The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-05-16 00:00:00

GEN.ER,4L. INTELLIGENCE.

FALSE CHARACTERS, T.D. DO3£l;alC SERVANTS.—Mr.
W. G. M. J. Barker, late. of Leyburn, pleaded guilty, on
Monday last week, before- the Leeds magistrates, to the
'charge of giving a false• character to Elizabeth Lindsey,
his former servant, and was, fined £2O, including costs.
The money was at once paid.
THE HIPPOPOTAMUS at the Zoological Gardens, Re-
gent's Park, London, has become so furious, that foa its
safe keeping a new building: is considered necessary, and
will be erected; while its present den is to be occupied by
a;female hippopotamus, presented to the society by the
Viceroy of Egypt, and expected to arrive in June.
INHUMANITY.—In the Cbiart of Common Pleas, on
Monday, a farm-bailiff, named Amos, was mulcted in the
penalty of £2O, for having roughly driven out of a field at
Northfleet, Kent, a woman of the name of Atkins, who,
along with other females, had trespassed on the land. It
was asserted that the woman was enciente at the time,
and that the treatment to which she was subjected had
brought on premature labour.
LAW REFORM.—Vice-Chancellor Sir W. Page Wood,
Mr. Justice Coleridge, Mr. Napier, the Attorney and
Solicitor-Generals, Sir T. E.. Perry, J. G. S. Lefevre,
Esq., Mr. Keating, Q.C., T. Greenwood, Esq., J. Stewart,
Esq., and Germain Lavie, Esq., have been appointed Her
Majesty's commissioners for "inquiring into the arrange-
ments in the Inns of Court and Inns of Chancery, for
promoting the study of the law and jurisprudence, and
securing a sound education to the students."
SINGULAR MISADVENTURE.—An aeronaut of Cannes
was, on Sunday week, about to make an ascent in a bal-
loon, and two companions of his aireal trip had taken their
seats in the car, when some of the assembled crowd, im-
patient to see the balloon start, cried out " Let it go."
The man who held the ropes, thinking it was the aeronaut,
obeyed; the balloon rose-rapidly and disappeared, and the
two passengers, who were both entirely unskilled in the
management of a balloon,.have not since been heard of.

HOME INFLUENCE.—A boy of 13, who has been in
prison twice for felony, has lately been admitted to the
Reformatory for Juvenile Criminals at Saltley, at the re-
quest of the Shropshire magistrates. The following is an
account of his family and connexions :—His father being
dead, the mother married a second time, and the step-
father having been transported for: seven years, she ab-
sconded from her home. An elder brother, after having
been in prison three times,was transported for seven years;
a sister, aged only 14, also a convicted thief, is now a pros-
titute in her native town; a cousin, a mere child, ten
years old, is now in prison a second time for felony, and
the sister of this boy, 16 years old, is in prison for the third
time.—Binningham Gazette.
CHIMNEY SWERPERS.—The Chimney Sweepers' Bill,
as amended in committee, contains the following clauses :
1. Every person who compels, or any master sweep who
compels, or knowingly allows, any person under the age
of 16 years to use or assist in the trade or business of a
chimney-sweeper, shall for every such offence be liable to
a penalty not exceeding £lO. 2. In all proceedings against
any party accused of an offence against this act the proof
of age shall rest on the party complained against. 3. All
penalties awarded under this act, and the costs and charges
of and attending the recovery thereof, shall be recovered
and levied in the same manner and under the same
.powers and provisions as if such penalties, costs, and
charges were awarded or incurred under the recited act ;
and all the provisions of that act relating to appeals
against convictions shall extend to convictions under this
act.

