The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-07-03 00:00:00

CoutzaT EXPLostoss.—On Tuesday a fearful explo-
sion took place in a coal mine at Dudley, whereby thir-
teen men were killed, and twenty-three others seriously
burned. A number of horses were also killed. The
explosion was so- violent that it was heard a mile off;
pieces of coal were hurled to an immense height, and the
gearing of the pit was blown to pieces. Another explo-
sion took place on Wednesday morning at the Black
Wagon Pit, near Dudley. One man was killed, and
seven others dreadfully burned.

ELECTRICITY IN CHOLERA.—Mr. T. W. Cooke, late
resident surgeon of the Royal Hospital, in a communica-
tion to the editor of The Times, of Tuesday, states that a
girl, eight years old, was recovered from the last stage
of cholera, (complete collapse, and the power of deglution
having ceased), by the application of the pole of a galvanic
battery over the heart, the other pole being placed over
the region of the stomach. In half a minute the child
began to rally, some strong beef tea was got into her sto-
mach in less than ten minutes, an 4 ultimately the resur-
rection was complete.
CURIOUS ACCIDENT.—An innkeeper, of Flixton, last
week, while making too free with strong liquor, contrived,
unwittingly, to break a bottle of vitriol which he had
placed in his pocket. The corrosive liquor reduced his
coat tails and the hinder part of his inexpressibles to the
condition of tinder, so that when he arose they fell away
Piecemeal. Fortunately the vitriol did not injure his per-
son. He went to the street, ignorant of the dilapidation
of his attire, but was quic.dy driven back to the inn by the
laughter of the crowd. By the aid of a long cloak he was
enabled to reach his home.

EXTRAORDINARY OCCURRENCE. —On Tuesday, as
eight or nine haymakers, with their employer, were at
work in a parish in Gloucestershire, a partridge (the male
bird) suddenly flew out of a hedge in the meadow and
assailed successively the whole of the party, pecking at
them as a gamecock might do, repeating the attack and
then returning to its nest, where it was supposed the hen
bird was hatching. On his attacking the master, he
picked the bird up, and smoothed its ruffled feathers, ob-
serving he was a gallant fellow to defend his family in so
determined a manner; but on inspecrion of the nest on
the following morning, the appearance of the shells indi-
cated that the young ones had recently left them.

THE MURDERER RUSH.—It has been a matter of con-
jecture whether Rush availed himself of any other weapon
besides the blunderbuss found at Potash. The following
extract of a letter, addressed by Mr. Field, the gun-
maker, in High Holborn, to a Norfolk magistrate, on the
23d instant, goes to prove that the only weapon was the
blunderbuss in question, and that Rush, after the assas-
sination of the Messrs. Jenny, re-loaded both the barrels
in the dining-room :—" There was one circumstance con-
nected with the sale of the blunderbuss which I did not
mention to you—that Rush, after purchasing it, ordered
me to make them 'prime themselves,' by enlarging the
touch-holes, which, coupled with his having cartridges,
would greatly facilitate the re-loading."
PEDESTRIANISM.—On Monday the great race came off
at Harlington, between Reed and Seward, for £2OO, as to
who should first cover 440 yards of ground. Seward led
soon after the start by the tithe of a yard • at 100 yards
they were abreast ; at 200 Reed shows slightly in advance ;
at half-way he improves his position ; at 250 the game is
up, Seward cannot live with his competitor, and gives a
slight symptom of falling off; at 300 yards there is no•
mistaking it, Reed takes Seward's ground by running
almost full in front of him, and ten or a dozen yards a
head, finished a most exciting spin by coming in 14 or 15
yards a winner. The time was variously taken at 51, 52,
and a fraction short of 53 seconds.

