The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-02-22 00:00:00

VARIETIES

GIVE the devil his due. Certainly, says a contempo-
rary ; but it is better to have no dealings with the devil,
and then there will be nothing due to him.
FAME is like a young duck in a mud-puddle—very easY
to see, very easy to talk about after you have seen it, bu
it is an awful job to get hold of it.
Wily is the letter D like a squalling brat? Because
it makes Ma Mad. Why is the letter Y like a young
spendthrift ? Because it makes Pa Pay.
A GENUINE YANKEE thus advertises his wife :
" On the 16th of August, on the night of Monday,
eloped from her husband, the wife of John Grundy. His
grief for her absence each day growing deeper, should any
one find her, he begs him to—k, ep her."
A Fix.—Johnson says he was never in a tight place
but once, and that was when:he had an insane bull by the
tail. Had he held on, he said he would have been drag-
ged to death over a stubble'field ; while if he had not
held on. the critter would (have turned round and gored
him. The question now is, which did Johnson do, hold
on or let go?
A GOOD PLACE FOR HUNTING.—" Well, farmer, you
told us your place was a good place for hunting, now
we've tramped it for three hours and found no game."—
" Just so • well, I calculate, as a general thing, that the
less game there is the more hunting you have."
Two VOCALISTS begged of Dr. Arne to determine
whether of the twain were the better singer. After hear-
ing them—" You are the worst singer I ever heard in my
life," exclaimed the doctor to one of the combatants.
" Then," cried the other, exultingly, " I win." " No,"
said Dr. Arne, " You can't sing at all."
LOVE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.—Men and
women whose life was ceaselessly occupied with ideas and
intrigues of love, were naturally always susceptible of its
influence ; and if, as Rochefoucauld observes, " there are
some people who would never have fallen in love, if they
had not heard love mentioned," many persons, through
hearing it talked of wherever they went, fancied they had
found it where it did not exist. Surprised at these effects
of the imagination, some men endeavoured to explain
them by causes of a most ridiculous character. In order
to prove that the seat of love is in the blood, Segrais re-
lates a story of a German gentleman, whose faithless
mistress, desiring to get rid of him, ran him twice through
the body with a sword. He did not die of his wounds,
but. strange to say, when he had recovered, said Segrais,
" He felt as much indifference for the princess as if he
had never loved her, and he attributed this to the loss of
blood."—Guizot.
LIFE IN A FIFTH FLOOR IN PARTS.—The patient is
old, ugly, and unmarried ; she lives on £5O per annum. At
eight she gets out of bcd. At nine she shakes the dust
out of her little carpet from the window of her attic. At
ten she sips a half cup of chocolate. At eleven her nose
gets troublesome, and she takes snuff. At a quarter-past
eleven she says her prayers—short. At twelve she takes
out of a drawer the silk string which guides her lap-dog
in the garden of the Tuileries. At a quarter-past twelve
she puts on her brodequin, and looks in the glass twice.
At half-past twelve she sallies forth to take the air—what
she does abroad who can venture to say? At four she returns
and scolds herdog, who forgets his manners in thestreets. At
half-past four she whips him. At five she eats her dinner
—soup and a beef-steak. At six she falls asleep over a
pious book. At eight she puts on her night-cap. At nine
she sets her watch right. At ten she goes to bed. At
half-past the lamp goes out for want of oil. At eleven she
snores. Such is life at sixty in a fifth floor at Paris.
TELL YOUR WIFE.—Yes, the only way is to tell your
wife just how you stand. Show her your balance-sheet.
Let her look over the items. You think it will hurt her
feelings. No, it won't do any such thing. She has been
taught to believe that money was with you, just as little
boys think it is with their fathers—terribly hard to he
reached, yet inexhaustible. She has bad her suspicions
already. She has guessed you were not so prosperous as
you talked. But you have so befogged your money
affairs that she, poor thing, knows nothing about them.
Tell it right out to her, that you are living outside of
your income. Take her into partnership, and I'll war-
rant you'll never regret it. There may be a slight
shower at first, but that's natural. Let her see your
estimate, and when you come home again, she will show
you that you have put her bills too high. True, she had
had a guinea bonnet last winter, but " it is just as good
as ever ; a few shillings would provide it with newstrings,
and refit it a little ; the shape," she says, " is almost ex-
actly as they wear them now." And you will be sur-
prised to see how much less expensive she can make your
wardrobe. My dear friend, if, like Spain, your outgoes
threaten to exceed your income, be sure to tell your wife
of it. Not in a tone and manner that will lead her to
think you don't want her to buy furs this winter, but
just as if you wanted a counsellor in the day of your
trouble. And if she does not come up, heart and soul,
and most successfully to your relief, put me down for no
prophet

