-must be borrowed in no other way than the one prescribed
by Act of Parliament, and repaid under the same re-
strictions. We have reason to believe that the company
was never in so favourable a position as it is at present.
The directors have adopted recently a very extensive plan
of retrenchment, and several useless and extravagant
' officers have been discharged. The greater part of
their new works have been suspended where practi-
cable during the extraordinary pressure in the money
market, which must be much more agreeable to the share-
holders than if they had to respond to calls at such a time.
The report has doubtless arisen from this circumstance,
and while we deplore the necessity for discharging, at this
season of the year, a large number of workmen, who will
find it next to impossible to obtain other employment, we
think the directors shave exercised a very laudable degree
of prudence, and attention to the interests of the share-
holders, in the step they have taken. We believe it may
be confidently stated that arrangements are in progress,
which will effect great changes in the rapidity of continen-
tal intercourse. Baron Rothschild, far from being inimi-
cello the interests of the South Eastern Company, has,
accompanied by the engineer and principal officers of the
-Great Northern Railway of France, recently had several
interviews with Mr. M`Gregor (the chairman) and the
directors of the South Eastern Railway, with a view to
some important movement and united action on the part
of the two companies. It is stated that the railway speed
on the other side of the water is to be increased, and other
changes in the right way are to be brought about. Ano-
ther subject of discussion at these meetings of the French
-i and South Eastern Boards, has been the perfecting ar-
rangements for making one payment through from Paris
to London for passengers, parcels, and merchandise trans-
mitted by the Great Northern of France, the South East-
ern Railway, and the South Eastern and Continental
Steam-ship Companies. We understand that the greatest
desire has been shewn on both sides to carry out this ob-
ject speedily and efficiently, and we are satisfied that the
extended traffic that will be then created, will tend very
beneficially to the interests of the South Eastern Coin-
Pany.— Correspondent

POLITICAL MISCELLANY.

The Queen's speech on the opening of Parliament will
be delivered on the 23d instant.

On Thursday, Mr. Roebuck was presented with a tes-
timonial of £5OO by his late constituents at Bath.
The corporation of London have resolved to petition
parliament to abolish the privilege from arrest enjoyed by
members of the House of Commons.
Viscount Enfield (better known as the Hon. G. S.
Byng) has retired from the secretaryship of the Board of
Control, arid is succeeded by George Cornwall Lewis,
M.P. for Herefordshire.

Mr. James Stephen has retired from the Assistant
Under-Secretaryship of the Colories, and has been ap-
pointed a member of Privy Council. Mr. Merivale,
author of Lectures on Colonisation, has been appointed
to Mr. Stephen's vacant situation.

The Manchester Courier, affected by a peculiar form of
the prevailing panic, asks, " What has become of the
Cobden fund ?" The " managing committee," it is in-
sinuated,.have "managed" to make away with it, and
" doubts and apprehensions" in consequence " beset the
free-trade public."
The Times says that parliament is not convened for a
loan to Ireland, and that no loan will be demanded, the
funds and stores in the hands of government being happily
sufficient for the present need. Indemnity for the " sus-
pension" of the bank charter, it adds, is the sole object
ofiliv November session.
ENGLISH FREE TRADER'S ENCOURAGEMENT
OF FOREIGN MANUFACTURES !—Mr. Letevre, brother
to the Speaker of the House of Commons, and the brother
to a gentleman holding a high office in the Board of
Trade, has invested X 60,000 in a spinning factory at St.
Petcrsburgh. Is this a proof- of the blessings of free
trade ?

