The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-05-11 00:00:00

NEO.US,

Earl Fitzwilliam is opposed to the immediate emancipation
of the slaves. He refused to take the chair. or be present, at an
anti-slavery meeting at Peterborough last week.
Lord Francis Egerton, who has been suffering for the last six
weeks from a violent attack of gout, which incapacitated him
from attending to his parliamentary duties, is now convalescent.
His lordship has been sojourning at Bath fur the benefit of the
waters.

LONDON AND SOUTHAMPTON RAILWAY.—This line to
Woking Common is to be opened to the public on the lo inst.
On the 14th there is to be an excursion along the line, of the
proprietors and their friends; and, we understand, some fifteen
or twenty of the proprietbrs resident in Manehester intend pro-
ceeding to London to participate in it.
OLD SPORTSMEN.-Sir George Hewitt, who has attained the
great age of 93, joined the queen's stag-hounds last week, with
all the ardour of early das, and was iu at the death.

Christie and Manson sold the other day, in the dispersion of
The picthres and drawings of the late Mr. Vine, the original
sketch of the Chelsea Pensioners, by Sir David- Wilkie, for
£199105. The artist disposed of this sketch in the first instance
for £5O.

We sincerely rejoice to learn, that the miners employed in
sinking for coal at Workington have this week come at an
eleven•feet band of metal, Othich they are now using every ex-
ertion to tvin, and With every prospect of success.—Whitehaven
Herald.

A few days ago, an English lady at St. Omer brought into
her bedchamber a number of aromatic plants in flower. fresh
from the conservatory. During the night she was so affected
by the scent, that it became necessary to call in a physician,
who had great difficulty in recovering her front a state of insen-
sibility into which she 'had fallen.
RA ILROA DS a. CANA I.S.—The proprietors of the Grand Junc-
tion Railway have made offers to the manufacturers and others
to carry goods between Birminghani and Liverpool, at is. 6d.
a cwt., being exactly the sum charged by the canal, the trade
of which must be superseded if the tonnage dues ace not imute,
diately lowered.-IVoicester Journal.
TRYING YOUR LUCK BY A di:ay.—We understand the Mid-
land Counties' Railway Company offered Mr. F. Needhain
£l5OO for the land required by them a few hours before the in-
quiry took place. Mr. N. claimed £2,300 10s. The jury
awarded him £1260. Loss by going to a jury, £2lo.—Leicester
liercurg.—[There would be the expenses besides.]

STATVOF TRADE.—We believe the demand for twist was
somewhat slacker yesterday, though we did not hear of any
lower prices being submitted to. In power-loom cloth, and es-
pecially of gdbd qualities, there was a fair demand ; and gene-
rally, we may say, there is a pretty large business doing in ma-
nufactured goo%is. The fine weather, we understand, as might
be expected, has brought an accession of country buyers into
the market.—Manchester Guardian.

