The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-10-18 00:00:00

VARIETIES.

LADIES ARE LIRE VIOLETS: the more modest and
retiring they appear, the more you love them.
HORRIBLE ADVENTURE WITH WOLVES.—A most
horrible adventure with wolves occurred, as I was told„
on the other side of the Pruth. A Russian peasant was
in a sledge with his wife and four children, when a whole
flock of these ferocious animals gave them chase ; the
horses were unable to save them, and, in order to check
the advance of the wolves, the four children were thrown
out to them by their father one by one ; they reached the
village in safety by this barbarous sacrifice, and the
mother immediately denounced her husband for murder;
the case was tried and he was acquitted.—The Frontier
Lands of the Christian and the Turk.
GRACES OF MANILLA WOMEN.—That which distin-
guishes the female half-breds, (Spanish-Tagles, or Chinese-
Tagals) is a singularly intelligent and expressive physiog-
nomy. Their hair, drawn back from the face, and sus-
tained by long golden pins, is of marvellous luxuriance.
They wear upon the head a kerchief, transparent like a
veil, made of the pine fibre, finer than our finest cambric ;
the neck is ornamented by a string of coral beads, fastened
by a gold medallion. A transparent chemisette, of the
same stuff as the head dress, descends to the waist. Below,
and two or three inches from the edge of the chemisette,
is attached a variously coloured petticoat of very bright
hues. Over this garment, a large and costly silk sash
closely encircles the figure, and shows its outline from the
waist to the knee. The small and white feet, always
naked, are thrust into embroidered slippers, which cover
but the extremities. Nothing can be more charming,
coquettish, and fascinating, than this costume, which
excites in the highest degree the admiration of strangers.
—Gironiere's Twenty Years in the Philippines.
ELECTRICITY IN WEAVING.—Having seen in your
journal a paragraph stating that the Chevalier Boreli,
director of the Sardinian telegraphs, has invented a sys-
tem of applying electricity to the Jacquard loom for weav-
ing figured patterns, I beg to state that Mr. Woodcock, of
Islington, explained to me, ten or twelve months ago, a
plan for directing a Jacquard loom by the electric current.
His plan was to have the pattern painted with some non-
conducting substance, such as varnish, on a metallic roller
connected with a galvanic battery : a row. of wires was to
pass from end to end of the roller, corresponding with the
number of threads in the cloth, so that as the roller
slowly revolved by the machinery, the threads would be
raised or depressed, off
according as the current was cut
by the wires coming in contact with the painted pattern.
By this means one application would work any number of
machines. I understand Mr. Woodcock also described
the invention at the time to several gentlemen in London,
and also wrote to several houses at Manchester, re-
questing them to take up the invention or render assist-
ance to bring it out. Now, sir, believing, as I do, that
the invention will be of vast importance, I hope you will
be kind enough to explain this matter, and not allow a
foreigner to take the credit which really belongs to a
countryman.—Correspondent of the Builder.
THE ROMAN DINING-Roo3l.—The dining-room was
commonly decorated with fasces of arms and trophies,
which served as a momento of the warlike virtues of the
ancestors of the master of the house. Enchanting frescoes
stood out marvellously from the obscure shading of the
wall, round which were twined fresh garlands of flowers ;
and a mosaic floor—master-piece of art and patience—har-
monised with the fascinating landscape of the ceiling, the
site of which varied with every course. The Emperor
Nero, who carried this taste for the beautiful rather too
far, devised a sort of vault, in the most elegant style, and
entirely composed of movable leaves of ivory, which exhaled
sweet perfumes, and whence flowers fell on the guests. In
another of his dining-rooms admiration was excited by a
magnificent dome, the rotatory movement of which imi-
tated day and night, and the course of the celestial bodies.
These prodigies of ancient mechanism adorned the palace
that the prodigal Cnsar called " the gilded house." The
colossal statue of that prince rose in the middle of the hall :
it was 120 feet high ! Studious people, or those who ,
wished to appear so, covered some part of the dining-room ;
with books • for it was a custom introduced into Rome to ;
have recitations or readings during the repast. Atticus
had always a reader, and Juvenal promises the friend he
invites to supper that he shall hear some fragments from
Virgil and Homer.—Soyer's Pantropheora.
Trig DARDANELLES.—The strait of the Dardanelles,
which divides Europe from Asia, is upwards of fifty miles
in length, with an average breadth of two miles. The
shore on either side is fringed with cypress groves, and
the strait itself presents a very animated appearance,
thousands of white-sailed calques gliding lightly over the
waves, and coming and going incessantly from shore to
shore. There is a strong current setting constantly from
the Sea of Marmora into. the Archipelago, and this, added
to the defences of the place, render the forcing of the
passage by armed vessels a very hazardous undertaking.
The fortifications originally consisted of four castles, two
on the European, and two on the Asiatic side. Of these
two stand at the southern extremity, and two about eight
miles further up the strait. The name Dardanelles is now
especially applied to some fortifications erected in modern
times between the new and the old castles, a short distance
from the entrance of the straits. The number of guns
mounted on these fortifications, and some others of lesser
importance, is nearly seven hundred, besides eight large
mortars for throwing shells. Among them are several
immense guns, from which stone shot are discharged.
