The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-12-04 00:00:00

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LIFTING GREAT MASSES.—A correspcndent of
Weekly Paper says :—" I have just finished reading Miss
Martineau's Travels in Egypt and Palestine, and observed
a remark of the authoress twice repeated, once in the first
and once in the third volume, to the effect that the art of
lifting such masses of stone as are found in the ruins in
Egypt and at Baalbec is lost, and that the men of these
days could not quarry, transport, and raise such immense
weights. Now. as an engineer, I must positively deny
this to be the case, and shall briefly endeavour to do
away with the imputation on the present state of engi-
neering science. The size of the stone mentioned at
Baalbec was, if I recollect right, 68 x 18 x 14 feet. which
would give a weight of between 1,100 and 1,200 tons.
Now the weight of one of the tubes of the Britannia
Bridge at present erecting over the Menai Strait is 1,800
tons, or GOO tons more, and I can hardly imagine that the
stones of Baalbec were in a worse position to set than the
tubes at the Menai Strait."

PUBLIC EXECUTIONS.—Sir F. B. Head has replied to
Mr. Dickens. He says, " The merciful object of every
punishment which the law inflicts is not so much to re-
venge the past crime as to prevent its recurrence. Now,
Mrs. Manning's last moments clearly explain, or rather,
indisputably prove, the benefit which society practically
derives from a public execution. She had courage enough,
as she sat smiling by his side, to plan the murder of her
best friend ;' to dig his gravo ; to prepare vitriol and lime
to burn his body; to blow his brains out; to bury him in
her own kitchen. She had resolution enough, almost be-
fore he was cold, to go to his lodgings to obtain his pro-
perty. Her self-possession before the police authorities
at Edinburgh was unexampled; her hardness of heart on
'her trial, as well as in prison, most extraordinary. And
yet this bold, courageous woman, who, after the murder,
and with her hands stained with blood, had said to her
husband, ' I think no more of what I have done, than if
I had shot the cat that is on the wall !' afterwards trium-
phantly adding, I have the nerve of a horse !' did not
dare to face the indescribable terrors of a public execution !
So long as it shall be deemed advisable by us, by laws
divine as well as as human, to deprive the murderer of his
lif>, the whole process of his trial, ending in an act of such
awful responsibility, ought to be performed in open day,
in order that the community may at all events, clearly
see what it is they are doing,—what it is they have done."

SOUTHEY'S FIRST ATTEMPT TO APPEAR IN PRINT.—
The Microcosm, which the Etonians had recently pub-
lished, excited a spirit of emulation at Westminster; and
soon after I went there, some of the senior king's scholars,
of whom Oliphant was at the head, commenced a weekly
paper called the Trifler. As the master's authority in
our age cf lax discipline could not prevent this, Smith
contented himself, in his good-natured easy way, with
signifying his disapprobation, by giving as a text for a
theme, on the Monday after the first number appeared,
these words scribimus indocti doctiquc. There were two
or three felicitous papers in the Microcosm which made a
reputation for the book ; indeed Eton has never produced
men of more genius than those who contributed to it.
The Trifler may in general have been on a par with it,
that is to say, neither of them could contain anything
better in serious composition than good school-boy's
exercises : but it had no lucky hits of a lighter kind, and
when forty numbers had been published, more to the con-
tentment of the writers than of anybody else, the volume
was closed and was forgotten. The only disgraceful cir-
cumstance attending it, was that a caricature was put
forth representing Justice as weighing the Microcosm
against the Trifler, and the former with its authors, and
the King as a make-weight on their side, was made to
kick the beam. This was designed and etched by James
Hook, then a junior King's scholar, and now the Very
Rev. Dean of Worcester. Ido not suppose it was sold in
the print shops, but the boys were expected to subscribe
for it at a shilling each. My first attempt to appear in
print was in the aforesaid Trifler. I composed an elegy
upon my poor little sister's death which took place just at
that time. The verses were written with all sincerity of
feeling, for I was very deeply affected : but they were very
bad I have no doubt ; indeed I recollect enough of them
to know it. However, I sent them by the penny post,
signing them with the letter B ; and in the next number
this notice was taken of the communication : " B's Elegy
must undergo some alteration, a liberty all our correspon-
ents must allow us to take." After this I looked for its
appearance anxiously, but in vain ; for no farther mention
was made of it, because no alteration could have rendered
it fit for appearance, even among the compositions of
elder school boys. Oliphant and his colleagues never
knew from whence it came ; I was far too much below
them to be suspected, and indeed, at that time, I was
• kndwn out of my remove for nothing but my curly head.
--Affe (if Southey.