The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-11-29 00:00:00

PuonucE.—Business has been generally more
active during the week, and prices have been well
maintained. TO-DAY there is no change to notice
in Sugar, the refiners still continuing the chief
purchasers : the sales, including Saturday's opera-
tions, comprise 70 hhds. St. Lucia at 31s. to 335.,
40 hhds. Jamaica at 335. 9d., 4,600 bags Khaur at
28s. 6d., and 1,4-50 bags Bengal at 38s. to 38s. 6d.
for Benares, and 345. to 345. 6d. per cwt. for Dates.
50 puns. Antigua Molasses, from the quay, are
reported at 17s. 3d. per cwt., and a small lot of
Demerara Rum at previous prices. The Tea
market continues firm for all descriptions, with
the exception of common Congou, several parcels
of which are offering at ls. 3d. per lb. The Rice
market has become quiet, the sales being confined
to a few hundred bags of Bengal at 15s. 9d.
per cwt. We have also to notice 50 bags Salt-
petre at 295. 3d. (51 per cent.), 20 bags liver Shell
Lac at 425., 420-bags Sago Flour at 225. per cwt.,
20 tons Panama Mother-of-pearl Shells at £2B 10s.
per ton from the quay, and 500 bags Calcutta
Linseed at 545. per quarter.
WooL.—The business of the week has been to a
fair extent, and confidence seems to be gradually
increasing ; although the reports from the manu-
facturing districts are anything but encouraging,
yet this market has continued to improve since the
close of the London sales, and a fair average
amount of business has been done this week at
improved rates : there have been several inquiries
for coarse long-stapled Wools, such as Bosnia, and
Syrian fleece, free from scurf, of which the market
has been nearly cleared ; there is also a demand
for good white Egyptian of long staple, but none
in the market. Present stocks consist of short-
stapled ordinary quality. Imports for the week,
7760 bales, chiefly from the west coast of America.
Several sales of Irish and English Fleece Wool are
reported at id. to Id. per lb. more than could have
been made a month ago. Stocks are light, and
holders are confidently expecting higher prices.
IRON.—The Scotch Pig Iron Market has again
assumed the dangerous price upon which we com-
mented in the early part of the present year, and
we now see no reason to alter very materially the
view we then took of this article. The price of
coals and tabour since then has certainly advanced,
yet we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that, in the
first half of the year 1852, Scotch Pigs could be
purchased at from 355. to 40s. per ton, and that
the present cost is about 80s. per ton. In the
former instance the price was too low to remune-
rate the Ironmasters, and it is now much too
dear for all legitimate trade, and this assertion is
fully borne out by the fact that the exports have
fallen off from a weekly average of 16,000 tons to
8,600 tons for the past month, as well as the fact
that in the United States (our great customer) the
price, as per Africa's advices, is equal to £6 3s. 9d.
per ton cash, whilst it will cost 20s. t 0.255. per ton
above that price to sell in New York : meethants
who purchased for exportation choosing to sell
here at the advance, making sure of a good profit
in preference to shipping to an uncertain market.
The foundry-men, too, are merely purchasing from
hand to mouth in the expectation of reduced rates.
About two months since the price was 605., and has
been run up to 80s. by large purchases in anticipa-
tion of the abolition of the French duty ; but, like.
most other speculations of this nature, it has been
carried too far. The long looked-for decree has
been issued, and amounts to a reduction of 2 francs
per 100 kilogrammes, or not quite 30 per cent. in
duty if imported in French or English vessels, and
about half a franc less in foreign vessels, which is a
mere bagatelle in comparison with the increase in
the price of the Iron, which is upwards of 100 per
cent., without taking into account the higher rates
of freights now prevailing. In the early part of
1852, the value of Pig Iron was about 405., and
freights much lower than now, yet pigs did not
then find their way in large quantity into French
consumption, and how they can find their way there
under present circumstances, the following com-
parison of the three items of cost, freight, and
duty will clearly point out, viz.

- - Coat. Freight. Duty.
First half 1852.1 40s. 180.
Per ton. 1

Nov., 1853...