THE INCORRIGIBLE.—A good story is told in an eastern
paper of the treatment of a drunken husband by his ami-
able spouse. After trying various expedients, all to cure
drunkenness, she at last bethought herself of another plan
of making a reformed drunkard of her lord. She engaged
a watchman for a stipulated reward to carry Philander to
the watch-house, while yet in a state of insensibility, and
to frighten him a little when he recovered. In consequence
of this arrangement, Philander awoke about eleven o'clock
at night and found himself lying on a pine bench, in a
strange and dim apartment. Raising himself upon his
elbow, lie looked around until his eye rested on a man
seated by a stove, smoking a cigar. " Where am I ?" said
Philander. "Ina medical college," said the cigar smoker.—
" What-a-doing there ?" " Going to be cut up."—" How
came that ?" " Why you died yesterday, while you were
drunk, and we bought your body to make anatomy. " Its
a lie ' • I'm not dead." " No matter ; we bought your car-
case from your wife, who had a right to sell it, for it's all
the good she could ever make of you ; if you are not dead
that is not the fault of the doctors, and they'll cut you up
dead or alive." " You will do it, eh ?" asked the old sot.
" Aye, to be sure we will ; now directly," was the resolute
answer. " Well, can't you let me have something to drink
before you begin ?" This last speech satisfied the watch-
, man that Philander's was a hopeless case, and, as his re-
ward was contingent on his successful treatment of the
patient, he was not a little chagrined at the result ; so,
with no gentle handling, lie tumbled the irreformable in-
ebriate out of the watch-house.—Anseric.an Paper.
A TOWN IN THE COUNTRY.—A periodical writer gives
the following amusing sketch of country quarters :-
14 There was so much party feeling, so much jealousy,
so much pride, so much affectation, so much opposition in
social matters, so much petty Miss I— would not go
where she was at all likely to meet Mrs. K—; that
Mrs. Buttercup and her daughters, whose father had made
a fortune by bricklaying in this town, was now too high
and mighty to associate with Mrs. Stanley, whose father
wss about to retire from business. The surgeon's wife,
from \Vantage, because her family was related, through
some seventieth degree, w:th the aristocracy of the country,
would not associate with thelawyer's wife,whose origin was
traceable to something like a clergyman's family at Read-
ing. In short, our unfortunate party only brought out or
laid before us the actual condition of affairs, to which
before we had been blind. Our doctor initiated us very
speedily into the state of feeling prevalent in this quiet
I place, almost beyond the precincts of civilization, or
I rather that artificial process by which natural men and
women are converted into stone automatons. I,Ve found
that even those who could keep handsome establishments
—live in handsome houses, dress in a handsome manner,
who had made their fortunes, by speculation, merchandise,
or any other similar source, and over whose heads a whole
generation had passed since the disgraceful fact of having
attained an independence by their wits or energies—even
these were not admitted within the sacred precincts of the
old family society," and were therefore compelled to
form a coterie, from which they, in like manner, excluded
all retired tradespeople,—those who had risen from
nothing to independence : so that these again., in order to
do as others did, formed another sub-society, from which
all present dealers in merchandise—all still serving in
shops—were utterly excluded, compelling these again to
fall back upon themselves; the large shopholder associat-
ing with his fellow—the smaller with his fellow; and -so
on, until the charwoman who worked at Lord B-------'l5,
held her nose above the 'charwoman who worked .at Sir
W. m 'fi. We at last discovered that the only
gentility of the town was zencentrated in the peroone of 6