THE CHOLERA.—This fearful disease still lingers in
the country, though in scarcely any instance to an alarm-
ing extent. The Bristol Mercury states that 75 cases
had occurred in that city, of which 33 had proved fatal.
The Cardiff Guardian mentions the death of seven per-
sons who had been attacked at Castletown. The Man-
chester and Leeds papers record the occurrence of a few
cases in Lancashire and the West-Riding. About 100
cases have been reported in the city of Gloucester, nearly
one-half of which have proved fatal. In the lower parts
of the metropolis several deaths from cholera have oc-
curred. A Limerick paper says :—" The Jane Black.
Gorman, master, of and from the port of Quebec with
passengers, had 43 deaths on board, the first off Kerry-
head, on clearing the Shannon, after which the mortality
increased four and five daily, from cholera and dysentrv."
TRIP TO GRETNA.—Two damsels of the Wear, on Sa-
turday week, quitted the parental root " to walk in Hen-
don-gardens." Not Hendon, however, but the Monk-
wearmouth Railway-station, was their goal; and there
(by accident, of course,) they were met by two young
gentlemen, who whisked them off, via Gateshead and
Carlisle, to Gretna-green. One of the young gentlemen
and one of the young ladies placed their hands on the
anvil of Hymen, and were welded by Vulcan into " one
flesh." The bridesman pressed the bridesmaid to join
hands also, and follow the example, but she could not
muster courage to face the blacksmith. Before, however,
the wedding party had got beyond the Eden (an Eden,
truly, it was to the love sick youth) the maiden, surren-
dering to a vigilant seige, blushed consent, and back they
went to Gretna, and gave the hybrid priest another job.
The " happy day" was spent at Carlisle. On the morrow
the party returned to Sunderland, where the wedded
bridesmaid repaired to her home. A maternal examina-
tion—perchance a cross-examination—awaited her ; and,
having passed this ordeal, she retired to rest. Mamma,
certain that she had not got to the bottom of her daugh-
ter's confidence, dived to the bottom of her pocket, and
was rewarded by the discovery of the wedding-ring, and
a certificate of marriage, bearing the autograph of "John
Murray !"—Gateshead Observer.
STEAM COMMUNICATION WITH AUSTRALIA —A very
respectable meeting was held in London on Tuesday, to
determine on the most desirable steps for promoting steam
communication with Australia 'and the adjacent colonies.
Earl Talbot took the chair ; and among the other parties
present were Lords Lyttleton, Polworth, and Naas, Hon.
A. Petre, Sir W. Verner. Mr. Boyd, &c. The latter gen-
tleman said that in 1844 there had been received in Aus-
tralia from Great Britain 68,500 letters and 106,105 news-
papers, in addition to 2,855 letters and 651 newspapers re-
ceived from India. That in 1844 there had been dis-
patched to Great Britain from Australia 68,652 letters and
95,134 newspapers, and to India 2,491 letters and 3,779
newspapers. He had ventured to occupy the attention of
the meeting, as he feared he was now doing at too great
length, with some palpable truisms as to what would re-
sult from a steam communication with our Australian co-
lonies—that it would facilitate the investment of capital
for the gradual development of the boundless resources of
Australia and New Zealend ; that it would establish much
greater confidence in all mercantile transactions with these
colonies, and which the experience of the last eighteen
months has proved to every receiver of Australian prodhce
in this country, who had had to provide for drafts against
consignments valued in the colony, in the absence of late
intelligence as to the state of the European market, in
many instances fifty per cent. too high. Resolutions were
passed approving of the object, and hopes were expressed
that we shall shortly have steam communication once a
month with this important territory.
DARING AND INGENIOUS ATTEMPT.—Three prisoners
have been making a most daring attempt to escape from
Horsemonger gaol. As they were desperate characters,
they were placed in one of the strong rooms, adjoining to
which was a room fitted up for prisoners who were allowed
by the county to keep themselves with food and drink,
consequently those three burglars during the time of their
incarceration contrived to get into their possession a
pewter pot, which was the extraordinary means of their
getting beyond the cells. It appeared that they were en-
abled to see through the key-hole, and by means of tallow
and some otherAubstance take an impression of the wards.
They then, with the assistance of a piece of old iron,
which they sharpened, formed a key out of the pint pot,
and in the middle of the night, " when all were wrapt in
slumber," they unlocked the doors and forced their way
into a passage called the arcade. Their ingenious key
also unlocked the door of that place, when they found
themselves on the green at the rear of the Sessions-house,
the outer wall of which is about 20 feet high, and sur-
mounted with sloping spikes. They had previously torn
their blankets and rugs, and tied them together, and had
actually attached an end to the spikes ready to ascend,
r when one of the watchmen perceived their movements.
One was about to climb up the wall when the watch-
man in question secured him, and while he was struggling
to prevent the others fr an escaping, a number of turn-
keys came to his assistance, and overpowered the others.
They were taken back to the interior of the prison and
heavily ironed. The locks were of extraordinary strength,
and it is a matter of surprise how they were able to make
such a key, from an old pewter pot, to unlock them. The
key is kept as a great curiosity, and its construction would
do credit to some of the first locksmiths in the metro-
polis.
A WHOLE FAMILY SWEPT AWAY BY THE CHOLERA.
—ln a small village named Blacktown, about one mile
from Castletown, Monmouthshire, towards the Bristol
Channel, is a small thatched cottage, in which lived a
labourina man named Bevan and his wife, with four young
children, his father-in-law and two sons, and two lodgers
—making eleven inmates altogether ! Nine of these were
huddled together at night in the upstairs room, and three
in the lower room ; so that at night, when in this closed-
up and unventilated upper hole, the atmosphere was so
thick and poisonous, that a lighted candle would scarcely
burn in it ! On Monday week, the husband went to his
work, leaving all well, except a lodger who had recently
come from a house in the neighbourhood, sick of a fever ;
but in the evening, between seven and eight, he was
called home by a messenger, when he found his wife and
one of the children strangely affected by sickness and
purging : and next morning, his father-in-law and three
other children were similarly affected. In a few hours,
the first-named were dead ; and before the evening, the
other four had also fallen victims—six altogether having
died in about twenty-four hours. One of the lodgers was
also taken ill, and on Friday last expired. So sad a visi-
tation naturally excited much notice, and one of the
stories was that the family and the lodger had died from
partaking of tea in the water of which a toad had acciden-
tally been boiled !—An inquest was, however, held on the
body of Wm. Thomas, aged 63, the lodger, and it then
appeared that the cause of death was malignant Asiatic
cholera, induced by bad diet and close, unhealthy sleeping
places.
THE AGAPEMONE.—The Rev. 'l'. Starkey formerly held
the living of Charlidge, and whilst there a gentleman of
the name of Prince assisted him as his curate. until his
doctrines became so wild and his manner so eccentric that
his diocesan suspended him from performing service. Mr.
Starkey, however, adopted the same views as his curate.
Again the bishop interfered, and eventually the vicar and
his curate were forbidden to promulgate their new-fangled
religious notions in this diocese. Religious madness or
most subtle scheming now marked the career of these
men ; they went about forming a new sect, announcing
themselves as being personifications of the Deity, and
inducing many witless men, and far more witless women,
to trust their fortunes in their hands and join them in their
new belief. We understand that numbers in Weymouth,
Wales, and other parts of the kingdom, as well as from
this neighbourhood, joined their standard, brought their
DIAIIeY into the treasury, and were permitted to join the