The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-09-28 00:00:00

The whole business is indeed a pure piece of vile
whiggery, and metely a new edition of their hatreflof
the fifty pound clause in the reform bill. If the fifty
pound tenants, in the agricultural districts, were in fa-
vour
of the Whigs, they would be lauded as a noble
race of sturdy,lsound-principled, honest, old English-
men, and as the excellent of the earth; but as they
have too much sense and too much honesty 'to be at all
inclined to whiggery, they are every thing that ;s vile
and contemptible, and are at once to be rubbed of their
rights and privileges as Englishmen. If, however, the
whigs continue their agitation upon either the corn
laws or the fifty pound clause, we would seriously ad •
vise the agriculturists throughout the country to meet
them with the cry of "justice to the farmers," and in-
sist upon having "equal rights," and " equal privi-
leges," with the inhabitants of the towns. Instead of
being contented with the marked injustice of the fifty
pound franchise, let the farmers demand that every.
man paying ten pounds rent in the country be entitled
to a vote as well as the ten-pounder in a town. The
persons who pay ten pounds a-year rent in a country
village, are far more respectable and intelligent men,
incomparably better subjects, pay more taxes, and oc-
casion the government much less trouble, than—the
ten-pound householders of the town. Besides, while
the countrymen are a sober, quiet, steady, peaceable,
and moral set of men, the townspeople are compara-
tively an ignorant, depraved vicious, discontented, pro-
fligate, and troublesome crew. Let the whip, there-
fore, mind what they are about, for if the agriculturists
should insist upon..." justice" and "equal rights," they
could make out a case clear and unquestionable to
every honest and intelligent Englishman.

A FEW WORDS ON MODERN FASHIONS

(From the John Bull.)

Rarely do we presume to venture upon such difficult and
intricate subjects as " ladies' fashions" and " gentlemen's
fashions;" but the cock up bonnets, wonderfully long petti-
coats, and innumerable scarfs, now io vogue with our
\remises, Junos, and Minervas, and the broad brims of our
Apollos, Narcissuses, and Hylases, tickle our fancy so much,
that for once we must say a word about these habiliments.

Tastes differ ; still we think it is generally, if not univer-
sally, granted, that most costumes look better upon persons
who are not what is called squat. And—although we hear
that the second of the three articles of female dress which we
have named, was recently designed expressly for one who is
not tall—the fashions we have now to treat upon, do certainly
not become figures that are dumpy.
There are those whom almost any dress becomes, and who—
" Most adorn'd when unadorn'd the most— .

look best when least dressed. To such a one, grace shaping
her limbs, and beauty decking her face, the aspiring, and
apparently ascending, bonnet of the present day does not,
because it cannot do, much mischief. But surrounding a
little round face, at the top of a little round body, this bonnet
does there look exceedingly droll and pert. Its bow, or
hoop, or gable end, is exactly in the shape of a horse's collar,
turned topsy-turvy. Indeed, it seems to have been revived
from a passage in Sir John Suckling's old Ballad on a Wed-
ding, which passage runs thus:—

" And to say truth (for out it must),
It looks like the great collar (just)
About our young colt's neck."

The extraordinar3 length of the gowns, sweeping the
ground, and nearly throwing down the ladies who wear them,
and quite making those ladies—instead of stepping " like
an Arab barb, or Andalusian girl"—stumble along in some-
thing between a shuffle and a waddle, "looks horrid" upon
little folks, who, so dressed, are the very living models of
baby's dolls, to whom art has given arms but no legs. This
fashion also, appears to have been taken from Sir John
Suckling's old song:—

".Their toes beneath their petticoats,
Like little mice, pop in and out,
As if they fear'd the light."

Poor dear Horace, writing of his own ladies—we beg par-
don, we don't mean that—but writing of the Roman ladies of
his own time, said,
" Brachia, et vultum, teretesque sums,
Interger laudo."

Were he now here, he might well say " integer" as to the
" terctes suras"—or, perhaps (suspecting they were all thick)
he would say nothing about them—for under the present
rijime, or reign of dress-making, "ankles" are..
" Like the lost Pleiad, seen no more below."

