The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-03-28 00:00:00

RNPONSI IN NBNraorrxDLAffre.—Despatches have been
forwarded to Newfoundland, conceding the demands for
responsible government, and informing the colonists that
the island will be put upon the same footing as Prince
Edward's Island and Nova Scotia.
QUESTION FOR LAWYERS.—Snooks wants to know if
when "distance lends enchantment to the view," and the
view refuses to return it, is there any legal remedy ?
THOROUGH COMITERCIAL PRINCIPLES.—The Phila•
delphia Bulletin, noticing Walker's expedition in con-
nexion-with the subject of Russo-American privateering,
has few doubts upon the subject, and pithily says—" There
are men who would go into partnership with Satan, if he
would only secure them a profit of cent. per cant. !"
A VESSEL was sent to sea the other day from Yarmouth
entirely manned by master mariners ; the rise of wages
and the attractions of the navy having so reduced the
number of common seamen.
TRAVELLING IN RUSSIA is rendered almost impossible
by reason of the enormous tax imposed upon the indivi-
dual desiring to move about. In,the first place, it is with
the greatest difficulty that a permission to travel, or leave
of absence for two years, is obtained even by a noble ; and
then it is only granted upon payment of a sum amounting
to 80 pounds a-head for each member of the family.
GRIST is announced to appear at the Royal Italian
Opera this season.
THE ADMIRALTY have adopted private signals in. their
communications by electric telegraph, in order to ensure
secrecy for their orders to the dockyards.
COLONIALPOSTAGE.—The intended reduction of postage
between this country and the colonies to a uniform rate of
6d. on letters not weighing more than half an ounce is
now about to come into operation with respect to all those
colonies the postal direction of which rests with the Post-
master-General, and in respect to such other colonies as
had notified their concurrence in the arrangement in time
to be included in this first measure. On the 23rd instant
the reduction took place with regard to the following
colonies : —viz.,Canada, Prince Edward's Island, Bermuda,
British West Indies (Barbadoes and Turk's Island ex-
cepted), British Guiana, Bahamas, Belize, Malta, and Gib-
raltar ; and on the Ist of May the same reduction will be
made in the postage on letters between this country and
Ceylon, Hong Kong, St. Helena, and the Gold Coast. De-
tailed information, with a statement of exceptional cases,
will be given in the usual notices exhibited at post-offices.
VICTORY AND REWARD.--"A decent country woman,"
said an English divine, "came to me one market day, and
begged to speak with me. She told me with an air of
secrecy that her husband behaved unkindly to her, and
that knowing me to be a wise man, I could tell her what
would cure him. ' The remedy is simple,' said I; ' always
treat your husband with a smile. The woman thanked me,
dropped a curtsey, and went away. A few months after
she came again, bringing a couple of fine fowls. She told
me with great satisfaction that I had cured her husband;
and she begged my acceptance of the fowls in return.
This was at once the victory of love and the reward of
patience."
THE OLDEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD.—The Charles-
ton Standard thinks that Mrs. Singleton, now living in
the Williamsburg district, in that state, is the oldest
woman in the world. She is now in the 131st year of her
age. Her mental faculties are still unimpaired, and she
retains all her senses except her sight, of which she was
deprived, at the advanced age of 99 years, by an attack of
measles. Her bodily energy has exhibited no diminution
for many years, she being still able to walk briskly about
the room. She has outlived all her children, her oldest
descendant living being a grand-daughter over 60 years
old. The first grand-daughter of this grand-daughter, if
now living, would be over 16 years of age.

TUE NEW YORK GREAT EXHIBITION.—A correspon-
dent of the Cologne Gazette has furnished the following
report : —"The New York World Exhibition has closed—
an abortion from beginning to end, a failure as far as the
advancement of national industry is concerned, quite un-
worthy of the national patronage, and only valuable as a
lesson for the future. Although the 800 pictures exhi-
bited occupied as much space as the Louvre Gallery of
Paris, yet not fifty amongst them were worth the frame
they were in. In December last the jury met, whereby
men of intelligence were mixed up with those who were
devoid even of every rudimentary knowledge. Thus, even
the honesty of some of the juries was suspected ; in other
cases it seemed mere chance which had guided their
awards. Thus, it is said, that the list of the prizeholders
affords but an insufficient sample of the capabilities of
American arts and manufactures.