The quantity of powder which these guns require is
enormous ; the largest is charged with 3301 b. of powder,
and throws a stone shot 8001 b. or I,ooolb. weight. They
are more formidable in appearance than reality, and the
firing of such large pieces of ordnance is not unattended
with danger to their own artilleryman.
Tninsrz.—At Trieste the first thing that attracted my
attention was the great variety of picturesque costumes.
This being the only port of South Germany, it is a busy,
bustling place, and the people of all nations come to trade.
Turks, Greeks, Armenians, all the varieties of the people
along the Adriatic ; but the most remarkable are the Slays.
especially the women, who wear a petticoat of some dark
colour bound with bright red or orange, the same or a
green bodice with white sleeves, and a white cap, with a
white pendant at the back, containing some yards. The
men wear dark trousers, very broad to the knee, jackets,
and a cap made of fur elevated at the back, presenting a
very strange appearance. I went to the Greek church,
where I saw some hundreds of these, the women arranged
on the north side and the men on the south. I also saw
at the village of Sassina a/FM, where every one was clothed
in this national Slavonic garb, and the effect was very pe-
culiar. Nowhere have I met with national costume so ex-
actly preserved. Everywhere else, even in Switzerland,
the influence of cities, aided by the cheapness of Man-
chester, has tended to destroy all the characteristics. The
duomo or cathedral of Trieste possesses interest, as being
built on what was formerly the Temple of Jupiter. Under
the tower an excavation has been made, and the plinths
and portions of some Corinthian columns are exposed and
left for view, protected by a railing. Correspondent of
the Builder.
ANCIENT versus MODERN GREATNESS.—The ancient
world signalised its greatness chiefly in monuments of ,
vast size, and sometimes durability. The extent of Ni-
neveh and the colossal structures of Egypt still strike us
with wonder ; Grecian civilisation left us models of beauty ,
which are, and ever will be, the adoration of every man
of taste ; Rome adorned her naturally utilitarian labours
with the elegance of Grecian conceptions ; the middle
ages gave us ecclesiastical models which, from their own
point of view, can hardly be surpassed ; but the present
age, which in all these things is little more than a copyist
of the past, has at last given the world one thing—it is
commonly termed a mechanical age, and one of its chief
historical characteristics will assuredly be an unheard-of
development of mechanical power. Its most vast concep-
tions begin with the steam-boiler. To facilitate the crea-
ation of steam, to husband its strength, to adapt to
machinery which shall waste as little as may be of its
giant power, to level or bore through hills, to fill up
valleys, to build monster bridges, all to give free course
to this great monarch of the age, is the great task of our
day. Almost all our monster works by sea or by land
are built in homage to the great moving power. Monster
viaducts, monster embankments, monster iron bridges,
monster ships, double the size of a great man-of-war, are
all but implements for the service of the monster power,
which seems adequated to move the world itself, if any one
would find it the standing place desired by Archimedes.
THE Bemis OF PFEFFERS.—From Coire we made a
little excursion across the Rhine to a place called Ragatz—
a kind of summer resort for visitors who come to bathe
and drink the waters of Pfeffers, one of the most extraor-
dinary sights I ever beheld. These baths are built in a
cleft of the mountain, about a thousand feet in depth, and
scarcely thirty wide in many parts : the sides of the preci-
pices are straight as a wall, and only admit of a gleam of
the sun when perfectly vertical. The gloom and solemnity
of the spot, its death-like stillness and shade, even at
noonday, are terribly oppressive. Nor is the sadness dis-
pelled by the living objects of the picture ! Swiss, Ger-
mans, French, and Italians, swathed in flannel dressing-
gowns and white dimity cerements, with nightcaps and
slippers, steal along the gloomy corridors and the gloomier
alleys, pale, careworn, and cadaverous. They come here
for health, and their whole conversation is sickness. Now,
however consoling it may be to an invalid to find a reci-
pient of his sorrows, the price of listening in turn is a
tremendous infliction. Nor is the character of the scene
such as would probably suggest agreeable reflections : had
it been the portico to the nameless locality itself, it could
not possibly be more dreary and sorrow-stricken. Now,
whatever virtues the water possess, is surely antagonised
by all this agency of gloom and depression ; and except it
be as a preparation for leaving the world without regret,
this place seems to be marvellously ill adapted for its
object. It appears to me, however, that foreigners run
into the greatest extremes in these matters; a sick man
must either live in a perpetual Vauxhall of fireworks,
music, dancing, dining, and gambling, as at Baden, or be
condemned to the worse than penitentiary diet and prison
discipline of Pfeffers ! Surely there must be some halting-
place between the ball-room and the cloister, or some
compromise of costume between silk stockings and bare
feet ! But really, to a thinking, reasonable being, it
appears very distressing that you must either dance out of
the world to Strauss's music, or hobble miserably-out of
life to -the sound of the falling waters of Pfeffers.—The
Dodd .Parsily iforoad.