•
The black scarfs, or scarves, which, generally over plain
white muslin, or checked white muslin, nine of every ten of
our ladies have been wearing, and which, passing over the
shoulders, and falling down on each side of the person, give
at once a kind poke to the body, and also throw into high
relief what, using an Anglo-Gallicism, we may term the
"centre-back," have been brought in again from another
example of the modes of former days, recorded and preserved
in some scarce specimens of old Dresden china; which
figures in the inanimate clay are curious little creatures, but
which figures in the living porcelain are far more curious
still—when very short:
The broad brims of the gentlemen—at least of the "leetel
men"—have been borrowed from china-ware too; not in-
deed of foreign, but English manufacture.
A little gentleman, beneath a great broad-brimmed hat,
with two cigars in his mouth, and a great big nose above
them ; teeth large by nature, and yellow by art (the art of
smoking); bushy whiskers;
.a huge " neck-cloth"--no, that
is vulgar— a huge " satin scarf," with spiders, dandelions,
butterflies, black-beetles, or daffadillies upon it, which, were
it not as pour iu texture us it is rich in finery, would look like
a piece cut off the -skirt of his great-grandmother's gown;
a menagerie of tigers and a museum of caterpillars on his
waistcoat; a green or brown coat, bound with silk, and orna-
mented with embossed buttons, and over that a "Macintosh."'
Trousers, not of leather, but of kind of cloth, called " buck-
skin," deeply fluted with broad stripes, like the pidarsin the
Colonnade—this little gentleman having, moreover, very
short legs, looks to our eyes, exactly like a little locomotive
past lie china-cottage.
The wide brim of his hat forms the long eaves of the cot-
tage; his large nose the porch; his bushy whiskers the
shrubbery; the finery about his neck and chest the dahlias
and hollyhocks, and interesting insects of such a " rural
retreat ;" the drab or grey " Macintosh," the drab or grey
walls of the " cottage ornee ; the cigars, the chimneys, and
their smoke the fume, with this difference, that pastiles are
aromatic, and tobacco is peculiarly abominable,
As we were writing that word tobacco, a coincidence struck
us which we have never before seen remarked. Everybody
knows Samuel Johnson's celebrated saying, that " the Devil
was the first whig." Nearly as many persons are aware that
Ben Jonson traced tobacco to the same origin. But, from
the results of the two researches never having been men-
tioned in combination, this coincidence between the two
Johusons has escaped observation.
Apologising for this digresssion from a subject upon the
awfulness of which we have to apoligise for having entered,
we would observe that as the present " fashions," particu-
larly when carried to an extreme, are exceedingly unsuitable
to diminutive people, ladies and gentlemen who are below the
middle size would do well to adopt the happy medium. Per-
haps we might add, that that happy medium would be any-
thing rather than a disadvantage, even to those who are not
" under the standard."

Duty has been paid on about 25,0(X) quarters of corn in
bond, in this town, s►nce Saturday last.—Newcastle Journal.

THE HERRING FISHERIES.—The "harvest of fins" has
this season been most abundant. At all the principal sta-
tions the take of herrings has been one of the best that has
occurred now for a number of years; and but rarely has the
fish been of a better quality. One hundred and fifty crans
per boat, constitutes a fair average fishery; but this number
has been exceeded in so many instances, that, perhaps, more
boats are above than under the maximum. As regards fins
the Scotsman describes the present as the most successial
season ever remembered, some a the boats belonging to New-
haven having averaged from £BO to £lOO per man. Nor has
the supply of red been behind that of white fish, considering
the disproportion of the elements they move in when captured
by man—salt and fresh waters. If the beginning was bad,
the middle and back end have been the very reverse. The
poor Shetlanders, it is to be hoped have been able to take
advantage of this prolific season by the proximity of the
shoals to these islands; if so the cry of distress will be hushed,
and with a proportionate share of land produce, there will be
food enough throughout the land for man and, beast.—t\eu•-
castle Journal.