A MONSTER STEAMER. Active preparations are
now in the course of progress at the yard of Messrs. Scott
Russell's, at Millwall, for layinc, down the immense iron
steam-ship, for the Eastern Navigation Company, the
peculiar construction of which is exciting vast interest
among ship-builders. In consequence of there not being
sufficient length in the yard for her ways, it became
necessary to add the adjoining yard of Messrs. Napier's to
Messrs. Scott Russell's works, and many hundred piles
have been driven in preparatory to laying down the keel,
which is to take place in the course of the present month.
The dimensions will be nearly as follows :—Tonnage,
10,000 tons, or builder's measurement, 22,000 tons ; ex-
treme length, 700 feet ; extreme breadth, 83 feet ; depth
of hold, 58 feet, with screw and paddle engines of the
aggregate nominal horse power, 2,800-horse ; stowage for
coals, 10,000 tons ; for cargo, 5,000 tons ; 500 first-class
cabins, with ample space for troops and lower class pas-
sengers. Her entire construction will be similar to the
tube of the Britannia-bridge, a kind of double ship, with
a space of 2 feet 8 inches between of a cellular formation.
She is to have 14 watertight compartments, most of them
40 feet apart. With these, it is said, she will carry out
sufficient fuel for a voyage to Calcutta or Australia and
back to England, and avoid the delay of lengthened stop-
pages and coaling which other steam-ships are subject to.
The ship is designed by Mr. Brunal, the Great Western
Railway Company's engineer, and who, it will be remem-
bered, designed the Great Britain. It is expected by that
gentleman that she will accomplish the voyage between
England and India, by the Cape, in thirty or thirty-
three days less time than the distance is at present done
by sea-going steamers. She is to be completed in eighteen
months.

EXTRAORDINARY FORGERY.—DR. GARDINER'S CASE.
This case is as remarkable as any recorded in the Causes
Caebres. A large sum had been appropriated by Congress,
under the treaty of peace with Mexico, to pay-off the
claims of American citizens, who, at various times, had
suffered injury at the hands of the Mexican authorities.
A special commission was appointed to examine these
claims, and Dr. Gardiner came forward with documents
to prove that he had been the owner of a valuable mine
in the department of San Luis Potosi, and that the Mexi-
cans had broken up his mining establishment, causing
him a loss of some half-million of dollars. The commis-
sion awarded him, if not the whole, a larger sum, as we
believe, than was given to any other single claimant. He
got the money, paid his counsel a large part of it, and
with the rest was a rich man. Soon after this he went to
Europe, and while he was there the suspicion became so
strong:that his whole claim was a fraud, that an injunction
was laid on a considerable portion of the money which he
had left in bank at Washington. He returned, and was
indicted about three years and a-half ago. He was first
tried under the indictment about a year since:; but that
trial resulted in the disagreement of the jury. The evi-
demo against him was procured by commissions sent to
Mexico expressly for the purpose. It was conclusive ; the
papers on which his claim had been prosecuted before the
Indemnity Commissioners were proved to have been for
the most part forgeries of a gross character; and it was
shown that the mine he claimed to have lost had never
had an existence. Still his case was managed with ability,
and the evidence he furnished on the trial was such as to
stagger and divide the jury on the question of his guilt.
We believe, however, that in the interim additional proofs
were obtained, which no longer left the possibility of a
doubt, and which not only resulted in the verdict ren-
dered, but in the infliction of the law's extremest penalty
by the court. The next stage in the drama was his suicide
—a terrible confession of the justness of his sentence, an
awful blow to the friends who had stood by him through
the prosecution.—New York Tribune.