INTERVIEW OF THE BIRMINGHAM DEPUTATION WITH
LORD JOHN RUSSELL.--On Thursday, the deputation
appointed at the me ling recently held in Birmingham, in
reference to the financial and commercial condition of the
country, had an interview with Lord John Russell. Mr,
G. F. Muntz, Mr. R. Spooner, Mr. Scholfield, Mr. Ma-
son, Mr. Harlow, and Mr. Salt were the principal speakers,
and they walked into the government pretty handsomely.
Mr. Salt at the close of a powerful speech that must tell
greatly with the country, and which from its open, candid
character, was wortn all the orations we ever heard in
Parliament, required that a large measure of relief should
be immediately given, that money should be freely ad-
vanced at moderate rates on all good securities—and that
meanwhile a full inquiry should be instituted, with a view
to permanent legislation ; and he thought it his duty to
warn his lordship that if the ministers would not give re-
lief he should feel it his duty to apply to her Majesty for
the immediate dismissal of ministers. The minister
would promise nothing.
FREE TRADE AND THE:CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY.
—We should be sorry to affront our readers; by offering
any comment upon the following paragraph, which we find
in the Times of Thursday. All that we shall presume to
do is to hint, civilly, that free trade is in a hobble. like a
detected impostor • and that our contemporary is per-
forming the friendly office of a confederate, by trying to
persuade its enraged dupes that they are sadly mistaken
in supposing they have been cheated :—" Perhaps the
very worst argument of all the bad arguments ever used in
this world is that which is brought against good principles
from any accident or exception that may delay, or
impair, or conceal their effects. Every sot has his
catalogue of temperate. men whom he has survived, and
every shifty vagabond can tell you of honest and hard-
working plodders who attained not to riches or honour.
The grandest policies have been thwarthed for a time, and
the divinest surmises of human sagacity have suffered
their periods of contempt. The chapter of accidents is
the Bible of the fool. It supplies him with a text against
everything good, or great, or wise. At any vicious and
casual impulse he can trump up a petty induction to es-
tablish some rule of selfishness or extravagance. He can
demonstrate the dangers of heroism, the cost of liberality,
the fallibility of prudence, or the utter precariousness of
all results whatever. Hence when the question of free-
trade came fairly before the legislative sense of the nation,
we deprecated any predictions of early end unqualified
benefit. We said tile question required a long run to
prove it. It was not in the power of man to command
success." This very edifying homily is followed by at-
tacks upon Mr. Bankes, the Earl of Winchilsea, and Mr.
Blackstone, who, with many others, have had the audacity
to declare that we may read the history of free-trade, as
far as it is yet written. in the present deplorable condi-
tion of the country. " Fine words butter no parsnips."

THE LATE UNDER-SECRETARY FOR THE COLONIES.—
The Morning Chronicle of Monday contained a laudatory
notice of the late Mr. James Stephen, on his retirement
from the Colonial-office. Next day the following rather
more correct sketch appeared in the same paper :—" We
have no desire to do injustice to the right hon. gentleman.
Mr. Stephen is undoubtedly a man ofvery great intellectual
power; his mind has been highly cultivated ; his views are
frequently original and always worthy of consideration ; his
information is varied and extensive ; and his style of literary
composition is rhetorical and glittering. He failed in the Co-
loniahoffice, and injured both this country and its colonies,
not from want of ability, and notfrom absence ofopportunity
toserve them, but because he had been e located in ahollow,
insincere, presumptuous, selfish, and intolerant school, and
became master of that school. Craft, policy, intrigue, jea-
lousy, and chicanerywere the characteristics of the Colonial
Office during Mr. Stephen's long direction of it. No one
connected with it had, till lately, confidence in its justice,
its honour, its integrity, or its generosity : the colonies
feared it; the colonists hated it; merchants connected
with the colonies despised it ; and every one who knew
aught of its mechanism attributed its defects, its faults;
its crimes to Mr. James Stephen. Some of the ablest
statesmen .of the day were its chiefs whilst Mr. Stephen
was Under Secretary—Lord Ripon, Lord Stanley, Lord
John Russell. Mr. Gladstone, for example ; but all failed ;
signally and disastrously failed therein. These statesmen
failed, because success under our present colonial system is
not within the range of possibilities or of human ability, for
it is a system that teases, irritates, worries, and overgoverns
the colonies; and of that system Mr. Stephens was the
life, whence it moved, breathed, and had its being. No
one in our time had such ample opportunities of seeing
and feeling its evil consequences : he saw and felt them in
rebellions in Canada, in Caffre wars at the Cape, in war
and insolvency in New Zealand, in crimes abhorent to
human nature in Van Dieman's Land, in ruin and devas-
tation in New South Wales, in the gradual extinction of
capital in the West Indies, in dissatisfaction and animosity
in every colony and in every colonist. But experience
taught him nothing ; he persisted in the system which a
stroke of his pen, or one generous thought, might have
altered ; and he leaves the system rampant in mischief."

CHEAP SUGAR.

(To the Editor of the Times.)