61s. £5 19 0
438. 61 £7 10 •6

Difference, £1 11 6
Thus we find a difference against the exports to
France, after allowing for the reduction of duty, to
be about 31s. 6d. per ton, certainly offering no in-
ducement to mercantile men to ship now who did
not do so in 1852. The whole affair of the present
rise bears much the same stamp of the over-specu-
lation of last year, when an unwarrantable com-
parison was made between the price of Scotch Pig
Iron and the manufactured Iron of Staffordshire
the error of which many people discovered when it
was too late.---To-DAY there has been little or no-
thing doing in Pig Iron. Quotations, 795. to 80s.
per ton.

SHOCKING TRAGEDY AT LOIIIBVILLE.—On Wednes-
day morning, November 2, Matthew F. Ward, the eldest
son of R. J. Ward, Esq., went to the High School in
Louisville, near the corner of Second-street, on Chestnut,
accompanied by two of his brothers—Robert Ward, a
youth of sixteen, and William Ward, a smaller boy—and
called for Mr. W. H. G. Butler, one of the teachers. A
few words passed between them, when Mr. Ward pulled
out a pistol, and shot Mr. Butler down. The ball pene-
trated his left breast, over the heart, and he fell to the
floor, exclaiming in his agony, " I am killed—oh, my wife
and child !" Ward then dropped his pistol, and, accom-
panied by his brother, retreated from the school-room.
Mr. Butler was able to rise from the floor, and left the
room, assisted by some boys, but when in the street he fell
again, and was carried home. The ball could not be ex-
tracted, and he bled inwardly. Mr. Butler had corrected
Wm. Ward, one of his pupils, the day previous, for telling
a falsehood, which led to the tragic affair. Robert Ward,
who accompanied his brother, drew a bowie knife, and
when Professor Sturgis, the other teacher in the school,
advanced to the assistance of Mr. Butler, he made such
demonstrations that the professor retreated and made his
escape out of a window, The scholars in the schoolroom
were also scattered in all directions by the display of such
warlike instruments in their midst. Mr. M. F. Ward
and Robert J. Ward, jun., were promptly arrested, and
lodged in gaol. Mr. Butler died the following day, leav-
ing a wife and child. The two Wards have been commit-
ted for trial.
AN AWKWARD DISCLOSURE.—At the Lambeth police-
court, on Saturday, Mary Anne Hoffman, a smart-looking
girl, in the service of Captain George Burslau, of Lord-
ship-lane, Dulwich, was charged with stealing a towel, the
property of her master, and on suspicion of stealing an
emerald ring, value £l5, the property of her mistress.
The captain deposed that on returning with his wife from
a party, about two in the morning of the 10th instant,
Mrs. Buislau took off her rings and placed them on the
dressing-table, and on the following morning the emerald
ring was missing. The servants all denied any knowledge
of the ring, and as the prisoner in particular had the duty
devolved upon her of coming into that room, suspicip
rested on her, but he did not feel justified in giving her
into custody. That morning, the prisoner being insolent,
he ordered her to quit his house. She refused, and he was
compelled to turn her out; and, on having her boxes
searched by a policeman, one of the new set of towels pur-
chased by him was found, and he then gave her into cus-
tody. A witness, who hemmed the towels, deposed that it
was one of the captain's. The prisoner assured the magis-
trate that the towel was her own, and that she knew no-
thing about the ring. On the night in question, her mas-
ter and mistress brought home from the party Dr. 31i1-
lengen and a Mr. Hudson, and there was a quarrel, as she
believed, about the doctor's attentions to her mistress at
the party. The doctor was to have stopped in the house
all night, and the servants believed he had done so, but on
going to the room the bed was found untouched, and the
doctor had disappeared no one knew how. Various prices
had been set on the ring, and on each occasion it was made
to increase in value. The prisoner added, addressing the
captain, " There would be nothing of this, had I allowed
you to kiss me when you gave me the wine to drink, and
told me you had purchased me the ear-rings you pro-
mised." The Captain, colouring "Me ! want to kiss
you ?" Prisoner : Yes, but I wouldn't let you." The
prisoner being without friends to bail her, tho magistrate
accepted her owl; recognizance* to appear en a future daY.