The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-07-31 00:00:00

SELECT EXTRACTS.

COMPARATIVE INTELLIGENCE OF THE HIGHER AND
LOWER CLASSES.—The most essential point, however, in
which the lower classes have advanced upon the higher, is
that of personal acquirements. is it not in early life that
the education of the lower orders is better than that of their
superiors. There is generally great anxiety manifested on
the part of the higher orders, that the attainments of their
sons and daughters should correspond with their station in
society; and the wish of the parent is usually seconded by
the talents and disposition of the child. It is before and
after they have reached maturity, that the youth of the
aristocrasy begi❑ to lose ground in the race of emulation.
The sons of the nobility and great landed proprietors are no
longer required to discharge various public functions, which
in ruder periods they were wont to do, while such numbers
of them are every where to be seen, that their rank alone
does not place them on that eminence which it formerly com-
manded. Their ardour is thus damped for honourable ex-
ertion on the one hand, while the blandishments of case and
luxury allure them on the other. As they advance in life,
the management of property, the cares of a family, and the
various duties of society, demand su much of their time, that
it requires extraordinary skill and resolution to reserve any
considerable portion of it at their own disposal. In the
meanwhile, art and science are daily diminishing that pro-
portion of the community which subsists by mere manual
labour; books, instruction, and travelling, are more within
the reach of all; and those who must live by their own ex-
ertions, or whose means debar them from expensive plea-
sures, are induced and compelled to improve themselves with
unremitting assiduity. The result of this indolence on the
one hand, and diligence on the other, is, that on nine out of
ten occasions, where extraordinary proficiency or informa-
tion really is demanded, the higher classes are surpassed by
those who were originally their inferiors, not only in birth,
butin education, and perhaps also in capacity.—Quarterly

VISIT TO THE SITE OF SYRACUSE.—NO spot which I ever
beheld ever illustrated the transitory nature of earthly things
more strongly than modern Syracuse. Historians have dis-
tinctly described the vast magnitude of the ancient city,
Enough vestiges remain to confirm the truth of their state-
ments. The harbour is still in existence; which originally
made Syracuse the emporium of the world; but the harbour
only contains a few fishing boats and speronaras, and the
Syracuse which now exists is but the wreck and mockery of
departed greatness. You cast your eyes on the rising ground
at the upper end of the harbour. Where is Neapolis? Where
is Tyche? Where Achradina ? There they assuredly stood;
but what is now there? Absolutely nothing! On the other
side of the bay you distinguish the Doric shafts of the tem-
ple of Jupiter Olympus- the very temple which contained,
the statue from which Dionysius the elder purloined the
mantle of gold. How deep into the past do these remem-
brances carry your thoughts! Modern Syracuse is confined
to the small peninsula on which formerly stood that portion
of the ancient city which was called Ortygia, as if London
were reduced to the Tower and Tower-hill, or Paris to the
island in the middle of the Seine. The neck of laud which
unites length
thoef
smallharbour.the peninsula to
* t*h e
Icvo
traversedcoast divides
the
what was Syracuse, as it might be setting out from Shore-
ditch to go by the Strand to Westminster, traversing a space
that was once no less crowded with houses and thronged with
men. The whole is now a rocky common, only frequented
by a few sheep and goats; nothing to remind you of the past,
except the grooves here and there worn by the chariot wheels
in the rock, indented lines, that trace the foundations of
houses, and the occasional gurgling of water, when you hit
upon the course of the stream which is brought by the aque-
duct. Here and there, in the wide extent, are a few patches
of cultivation, and one or two modern farms, but nothing an-
cient; and you puzzle your brains to conceive what can have
become of the temples and the palaces, the vast piles of mar-
ble and stone, the materials the very dust, of the London of
antiquity,—The Normans in Sicily, 6y Mr. W. G. Kniglit.

CIRCASSIAN WARPARE.—UnIike Europeans, they never
fight in a line, but in bodies of about twenty or thirty at a
time,—their common practice being to fall unawares upon
the enemy, and harass them day and night during their
march. After making a charge, they disperse, then rally,
and return again to the charge, when their exhausted foe
supposes them to have fled; and as they are certain to kill
immediately, or wound mortally, those whom they bit, and
never fail to avail themselves of a good position, these cir-
cumstances combined with their desperate bravery and per•
severance, render them, perhaps, the most formidable anta-
gonists to be found in any country.—Travels in the Western
Caucasus.

