The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-02-13 00:00:00

@rural Iltsrellanv.

Nearly £20,000 worth of property, in Mitchell-street,
Glasgow, was destroyed by fire on Thursday.
Mr. Ballantine, one of the oldest stipendiary magis-
trates of the metropolis, has, from ill health, tendered his
resignation.
A Cornish paper mentions that a ripe strawberry was
gathered last week from a hedge bottom at Vensoloe, in
the neighbourhood of Liskeard,
The salary of Mr. Simeon, the newly appointed medical
officer of health for the city of London, has been fixed at
£5OO per annum.
A very destructive fire took place at Mr. Wheaton's
hat shop in Hereford, on Tuesday, when the servant girl
unhappily perished in the flames.
A maker of gold pens advertises that fifteen years' expe-
rience justifies him in asserting that his pens are ever-
lasting
The Chancellor of the Exchequer has received, in a let-
ter signed " Error corrected," £2lO, " presumed to be
due to her Majesty's Exchequer." The amount will be
paid into the Exchequer.
The keel of the first steamer of a new line to run be-
tween Glasgow and New York, has just been laid down.
She is to be on the screw principle, and of 1000 tons bur-
den.

On Friday week, a waggoner and his boy, at Marton,
near Shrewsbury, were killed by the waggon running over
them, in consequence of the horses starting off unexpect-
edly.

Last week an elderly female in Scarborough complained
of a violent pain in the stomach, and subsequently in the
head, which was relieved by a worm, half a yard in length,

coming out of her nose.—Leeds Intelligencer.
At a chartist meeting held last week, in London, the
chairman, a Mr. Swann, recommended his hearers to be
prepared for a revolution, and said that if it came the
people ought not only to seize the lands, but to get rid of
the present landlords altogether. The chartists would do
well to consider whether Swann is not another Powell.

The Duchess of Newborough has published a work, in
which she declares that she is prepared with uncontrover-
tible eviaence to prove that Louis Phillippe is the son of
Capperni, an Italian gaoler, and that he was substituted
for au infant (who is the daughter of the Duke of Orleans)
while she was in the cradle.

FATAL ACCIDENT.—On Friday last, Mr. M. Beverly,
of Foncet, who formerly kept a pack of hounds, and has
followed the chase for the past 40 years, was out with the
harriers, and was about taking a leap, when his horse re-
fused, on which he was violently thrown over its head,
and falling heavily on his skull, life was soon extinct.

A tremendous snow storm occurred in the district of
Troutbeck, Westmoreland, on Sunday week, when a large
number of sheep were completely buried under the snow
and perished. Mr. N. Wilson found thirty under a drift
at the Dod, in Troutbeck, of which twenty-seven were
suffocated by the snow, which lay several yards deep.
Among the devices employed to discover the bodies of
the men lately drowned in the river Lune, has been that
of enclosing some quicksilver in a penny bun, which was
set afloat at the place where the boat was upset, with the
superstitious notion that the ben would become stationary
wherever a body was lying beneath the water. _ _ _

A few days since, an apprentice on board a vessel lying
in Dundee docks, had occasion to go to the bread locker,
and was astonished by finding it tenanted by a numerous
colony of rats. He immediately summoned the mate,
who armed himself with a stick, attacked the intruders,
and speedily killed the whole of them, to the number
of 50.

A Swansea paper mentions that, on Wednesday week, a
farmer, living in the parish of Bettws, followed the hounds
in pursuit of a fox which had committed great ravages in
the neighbouring henroosts ; but on his return at night
over Mynpdd Ystiad, he lost his way, and on the follow-
ing Friday he was found dead from exposure to the incle-
mency of the weather.

A sergeant who was lately proceeding by railway to
London, with some recruits, on arriving at the Swindon
station, discovered, to his confusion, that a tall youth,
whom he had considered as his finest recruit, was unfitted
for the service by the want of a leg, which was replaced
by a cork leg, so well made that the sergeant had not no -

tijced the defect of the limb when he enlisted the lad.
The Rev. Mr. Jacob, curate of Wilton, Dorsetshire,
has been publicly horsewhipped, in a street of that town,
by an elderly gentleman and his son, (names not given),
belonging to Leeds, Wiltshire. The cause seems to
have been the breaking off of a love connexion by Mr.
Jacob, with the daughter of his elderly assailant, in whose
house at Leeds, the rev. gentleman, it is said, was fed
and lodged for two years.
FATAL ACCIDENT 'WHILST DRIVING.—On Saturday
week, as Mr. Williams, M.P., Mr. Jones, of Ruthin, and
several others, were driving home to that town, their
horse took fright at the flashing of the carriage lights
upon a waggon which was approaching ; the animal shied,
and the whole company were thrown out of the vehicle.
The head of Mr. Jones was crushed by the wheel of the
waggon, and he died immediately. He has left a widow
and three children. His property is expected to amount
to £150,000, in addition to a large landed estate.
MADEMOISELLE JENNY LIND.—The popularity of this
distinguished vocalist increases on every successive visit
to the provinces. On Thursday evening she sang at the
Town-hall, Birmingham, in Mendelssohn's oratorio of
Elijah, and was most enthusiastically received. The hall
was crowded to excess, and although the prices of tickets
were high, hundreds were unable to obtain admission.