ESTIMATION OP ENGLISH CHAItACTER.—The Levant has
always been overrun by Italian and French adventurers,
from whom the Turks, till within these few ,years, formed ail
their ideas of Europeans, confounding every nation under
the term " rrangi;" the English they have now learned to
distinguish from the herd, to respect and fear us, to look
upon us as wiser than themselves, and to esteem, I believe,
if they do not like us. "The word of an Englishman" is
almost proverbial in Syria. In fact, a singular change is
taking place in the character of the people; prejudice is gra-
dually wearing away.—Lord Lindsay's letter on Egypt,
MENTAL CAPACITY IN MEN AND WOMEN.—II any one
should contend, that women in general have the same degree
of mental capacity as men, we ask him to show us a single
instance of a woman possessing first-rate mental power in
any of the numerous branches of science or art? Let him
look through the history of all nations from the beginning
of the world, and then tell us if, out of all the female sex, a'
single Moses, Homer, Lycurgus, ./Eschylus, Plato, Aristotle,
Archimedes, Phidias, Demosthenas, Cicero, Virgil, Dante,
Michael Angelo, Raphael, Kepler, Galileo Cervantes, Ba-
con, Shakspeare, Milton, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz,
Newton, or Handel can be found! In short, can he produce
one'single specimen of any of the great original creations of
genius which was done by a woman?—British and Foreign
Review.
DELICACIES.—"Sith a rabbit pie, Bill?" exclaimed Char-
ley Bates, disclosing to view a huge pasty; "sitch delicate
creturs, with sitch tender limbs, Bill, that the wery bones
melt in your mouth, and there's no occasion to pick 'em ;
half a pound of seven and sixpenny peen, so precious strong
that if you mix it with boiling water, it'll go nigh to blow the
lid of the tea-pot off; a pound and a half of moist sugar that
the nuggets didn't work at all at afore they got.it to sitch a
pitch of goodness—oh, no! two half-quartern brans; pound
of best fresh; piece of double Glo'ster, and, to wind up all,
some of the richest sort you ever lushed." Uttering this last
panegyric, Master Bates produced from one of his extensive
pockets a full-sized wine-bottle, carefully corked, while Mr.
Dawkins at the same instant poured out a wine-glassful of
raw. spirits from the bottle he carried, which the invalid, Mr.
Bill Sikes, tossed down his throat without a moment's hesita-
, lion.—Boz, in Bentley's Miscellany for August.

NEVER MARRY A RA K E.—We say to every woman—
" Never marry a rake." Let him he the most handsome, the
richest, the most elegant. and pleasantest of men, he is a bad
bargain, even with a coronet on his bead and a county in his
rent roll. Alter all, peace in the married state, is only to be
found in virtuous and healthy children ; and if a wife would
have examplary sons. and happy, prudent, and heart-pure
daughters, let her never look fur that in the offspring of that
man. whose life, at the time when the mind, brain, and con-
stitution are being formed, has been passed in the profligate
debaucheries of modern society. Until women remember,
when they are asked in marriage, that they are not only to
become wives but mothers—that a poor, plain, sober, and vir-
tuous man possesses gifts which must produce far greater fu-
ture happiness than all the wealth and rank of Crcesus with-
out these qualities, and the domestic felicity is to be found at
the fireside, not in that carriage or ball-room, society will never
advance in the direction best calculated to secure its ultimate
improvement.—. Sidney Smith's Phrenology.
THE BOSCHM AN AND THE LlON.—"when you are out
hunting," 1 said, "and come unexpectedly on a lion, what
do you do?" "It is no use to run away," answered the
Boschman, "the lion would soon catch me, if he is awake and
• L. • • 1-“.

I continued; "if he has nothing to eat?" "Yew," was the
reply. " You sometimes share what the lion has got, if he
is eating whon you see him l" " Yes." ''"ShOw me how
you get part of the lion's food." On which the old man,
taking up his assegay, and walking backwards and forwards
in frgut of a bush where a lion was supposed to be devouring
a zebra or buck, and brandishing, but never throwing his
lance, he addressed the lion thus, whilst he continued his to
and fro walk—" What have you come here for? Have you
got anything to it ? You made such a noise I thought you
had got something. Don't think to come here and quarrel
with me, but go off now and get flesh." Thus walking and
talking for some time, he at last sits down facing the lion,
when the astonished animal probably moves off, and leaves
the remainder of his prey to the boschman.—Alexander's
African Expedition of Discovery.