STEAM-ENGINE BOILERS.—The following method, em-
ployed by Captain Kennedy, commanding her Britannic
Majesty's steamer Spitfire, to prevent the incrustations or
deposits of saline matter on the inside of the boilers of steam-
engines, has been communicated by him in a letter to M.
Gautier, of the French consulate at Malta. Captain Ken-
nedy recommends, after having well cleaned the boilers and
tubes, to coat those parts of their interior surface most ex-
posed to the action of the fire with a mixture composed in the
proportion of eighteen pounds of melted suet and three
pounds of powdered black lead. He states, that the ad-
vantages of this application have been fully tested by C 71,2-
tience, that the Lords of the Admiralty have resolved, (oat
all the government steamers shall, for the future, be provided
with a sufficient quantity of the above mentioned ingredi-
ents.—French 'paper.
THE ARABIAN KING AND PoET.—A whimsical story is
told of a king who denied to poets those rewards to which
usage had almost given them a claim. This king, whose name
is not recorded, had the faculty of retaining in his memory
an ode after having only once heard it; and had a memlook
who conl.l repeat an ode which he had twice heard, and a
female slave who could repeat one that she bad heard thrice.
Whenever a poet came to compliment him with a panegyri-
cal ode, the king used to promise him, that if he found his
verses to be his original composition, he would give him a sum
of money equal in weight to what they were written upon.
The poet, consenting, would recite his ode; and the king
would sac, " It is not new, for I have known it some years,"
and would repeat it as he had heard it; after which he would
add, "And this memlook also retains it in-his memory;" and
would order the memlook to repeat it ; which, having heard
it twice, from the poet and the king, he would do. The king
would then say to the poet, " I have also a female slave who
can repeat it ;" and ordering her to do so, stationed behind
the curtains, she would repeat what she had thus thrice heard:
so the l'oet would go away empty-handed. The famous poet
El-Asina'ee, having heard of this proceeding, and guessing
the trick, determined upon outwitting the king • and accord-
ingly composed an ode made up of very difficult words : but
this was not his only preparative measure; another will be
presently explained; and a third was, to assume the dress of
a Bedawee, that he might not be known, covering his face.
the eyes only excepted, with a litham (a piece of drapery) in
accordance with the custom of the Arabs of the desert. Ttius
disguised, he went to the palace, and, having asked permis-
sion, entered, and saluted the king, who said to him, "Whence
art thou, 0 brother of the Arabs! and what dostthou desire?"

The poet answered, " May God increase the power of the
king! lam a poet of such a tribe, and have composed an
ode in praise of our lord the sultan."—" 0 brother of the
Arabs !" said the king, " hast thou heard of our condition ?"
" No," answered the poet; " and what is it, 0 king of the
age?"—" It is," replied the king, " that if the ode be not
thine, we give thee no reward; and if it be thine, we give thee
the weight in money of what it is written upon."—" How,"
said El-Asma'ce, "should I assume to myself that which be-
longs to another, and, knowing, too that lying before kings
is one of the basest of actions? But I agree to this condition,
0 our lord the sultan !" So he repeated his ode. The king,
perplexed, and unable to remember any of it, made a sign to
the memlook—but he had retained nothing; and called to
the female slave, but she also was unable to repeat a word.
" 0 brother of the Arabs !" said he, " thou bast spoken truth,
and the ode is thine without doubt: I have never heard it

before; produce, therefore, what it is written upon, and we
will give thee its weight in money, as we have promised."—
" Wilt thou," said the poet, " send one of the attendants to
carry it ?" "To carry what ?" asked the king; "is it not
upon a paper here in thy possession?"—" No, our lord the
sultan," replied the poet; "at the time I composed it, I could
not procure a piece of paper upon which to write it, and could
find nothing but a fragment of a marble column left me by
my father; so I engraved it upon this, and it lies in the court
of the palace." He had brought it, wrapped up, on the back
of a camel. The king. to fulfil his promise, was obliged to
exhaust his treasury; and to prevent a repetition of this trick
(of which he afterwards discovered El-Asina'ee to have been

the author,) in future rewarded the poets according to the
usual custom of kings.—Mr. Lane's Aotes to his New Trans-
lation of the Arabian Nights.
CONDITION OF THE LAPLANDERS.—The condition of the
wandering Laplander forms a singular union of real wealth
with real poverty. To support a family in the " Fjelde," a
flock of from three to four hundred reindeer is necessary.
He who possesses only from one to three hundred must de-
pend for subsistence partly on fishing in the lakes and shoot-
ing, or must betake himself to the coast, or to husbandry in
a fixed situation. The value of a reindeer is about one-third
of that of a cow : it sells for three or four dollars,* and a cow