THE DARIEN EXPEDITION.—The Panama Star gives
an account of the safe arrival of Lieut. Strain at Chapigana,
with two men of the Darien exploring party, in search of
provisions and boats for the rest of his party, whom he had
left a month before on the banks of the Chucanaque river,
When he reached Chapigana he was without clothing,
reduced almost to a skeleton, and his body covered with
sores from the insects. He reported that the nineteen
men he had left on the Chucanaque were mostly disabled
from sickness and debility, their provisions having failed
after being out fifteen days from the Atlantic. Having
obtained provisions, Lieutenant Strain has gone back in a
boat, accompanied by a party from her Majesty's ship Virago
to his party on the Chucanaque, leaving the two men who
had penetrated_ with him to Chapigana behind sick.
CRYSTAL PALACE.—IL is now stated that Saturday, the
10th of June, has been finally decided on as the day on
which the Crystal Palace 'is to be opened. A " remon-
strance "- has been addressed to the directors of the palace
on the subject of the nude male statues in the Exhibition.
It is signed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops
of St. Asaph, London, Winchester, and Lichfield, Lords
Clancarty, Harrowby, Mayo, Blandford, Berners, and
others. The" remonstrants " open by stating that they
are persuaded that—" The exhibition, to promiscuous
crowds of men and women, of nude statues of met in the
state represented, must, if generally submitted to, prove
very destructive to that natural modesty which is one of
the outworks of virtue, and which a great French writer
has called ' one of the barriers which nature herself has
placed in the way of crime.' And they conclude by saying
that they demand but a small thing, not at all a sacrifice
in point of artistic beauty—viz. the removal of the parts
which " in life " ought to be concealed, although we are
also desirous that the usual leaf may be adopted. The di-
rectors, it appears, had previously resolved on effecting
the alteration desired.

AMERICAN VIEW OF THE WAR.—The complete and
instant abrogation of our entire commerce with Russia,
being under $3,000,000 a-year, the imports and exports
nearly balancing each other would not affect the general
business of the country so much as a week's suspension
of our trade with the powers which are at war with her.
Russia cannot molest the vast trade of the United States
with her enemies to the amount of a dollar, because her
fleets and cruisers are confined within great internal seas
singularly excluded from the great oceans which bear the
world's commerce. It is for the interest of the great
maritime powers, that the United States should continue
its peaceful mercantile career during the pendency of the
conflict, since our doing so will contribute to their revenue
and resources. Russia might wish to coerce and repress
our commerce in this crisis of. her own fate, but, happily,
has not the power. Yet with facts like these before the
country, the Washington Union, seeming to speak for the
government, is teaming from day to day with fulsome
eulogies upon the policy of Nicholas, and with covert or
open attacks upon the motives of England and France !
The evident purpose of the official organ has been, and
still is, to revive forgotton prejudices against Great Britain,
and to embarrass her in the prosecution of the great con-
flict on which she had entered, by raising suspicions of the
intentions of this government on the questions which may
arise in consequence of the state of general war now com-
mencing.—New York Courier.