Szn.,—Your talented correspondent, Jacob Omnium,
has described what he saw in Cuba, at the commence-
ment of this year. As I was at that time in Jamaica, will
you allow me to state, as a contrast, what I saw there,
though my powers of description are so spiritless when
compared with his, as the proceedings under free labour
are when compared with those under the slave driver,
armed with whip, sword, and bloodhounds. Five weeks
after Christmas, I was in the parish of St. Mary's, which
once produced more sugar than any other in the island,
on my way to visit a gentleman cultivating his own estate.
iblmemi
pnergenspt
sieiooenunlwioahnr
mtb
tfe
aobt uetnchadeu the
time.ss taa
st
On
naonfi there,eayrfftarhioreasydnl apds
asueogd.tr
ea.
veral estates on which there had been no work done since
great
s
rClgwmsoaeorfhoycienc:hrt.:,kisssiasrt
ignoinonardi.
visnodti
e,
taiplipritsni:slesnioe:iogest.
ppurwdsabl geereoel
wei leewst
drithouni
oenarnesnttegiiwnir
anaotseqgnrh.aaudenot6: trudibeaaest.
adtpkr
aynei
Iwn,ec whetherb,
oxuga porsltrtakittfi bleietn,
oado:ebun,aosltdnytantialndghtyactoemi
hry adewltrt
hi
occasionally
dhkti
possibility
Hubi
ecateols.
gtndi
ugeeet
n
if
they had spent all their money). I found that the gen-
tleman I had come to visit was, if possible, worse off than
his neighbours, as he bad more canes that required cut-
ting. My host was a gentleman who, after some years in
the army, had undertaken the management of his own
estate, and had resided on it, constantly working harder,
as I have been told and believe, than any agriculturist in
England ever works ; yet lie was utterly unable to carry it
on in a profitable manner from want of labour. He told
me that if lie had forty Africans he could do well ; as it
was he feared he should soon be obliged to give it up.
On the best situated estates in this parish the rate of
wages is ls. 6d. a-day : the labourers will only work five
days in the week, and take a month's holiday at Christ-
mas, and a fortnight after the Ist of August to com-
memorate emancipation. They are of course quite re-
gardless as to whether the canes are ripe or not at these
seasons. Imagine an English farmer, with fine crops on
the ground. yet unable to reap them from the want of la-
bourers ; then, tell this man that he has to compete with
what he delights to call the " serfs " on the continent,
and forbid him to import any of these serfs to work for
him •, you will have then a faint notion of the hardships of
the Jamaica planter, now that he is made to compete with
the cuba slave-holder. His only hope lies in procuring a
supply of African immigrants. The British government
will not allow him to send a ship to procure them for him-
self, and has as yet done nothing to assist him. It ap-
pears that one vessel, the Growler, is taking labourers to
Guiana and Trinidad. Unfortunately, at the time of her
equipment, we had no governor in Jamaica to represent
our claims. On my arrival in England, having left every
planter in Jamaica crying out for more immigrants, I was
told by Mr. Hawes that it appeared we did not want more
labourers in Jamaica. True we had declined to pay for

any more expensive and often useless Coolies, but on the
subject of African immigration I never heard but one opi-
nion. In fact the experiment has been tried in the parish
of St. Thomas-in-the-East, where nearly all the Africans
that have arrived are settled, and this is the only really
thriving parish in the island. Mr. M'Cornock, the Custos
of the parish, says that their prosperity is entirely owing
to this cause. Perhaps, as a proprietor, I take a preju-
diced view in thinking that we are hardly treated with
fairness by government ; it seems to me that it would be
even cheaper in the end to put us in a position to compete
with other sugar growers, than to ruin us and then as in
the case of the Mauritius planters, pension us off with
£150,000 a-year, for what is done this year for that island
will require to be done again ; and if ruin is to constitute
this claim I am much mistaken if Jamaica will not soon
have an equal right. I think, with the following small
concessions, we might, in the hope of a rebellion in Cuba,
struggle on for some years. If we do not obtain them.
the sooner we abandon the unequal struggle with slave-
grown sugar the better.
1. A large supply of African labourers.
2. A reduction of the duty on rum.
3. A moderate protection on sugar, to diminish gradu-
ally for Us years.

Your obedient servant,
A PLANTER.