from nine to twelve; and the meat, skin, and horns of the
one sell as readily as those of the other. A flock of 400 rein-
deer, the minimum which can support a family, supposing
one-fourth of the number to be full grown, and the other 300
to be worth only one-third of their value, must altogether he
equal to a capital of 600 dollurs, or about £l2O. sterling. Yet
the yearly produce of this capital, which is greater than the
value of all the property possessed by three or four families
of the working class in a civilized community, and with
which they would be far removed from want, is insufficient to
support a Laplander, even in a state of extreme privation in
which he habitually lives. This is a striking instance of the
real expense of living in that natural state, as it has been
called, or that barbarous one, in which man consumes what
he produces, and lives independent of the arts of civilized life,
its tastes, and enjoyments. The Laplander uses nothing
which he does not make for himself, except the iron pot for
dressing his victuals, and the piece of coarse cloth which forms
his tent. He consumes nothing but what his reindeer yield
him; his occasional excess in brandy, and his use of tobacco,
are not ordinary indulgences. Yet, without the tastes, and
gratifications of civilized life, or any of its expenses, the Lap-
lander, with the above capital, is in poverty, and destitute of
an assured subsistence. This shows the real expense of that
half•savage life which, from the accounts of emigrants and
travellers in America, we are apt to suppose is the least costly
of any, because it has neither comforts nor luxuries to pay
for, and produces what it consumes. The Laplander's con-
dition is the beau ideal of that sort of life. Five shillings
would undoubtedly purchase all that he uses in a year of
those articles which are not indispensably necessary for exist-
ence; yet a capital which, with their own labour, would
maintain three families in the enjoyment of the comforts and
decencies of civilized life, according to their station, does not
keep him from positive want. The Laplander, who possesses
a thousand or more reindeer, and who is consequently a man
of considerable property, lives in the same way as the poor-
est, enjoys no more of the luxuries of life, and has no higher
tastes or habits to gratify. It is said that very considerable
portions of the silver currency of the country are lost, in con-
sequence of this class of Laplanders hoarding. from genera-
tion to generation, all the money they obtain by the sale of
their surplus produce ; and that the spot in the " Fjelde,"
where the treasure is buried, often cannot be discovered by
heirs.—Lainy's Journal of a Residence in Norway.
* The dollar is valued at 3s. 10d.

INDUSTRY OF A CONVICT.—NEW SOUTH WALES.-Dr.
Lang, in his account of New South Wales, gives a pleasing
picture of the condition of an emancipated servant, on his
beginning the world after his liberation :—" I had occasion
(proceeds our author) to visit the settlement of Illawarra,
about seventy-five miles to the southward of Sydney, in the
month of April, 1830. The journey being too long for a
single day's ride, I had to spend a night by the way. The
house of a magistrate of the territory, whose cordial hospitality
I had repeatedly experienced on former visits to the interior,
lay near my route; but, choosing rather to confer than to re-
ceive a favour, I turned aside to the little cottage of a small
settler, who I knew had arrived in the colony as a convict,
though he had been free at the time I allude to for many
years. The settler had originally been a Presbyterian from
the north of Ireland: he had enlisted in a Scotch regiment
quartered in the north of England, whither 1 understood he
had gone as a petty dealer or hawker. Having committed
some crime, however, of a minor character, he was sentenced
to seven years' transportation. His wife, whom he had mar-
ried in the colony on obtaining his freedom, was a native of
the south of Scotland. " I bought this farm," the settler
told me in the course of my visit, "the year I got my liberty;
it is a thirty-acre farm—very good land, sir; and I was to
pay a hundred pounds for it, for You know it was cleared but
not stumped—that is, the roots o-1 the trees were left standing
in the ground. 'rhe year I got it, I only put in four acres of
wheat, for it was rather late in the season. The wheat was
very cheap last year; but the next year I put in fifteen acres
with the hoe, all with my own hands; and I had as many
bushels off it as there are days in the year, (that is, 365 bushels,
or 24 bushels per acre.) The wheat was very dear that
season, and I sold a great part of my crop at 14s. 64.; but the
cheapest I sold was half a guinea a bushel, and I cleared my
farm that year. I lived in that hut you see till the debt was
paid, and then I built this weather-boarded house. We have
every thing comfortable now—plenty of wheat. corn, potatos,
and every thing else we require. Indeed, it's a good country,
sir, for an industrious man. At home I would only have had
a day's labour, and little for it, and, perhaps, not even that ;
but here I have a farm of my own, and every thing comfort-
able. I have much reason to be thankful that ever I came
here, and I hope there's forgiveness for what's past.'—ln
short, the aspect of things about the settler's little establish-
ment justified the account he had given me, both of it and
himself; and I was most happy to afford him such general
commendation, and such pastoral encouragement, as his cha-
racter and circumstances peculiarly called for. As I had two
days' journey to perform on horseback, ere I could reach his
little cottage on my return to Sydney, I gladly availed my-
self of his offer to supply me with a fresh horse, that my own
might be in better spirits and condition on my return; and,
in riding rapidly along on the spirited Australian steed—the
produce of sheer industry and economy—l could not help
wishing, from the very bottom of my heart, that a hundred
thousand families of the labouring agricultural populatio.n of
Great Britain and Ireland could be gradually conveyed to a
country in which the same industry and economy would in-
fallibly lead them to the same degree of comfort and inde-
pendence."

LONDON GAZETTE.-FRIDAY, JULY 2S.

PARTNERSHIPS DISSOLVED.

J. Brown and W:Talor,—Liveipool: shipping-agents—J. New.
ton, J. Taylor, and W. Taylor, Liverpool, common-brewers.

BANKRUPTCIES SUPERSEDED.
Edward Soutten, Fox and Knot-yard, Snow-hill, London, dealer
and chapman.
Peter Lowe, Upton, Cheshire, merchant.
Jeremiah Chittenden, jun. Three Tuns-court, Southwark, hop
factor.