Hosais.ry REWARDED.—On Saturday, a young man named
Clarke, a weaver and teacher amongst the general baptists,
picked up a purse, which he,.saw contained a large quantity of
bank notes. Without exanfining the contents, he asked a gen-
tleman walking with a lady through the market, whether he had
lust anything: the gentleman felt, with some anxiety, in his
pocket, and found that his purse, containing £6,000 in notes,
was gone, on which the young man restored It to him. The
gentleman asked Clarke how he could serve him; but he refus-
ed to accept money, on which the gentleman went to the book-
sealers, and purchased for him a large quantity of books.—
Halifax Express.
JUDGE PAIIK.—If some are, under existing legulations,
im-
prisnued too long, others find loopholei by which to escape with i
a shorter term than they merit, so that thus the scales of justice
are balanced. We shall relate an instance of such an escape,
.which, as it is related to us, occurred recently at the Central
Criminal Court. A learned judge, whose religiotts bias is no-
toriously strong, was presiding there in the trial of a man char-
ged with stealing "a faggot." The case was as clear as day ;
more than one witness had seen the prisoner enter certain
premises, and carry therefrom certain property that was not his
own ; but this was not enough fur lawyers. They must, of
course, bring forward a faggot, and call upon the witness to
prove its identity. The faggot was unscrupulously identified,
upon which the learned judge, While making his note of the
circumstance, said (as he thought to himself—but he was in the
habit occasionally of soliloquising in rather to loud a key),
" Why, how can he swear that's the same faggot ?—one fag-
got's as much like another as one egg's like another." This
was heard by Mr. C. the counsel for the prisoner, who
was seated just below his lordship; he instantly started up. and,
recalling the witness, said, "You have sworn that this is the
same faggot yousaw the prisoner take."—" Yes."—" Why, how
can you swear that it's the same ? One faggot's as much like
another as one egg's like another." The learned judge dropped
his pen, and fixed his eyes expressly upon the council. '- Mr.
P." said his lordship, in a very toletnn tone, somewhat tremul-
ous with emotion and awe—" Mr. P. I see the finger of God in
this case. That very reflection, in the very form of words you
employed. was passing through my mind at the very moment it
occurred to yours. 1 certainly shall nut let thiS•case go to the
jury upon such evidence ;" and the cage, as our in fo'rmentsaith.,
was stopped.—Monthly Chronicle. [This anecdote is literally
true; but the editor of the Chronicle is mistaken as to the place
in which the circumstance occurred, which was at Salford, and
not in the Central Criminal Court: the patties were Sir James
Allan Park and Mr. Charles Phillips.]
STEAM NAVIGATION WITH INDIA.—The pacha of Egypt
contemplates laying down a railroad between Cairo and Suez,
and, it is said, requires pecuniary aid from our government.
Let it be granted. A footing in Egypt of this nature would be
Invaluable, since at all times it would give us a right of passage.
Shez may be considered the most eligible terminal post for the
transmission of merchandiSe and phsseugers. The upper part
of the Red Sea cresents no greater impediments to a steamer
than the lower. If the railroad is laid down, all difficulties be-
tween Suez and Cairo disappear; but if not, as the distance is
only 32 miles, and as it is as level as any road in England, we
have only to establish wheeled vehicles on it, which would have
beet, long since done had the country been in European hands.
The rising of the Nile offers no impediment to the conveyance
of goods through Egypt; but by filling the canal which connects
one of its principal branches with the poet of Alexandria, the
communication is maintained by water between Cairo and that
city at other periods of the year. A passage by the Euphrates
has been held to possess superior advantages to that by the Red
Sea. Though the difficulties of this route may be great,, yet,
if surmounted, should war Or pestilence interfere with the Red
• Sea route, we should have another at our command, and this
line might benefit and extend our commerce in the countries
through which it leads; and here we that' mention the fact that
the partial opening of trade by the late expedition has already
inure than doubled that of every portion of the Levant at all
connected with its operations.— Wellstead's Travels in Arabia.

CAGE _Btftps, -Of all the unhallowed instances of bird•in-
carceration (not even excepting the stupid cruelty- of shutting
up a robbin in an aiiary,) the condemnation of the sky-lark to
perpetual imprisonment is surely the most repugnant to every
good feeling. The bird, whilst his happy brethren ate corralling
far ttp in the sky, as if they would storm hea.venitself with their
rush of song, just at the joyous season—
'• When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear,"
is doomed to pine in some dingy street There, in a den, with
a solid wooden roof, painted green outside, and white, glaring
white, within—which, in bitter mockery, is called a sky.-lark's
cage, ke keeps winnowing his wretched wings, and beating his
breast against the wires, panting for one—only one—upward
flight into the free air To delude him into the recollection that
there are such places as the fields, which he is beginning to for-
get, they cut what they call turf—a turf dug up in the vicinity
of this smoke-canopied Babel of bricks, redolent of all its sooty
abominations, and bearing. all the marks of the thousand of tons
of fuel which are now suffered to escape up our chimneys, and
fall down again upon our noses and into our lungs,—tons, which,
when our coal mines begin to shrink alarminglv-jtis no laugh-
ing matter, the time must come—some future A rnott will, per-
haps too late, enable the public to save, while he, at the same
time, bestows upon them the blessing of a pure atmosphere.
Well, this abominal lump of dirt is presented to the skylark as
a refreshment for his parched feet, longing for the fresh morning
dews. Miserable as the winged creature is, be feels that there
is something resembling grass under him; and then the fond
wretch looks upwards and warbles, and expects his mate. is it
possible to see and hear this desecration of instinct unmoved ?
and yet we see it every spring, and moreover we have our So-
ciety for Preventing Cruelty to Animals..—New Monthly May.