CI F
The Mesdames Williams and Messrs. Machin and Lockey
acquitted themselves with great effect. The receipts
could not fall far short of £l2OO, if they did not exceed
that sum.

A curious case of Somnambulism has happened at Bel-
ton, about a mile from Epworth. Miss Buttrick, who is
about 13 years of age, went to sleep with a relation of
hers, a short distance from her home. In the middle of
the night she got out of bed, dressed herself, went down
stairs, unlocked the door, and proceeded towards home.
In her way thither she had to open a gate, pass down a
plantation-side, climb over a stile, cross a river by means
of only a narrow plank ; the whole route being about a
quarter of a mile. When she reached home, she roused
her parents, who let her in, " totally unconscious that she
was asleep, until they had asked her why she had come
home at that time of night. This awoke her."
DREADFUL FIRE.—FIVE LIVES LOST.—On Thursday,
morning early, a fire broke out in the premises of a ha-
berdasher, Lamb-street. Spitalfields, London, by which
calamity not less than five persons lost their lives. The
flames made rapid progress, and but a short time elapsed
before the entire house, stock, &c., were consumed. By

two, or half-past, further danger had subsided, when,

through the exertions of the firemen, the bodies were re-
covered from the ruins ; one, a girl seven years of age,

_
and two others, adults. One of the survivors was com-
pelled to leave his wife behind him on the stairs, and he
narrowly escaped suffocation from the density of the
smoke.

THE IfORMONITES.-These people are increasing in
numbers rapidly both in the neighbourhood of Camden

and Somers-town, and intend, i; the spring of the year,
to emigrate and colonize in California. They have arran-

ged to hire the use of four or five vessels for their own

immediate conveyance to the western world, not being
desirous of intermixing with persons distinct_from their

own sect. On their arrival in settlement abovenamed
they intend to pursue their route to the " Valley of the
Saltwater Lake," enter upon farms, and encourage agri-

culture. They " hold all things 'in common" -among
themselves, and are strictly bound by the ties of fraterni-
zation and socialism. Many thereabout have disposed of
their furniture and the leases of their houses to raise
money for the voyage.

HEALTH AND 'LONG LIFE, SIMPLIFIED AND MADE
EASY.—Published by Claridge and Co., 12a, Gough.

square, Fleet-street.--This is a book of vast promise and
pretension : in gratitude for the boon conferred on them,
the old and the young, the hon-vivants and the gay Lo-
tharios of society, cannot do less than erect a statue, cere
perennius, to its author. But to be serious :we have
attentively read the little volume, and cannot but admire
its judicious and salutary prescriptions, which not only
claim the attention of the old and the infirm, but also
that of the young and the vigorous. The author, who is
an octogenarian, " hale and vigorous," and possessing
all the flow of spirits and vivacity of temperament be-
longing to youth, has in his own person proved that his
doctrines are not speculative, but are founded on the
basis of truth, and are reducible to practice.—Journal of
Literature and Science.

DISTRESSING ACCIDENT.—On Monday, at Oxford, Mr.
Charles Blackstone, a scholar of Corpus, was found in his
rooms lifeless, the contents of a pistol having entered his
heart. Mr. Blackstone was in the habit of keeping a
loaded pistol under the pillow of his sofa, in order to
destroy rats, by which his rooms were much infested ; and
as he had continually been in the habit of firing at
them, no person considered the report of the pistol as
other than an ordinary occurrence. Mr. Blackstone is
supposed to have laid himself on his sofa, and there, pro-
bably between sleeping and waking, fancying he heard
rats, and endeavouring to get at the pistol, the fatal acci-
dent occurred. Mr. Blackstone was a young man of
great promise, and generally beloved. He gained the
Newdegate prize at the last Commemoration, the subject
being " Columbus in Chains."
HYDROPHOBIA.—A dreadful case of hydrophobia has
just occurred in the town of Fishguard. About four
months ago a dog, supposed to be mad, bit various ani-
mals, and among others a calf. In a short time the calf
displayed some very strange symptoms, and in the attempt
to administer a drench to it a man named W illiam Pouk,
a retired marine, about 35 years of age, who had lately
become hostler there, had his finger rather severely bitten.
He felt no particular anxiety on the subject, though his
wife expressed a constant dread as to the result of the
wound, and his health continued good up to Sunday, the
28th ult., when he felt an aversion to food. On Monday
this aversion increased and medical aid was resorted to,
and on Tuesday the dreadful nature of his complaint be-
came fully apparent. He was attended by four medical
men, who yainly attempted to relieve him.. The parox-
ysms became more frequent and more violent, till death
relieved him on Wednesday. The communication of this
terrible disease from a calf is, it seems, a very rare,, if not
a solitary circumstance in medical experience..