TUE LATE M.P. FOR IPSWICH.—From proceedings
taken before the Chief Commissioner at the London Insol-
vent Debtors' Court, a few days ago, it seems that a man
may have an income of £12,000 a-year, and still involve
himself to the extent of £lOO,OOO or upwards in an incre-
dibly short space of time. This, too, can be done without
the assistance of the hazard-table, the racing-stud, or any
of the expeditious aids to the destruction of an estate
which so greatly facilitate the labour. It appears that Mr.
S. W. Lane Fox, late member for Beverley and Ipswich,
from various landed estates, from a house in St. James's-
square, from funded property, and from coal royalties,
derived an income of more than £1.7,000 per annum.
From this gross income a certain deduction must be
made for various charges upon the estate of about £5,000
a-year, leaving to Mr. Fox, in the shape of disposable
income, as life tenant, no less than £12,000 a year.
This large income has been simply muddled away
among coal-merchants, fruiterers, &c., &c., upon elec-
tioneering expenses to the extent of e7OOO, and upon the
interest on money raised to satisfy the debts contracted in
the two methods just named. Mr. Fox appears just to
have kept a good house, to have bought a seat in parlia-
ment, and to have raised money from time to time, when
he found himself short of cash, to meet,the expenses con-
sequent upon this mode of life. Twelve thousand a-year
and £lOO,OOO besides have been devoted to such uses
in the course of a very few years. The Chief Commissioner,
in giving judgment, observed that on a case of the descrip-
tion now before the court one might comment for the
whole day. It was, no doubt, a very painful subject to see
a comfortable property wrecked by extravagance. The
only matter he had to deal with was to say whether, after
an imprisonment already of fourteen months, the adjudi-
cation was to be a discharge or a judgment. The Chief
Commissioner supposed all sources of income by Mr. Fox
to be dried up. Mr. Lewis said, " Entirely." He was
discharged.
HORRIBLE MURDER NEAR ABERDEEN.-011 Saturday
evening, the 6th instant, shortly after six o'clock, a young
woman, named Ann Harvey, left her residence at Peter-
culter, where there are paper-mills at which she was em-
ployed, with the intention of proceeding to Aberdeen,
about eight miles distant, to purchase provisions for the
ensuing week. On leaving, she observed to the woman
with whom she lived, " Not to be surprised though it were
midnight, or even after it, ere she returned, as she was to
see Francie" (Francis), a young man understood to be her
suitor. Nothing subsequently was heard of her until be-
tween five and six o'clock on the Sunday morning, when
the dead body of the unfortunate woman was discovered
at a place called Cults, about four miles from Aberdeen, by
two lads, resident in the neighbourhood. The body was
lying inside a stone wall which skirts a plantation, the
throat cut in a frightful manner. Beside the body was a
small tin pail, a small basket containing packages of tea
and sugar, and other articles, and a loaf tied up in a nap-
kin by itself; so that evidently she had executed her
errand in purchasing the weeks provisions. The wall
behind which the body was found is about five feet in
height, and is situated close to the turnpike, there being
a ditch at the road side. In this ditch, and at the spot
immediately opposite where the body was found, must the
brutal deed have been perpetrated ; for here, both in the
ditch and on the side of the road—though to judge by the
appearance of the ground there had not been violent
struggling—was found a very great quantity of blood.
In the ditch also was found the unfortunate deceased's
shawl, bundled up. After the bloody act had been com-
mitted, the murderer had lifted the body from the ditch
and over the dyke. This had evidently been a task of
difficulty. The stones of the dyke were clotted with
blood, as if the head had struck frequently upon them.
The contents of the basket—tea, sugar, &c.—also bore
marks of blood, and presented the appearance of having
fallen out and been replaced by bloody hands. The
pockets of the deceased were examined, and a package of
letters found including an embossed love epistle with
some verses, addressed her by " Francis Forbes, East Mid-
dleton, Banchory, Devenick." On obtaining this ,clue,
the sheriff and an officer proceeded to his house and found
him. Forbes admitted at once that Ann Harvey was a
sweetheart of his ; but he denied any knowledge of the
murder, and said he had been in bed all night. His
clothes, however, exhibited various marks of blood. This
he attempted to explain, by saying that his nose had been
bleeding on the previous day. Forbes was placed in safe
custody till evening, when he was lodged i n Aberdeen
gaol. • Besides the marks of blood on Forbess smock and
trousers, one of the sleeves of the shirt he had on was wet
up to the elbow ; and the soiled shirt which he had worn
during the past week was nowhere to be found. The
prisoner's declaration was taken on Monday afternoon, in
which he stated that he had not seen the girl Harvey
since the war fast-day, on Wednesday week. His brother
and his sister4n-law, with whom he lodged, also say that
he was in the house during the whale of the night be-
tween Solnkrday and Sunday. It is reported true three
parties.who live in the neighbouxhood of Forbes!, residence
state, that they saw hin l. with, the murdevt girl, late on.
slturafts night.