The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-02-23 00:00:00

DEBTS OF NATIONS,

STATISTICAL RETURN OE THE REVENUES AND NATIONAI
DEBTS OF THE DIFFERENT FOREIGN POWERS IN 1841.

The following interesting return of the Rekenne and Na-
tional Debt of the different 'Nations of the globe, has been
presented by the Chevalier Cmsar Moreau, (formerly French
Consul General in London, and so well known for his elabo-
rate statistical tables on the revenue, manufactories, national
productions, mortality, suicides, &c., of this country), to the
Royal Statistical Society
Austria
Bavaria

160,000,000 frs
70,731,000
35,000;000
91,000,000

1,700,000,000 frs
265,200,000
• 275,000,000
845,245.000

Denmark
Belgium .

Holland
Norway
Sweden

15,000,000
8,300,000
49,250,000
10,450,000
30,000(000
. 20,000,000
220,000,000
435,000,000
1,18.1,525,365
1,218,650,000

2,830,000,000
15,000,000
78,000,000
no national debt
65,000,000
52,000,000
721,000,000
1,500,000,000
15,800,000,000
20,245,000,000

Switzerland
Saxony ....
Wurtenburg
Prussia ....
Russia ....

France
Great Britain

Spain, Revenue uncertain, no correct official return_
Portugal, average.. 53,000,000 158,000,000
Roman States .... 45,000,000 358,000,000
Sardinia 70.000,000 .. 99,000,000
Sicily
Greece
*Turkey Revenue not known none
Persia 80,000,000
25,000,000
135,000,000
6,000,000
65,000,01)0
5,000,000
30,000,0(X)
15,000,000
528,000,000
985,000,000
250,000,000
45,000,000 none
Average value in Gold & Silver in circulation in Europe, 1841
France 2,000,000,000f.
England
Spain and Portugal
Austria and Italy
Russia 252,000,0001. •
Holland and Denmark, &c. 250,000,0001.

Morocco

United States
Brazils

none
231,000,000
510,000,0 W

Mexico

Paraguay
Peru
Haiti
India Company
China
Japan
Siam

145,475,000
145,500,000

Total
* TURKEY, PERSIA, AND MOROCCO.—Despotic Govern-
Ments, the Sultan. Shah, and Emperor, can claim all pro-
perty of their subjects and life. .

DESPERATE ATTEMPT OF A HUSBAND TO MURDER HIS
WIFE.—A young man named Thomas Potts, a calico printer,
residing at Mitcham, and who' has only been married about
18 months, left home on Tuesday, and did not return until
nine o'clock at night, and he immediately 'went into the room
where his wife was sitting with her mother, and without say-
ing a word he pulled a pistol from his pocket, presented it at
his wife, and fired it off, and the greater portion of its con-
tents passed through her cheek. A labouring man who was
passing came into the 'house and seized hold of Potts, and
after a struggle forced him into a chair, and held him there
until West, the Beadle of Mitcham, arrived and secured him.
The prisoner then said, " I have done it-1 have done it—
I have murdered my wife, and I hope I shall be hung." The
constable asked him what he had done with the pistol, and
he produced the one he had just discharged stills wife. West
then searched him, and in one of his pockets he found ano-
ther pistol loaded to the muzzle, and in his coat pocket a
razor, and he asked Potts what he was going to do with the
razor, and he replied that he intended to have destroyed him-
self with it atter he had killed his wife. Mr. Tipper, a medi-
cal gentleman of Mitcham, had by this time arrived, and he
ascertained that the woman bad received a very severe injury,
and he administered to her the necessary assistance. The
prisoner was on Thursday brought before the magistrates,
but as his wife was not in a condition to give evidence, he
was remanded for a week.

EXTRAORDINARY CASE.—A. trial for murder, attended
with circumstances of extraordinary atrocity, has just taken
place before the Court of Assizes at Brest. The facts, as
proved in evidence, are as follow —A man named Castel, an
armourer, resided at Brest with his wife, who appears to have
behaved virtuously and properly up to the year 1826, at which
time her husband embarked as master on board a ship of
war. On his return, after the battle of Navarino, at which
he was present, he found that his wife had been leading a
dissolute life, and she was no longer worthy of his affection ;
but he forgave her, and hoped to find in her repentance some
return of the happiness which he had formerly enjoyed. The
wife, however, far from replying to the kindness of her hus-
band by good conduct, formed a connection with a married
man, named Bescond, who resided in a village adjoining
Brest, and by a long series of cruel treatment, in which she
was aided by Bescond, drove her husband mad, and he was
sent to a lunatic asylum. On his return home, cured of his
malady, the brutality of the wife and her paramour, who, as
an excuse for his frequent visits, had placed his daughter as a
boarder in the house of Castel, was increased, and it was at
length resolved, in the winter of 1839, to deprive the unfor-
tunate husband of life. For this purpose the wife pretended
that some money had been left to her husband at Havre, and
a passport was obtained for them to go to that place. They
quitted home in the evening, in company with Bescond and
his daughter, a girl of 21 years of age, and of Augustine Cas-
tel, the daughter of the married couple, aged 16. It was ar-
ranged with Castel that he and his wife should take leave of
these three persons at the house of Bescond, whose wife was
absent. When Castel arrived there, some warm wine was
given to him, into which Bescond, with the knowledge of the
wife and Augustine Castel, had put a large dose of laudanum ;
and when the poison had produced its effect, Castel, pro-
bably still living, was carried at night into a field belonging
to Bescond, where the murderers, aided by the daughter of
Bescond, who does not, however, appear to have been pre-
sent at the murder, dug a grave, into which they threw the
body, and Bescond having cast over it two sacks of quick
lime, in the hope of removing all trace of the deed, the grave
was filled up. After the murder, Bescond and the guilty
widow led a life of great dissipation, frequented the theatres
and masked balls, and appeared totally insensible to remorse.
To persons who inquired for Castel, they replied that he had
embarked at Havre for the colonies. The murder came to
light in the following way :—The wife of Bescond, having re-
monstrated with her husband and his mistress on their
adulterous intercourse, it was resolved by them to murder
her also. The plan laid by these wretches was overheard by
the daughter of Bescond, who ran to her mother and told her
to be on her guard, or she would be served as Castel had been,
and then she related all the circumstances of the murder in
the presence of a female friend of her mother. This female
recommended that the crime should be denounced to the
Procureur du Roi; but to this neither the mother nor the
daughter would consent, as they wished to spare the life of
the husband and father. The female in question, however,
took an opportunity to send an anonymous letter to the Pro-
cureur du Roi, which led to the arrest of all the parties, in-
cluding the girl Bescond, and to the discovery of the body,
which was found entire, although in an advanced stage of
decomposition, having been buried more than six months,
In the grave was found a copy of the criminal code, which
had belonged:to Bescond, and the leaves of which were turned
down at the part relating to the proceedings in cases of mur-
der. Sixty witnesses were examined, and not the slightest
doubt existed on the minds of the jury as to the guilt of all
the parties, except the daughter of Bescond, who was ac-
quitted. Bescond and the widow Castel were sentenced to
death, and the daughter, Augustine Castel, was condemned
to impisonment in a house of correction for 10 years, at the
expiration of which she is to be placed for 10 years under the
surveillance of the police.