THEORIES of METALLIFEROUS VEINS:—M. Becquerel, who
is well known to have long preceded Messrs. Fox and Crosse
in the production of crystalline substances by the action of elec-
tricity, in the fifth volume of his treatise, De L'Electricite et du
Mcuptitisme gives a chapter to a discussion of the opinions of
Mess's. Fox and Henwood on the origin of metalliferous veins.
After entering at great length upon the merits of the arguments'
on each side, he gives his decision decidedly in Mr. Henwood's
favour, and against the electrical theory proposed by Mr. Fox.
THE LORD HIGH ADMIRAL'S HAT ON A BEADLE.—On
Easter Monday, the parishioners of St. Mary-le-Strand elected
as their beadle, Mr. West, the late toaster of their poor-h6use ;
and, strange to record, Mr. Cowell, the purchaser of the 'ward-
robe of William the Fourth, has sold to the parish authorities
the Lord High Admiral's hat, with its gorgeous gold-lace trap-
pings as worn by the king, so that the hat which once graced
and encircled the brows of majesty will in future bedizen the
sconce of a metropolitan parish-beadle.
Lary OF LIBEL—An action was brought in-the Small Debt
Court, Perth, last week, by a shopkeeper iu Perth, against
a residenter in Bridgend for solatium and damages, on the
-ground that the defendant on the Bridge of Perth lately, in the
hearing of- a number of individuals, called the pursuer a villain
and a blackguard, and used other opprobrious epithets towatdi
him. The case having gone to proof without objection, Mr.
Sheriff Barclay threw out a doubt as to the language libelled
being actionable. The proof being concluded, the facts de-
posed to were—that two dogs bad been fighting on the .bridge,
one of which belonged to a brother of the pursner, who Avis
present at the time, upon which the defender, who is a con-
stable, seized the pursuer by the collar, and called him a low
blackguard and a villain, and said that he kept fighting dogs
for annoying people, and that he ought to be put in gaol. After
the proof a discussion took place as to whether the language
libelled and proved to have been used by the defender was ac
tionable. The sheriff held that it was not actionable, and
stated that if he had any doubt on the general question, still he
would not have awarded damages in the circumstances of the
Hesent case. The action was accordingly dis►nissed. In
giving his opinio❑ the sheriff observed that the term blackguard,
was one generally used among the vulgar without reflection,
and without any intention of casting a stain on one's character.
Or it meant one of the 42d regiment, who we're all black
guards, but amongst whom there were many gentlemen. As
for the term villain it was originally one of respect.—Perth
Courier.

Surctrift.—On Wednesday morning,. Mrs. Brumtnitt, the wife
of Joshua Brummitt, who lives in Stanley-street, Salford, and
is one of the turnkeys at the New Bailey, carried him some cof-
fee into his bedroom, in pursuance of a request he had made to
her. She did not find him in, but heard him moan in an adjoin-
ing room. She tried the door, but it was fast. She then sent
for Mr. Woolley', their landlord, who came and broke the door
open, and found the unfortunate man laid on the floor with his
throat frightfully cut, and endeavouring to stop the effusion of
blood by his pocket handkerchief. Mr. Hancock, the surgeon,
was immediately sent for, but Brtiminitt was quite dead when
he arrived; and Mr. Hancock said that if assistance bad been
rendered immediately, the gash was so deep that it was impossi-
ble that the man's life could have been saved. An inquest was
held on the body the same day, and the jury found a verdict of
temporary insanity. The deceased had been in a desponding
mood for some time, and had been a few days absent from his
employment on account of a slight illness.
STEAM NAVIGATION IN TOIIKEY.—The steam navigation, of
which Constantinople has become the central point in Turkey,
is constantly increasing. The Austrian Danube Steam Company
now take the lead, and are erecting extensive factories at The-
ra pia, where their numerous vessels may be refitted and repaired.
They have recently established a branch steam-vessel between
thisr
wrt
iannarkl
iSn agl
immenseon i ca. Ti The
profits,
fi t s :is steamerseacohnvt(h)3e i a izer zyo d
a ve station
been
ae
fully loaded with merchandise, and have carried also about 300
passengers each. The sultan has refused to' ratify a promise
which had been given for a finnan to permit an English steam=
vessel to carry Frank passengers up and down the Bosphorus.
The porte is building two steam-vessels; but v.hen they will be
completed, it is impossible to say.