the surgeons, lawyers, clergymen, and who, boasting of
high descent and unimpeachable family trees, suffered this
shadow from the past to supply the place of the sub-
stance of the present. There could be no society while
these things continued, and so we discovered."
DECLIVITY OF RIVERS.—A very slight declivity suf-
fices to give the running motion to water. Three inches
per mile, in a smooth straight channel, gives a velocity
of about three miles an hour. The Ganges, which
gathers the waters of the Himalaya Mountains, the loftiest
in the world, is, at 1,800 miles from its mouth, only
about 800 feet above the level of the sea--about twice
the height of Sr. Paul's in London, or the height of
Arthur's Seat, in Edinburgh—and to fall these 800 feet
in its long course the water requires more than a month.
The great River Magdalena, in South America, running
for 1,000 miles between two ridges of the Andes, falls
only 500 feet in all that distance ; above the commence-
ment of the 1,000 miles, it is seen descending in rapids
and cataracts from the mountains. The gigantic Rio de
la Plata has so gentle a descent to the ocean that in Para-
guay, 150 miles from its mouth, large ships are seen
which have sailed against the current all the way by the
wind alone—that is to say, which on the beautiful inclined
plane of the stream, have been gradually lifted by the
soft wind, and even against the current, to an elevation
greater than that of our loftiest spires.—Arnott's Physics.

CURIOUS MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION. The
French speak in the nose, the Germans in the throat, and
the English through the teeth. Books and paper were
formerly sold only at stalls, and the dealers therefore
came to be called stationers. A poker laid over a fire
concentrates the heat of the passing smoke, and creates a
draught through the fire. Water is called hard when from
containing too much carbonic acid it holds lime in solu-
tion. A pound of wheaten flour consists of bran 3 oz.,
starch 10 c z., gluten three quarters of an oz., and sugar
one quarter. The spring of a watch weighs 0.15 of a
grain, and a pound of steel makes 50,000. The pound of
steel costs 3d., and a single spring 2d., so that the 50,000
produce £416. Turnpikes were so called from poles or
bars swung on a staple, and turned either ways when the
dues were paid. A turnpike road by law is sixty feet wide,
and parish roads about thirty feet. Children lose weight
during the first three days after birth ; at the age of a
week they sensibly increase ; after one year they triple
their weight, then they require six years to double their
weight, and thirteen to quadruple it.

THE WAISTS OF AMERICAN LADIES.—The unna-
tural length and ridiculous smallness of their waists baf-
fles description. A waist that could be spanned is an
English metaphorical expression used in a novel, but it is
an American fact; and so alarming does it appear to an
Englishman, that my first sentiment, on viewing the phe-
nomenon, was one of pity for unfortunate beings who
might possibly break off in the middle, like flowers from
the stalk, before the evening concluded. No less extra-
ordinary is the size of the ladies' arms. I saw many
which were scarce thicker than moderate-sized walking-
sticks. Yet, strange to say, when these ladies pass the
age of forty, they frequently attain an enormous size.
The whole economy of their structure is then reversed,
their wrists and arms becoming the thickest parts of the
body. Here is a subject worthy the contemplation of the
ethnologist. How comes it to pass that the English type
—which I presume has not, in every case, been so affected
by the admixture of others as to lose its own identity—
how comes it to pass, I say, that the English type is so
strangely altered in a few generations ? I have heard
various hypotheses : amongst others, the habits of the
people—the dry climate. The effect of the latter on a
European constitution would have appeared to me suffi-
cient to account for the singular confirmation, if I had not
been persuaded by natives of the country that the small
waist is mainly owing to tight-lacing. This practice, it is
said, is persevered in to an alarming extent ; and if report
be true, it is to be feared that the effects will be felt by
future generations to a greater degree than they are at
present.—Dublin University Magazine.