The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-12-31 00:00:00

P. esident Dwight, of New Haven,
quantity of waterprecipitated over the falls, at

NIACIARA PALI

11,202,375 tons pip hour; and barby calculates the mass to
make 1,672,703,000 cubic feet per hour; while another au-
thor, Picken, makes the quantity to be 113,510,000 gallons,
or 18,524,000 cubic feet per minute.

THE RECENT MELANCHOLY ACCIDENT ON TIIE GREAT
WESTERN RAILWAY.—The coroner's jury in this case
awarded the " deodand of £lOOO on the engine, tender, and
carriages, on the grounds that more watchmen should have
been employed to watch the cutting, and the danger of placing
the passengers next the engine, with a recommendation that
a portion of the spoil-hank be removed from the sides of the
road."

THE EXCHEQUER BILL FRAUD.—Amongst the victims cf
this heartless robbery is a major in the army, who had nearly
£40,000 worth of the forged Exchequer-hills. Thus has a
brave and veteran officer been suddenly reduced from afflu-
ence to poverty. No doubt an appeal will one of these days
appear in our journals in behalf of the destitute family of this
gallant but now pauperised man. This is not an isolated
case ; others, equally heart-rending, are connected with that
diabolical fraud.

ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENON.—On Tuesday night, about
eight o'clock, a band of fire, apparently about a yard in
length, its sides having somewhat the appearance of a big.
bellied bottle, its mouth resembling a large trumpet, and its
top tapering towards a point was observed slowly, and in a
perpendicular direction, to descend almost immediately above
the Clyde, betwixt Hutchinson's-bridge and Peat-bog.
Having approached, as it seemed in the distance, to within a
few yards of the stream, it instantaneously burst asunder
like a huge firework, and almost instantaneously vanished.
Persons at a distance, ignorant of the cause, imagined that it
was a vivid flash of lightning, its reflection, ou bursting,
having spread a luried glareover the prevailing wintry gloom.
—Glasgow paper.
MELANCHOLY OCCURRENCE.—A woman, named Mary
Stewart or Pebbles, residing in the Wallace Fens, was found
lying lifeless in bed, betwixt her two children, on the morning
of Thursday week. It is thought that she died from utter
starvation, her husband, James Pebbles, a labourer, having
deserted her without making the smallest provision for her
or her family. She had become sickly, and had received a
small sum for her support from the Kirk-Session ; but the
man returned, and the poor woman's pittance was withdrawn.
In this helpless condition, with increasing sickness, the cold-
hearted villain again abandoned her; and, after disposing of
the whole of her household effects, she had to have recourse
to the cold hand of charity, which, in her distressed condi-
tion, she found it impossible to do.-,Dundee Advertiser.

A singular occurrence took place in the church of Brom-
yard during the morning service on Christmas day, in con-
sequence of a lad, about 14 years of age, having inconsider-
ately placed in his waistcoat pocket a quantity of lucifer
matches with phosphorus, which by casual friction became
ignited. The congregation were suddenly alarmed at seeing
a dense smoke issuing from the pew in which the family were
sitting, and for several minutes much confusion 'prevailed.
Of necessity the service was suspended, whilst the vicar and
many of the parishioners were endeavouring to prevent the
congregation from rushing out of their seats, uader the ap-
prehension that the building was on fire; and by these means
and by the exertions of those immediately on the spot, the
alarm subsided with comparatively slight personal injury to
any one. The fright and confusion however tended to un-
settle the feelings of the whole congregation, and the effluvia
from the phosphorus continued to affect many of them during
the continuance of divine service.-- Worcester Journal.

SLAUGHTER-HOUSE MASTERS.—By the term "slaughter-
house masters," I mean a race of mean, selfish, but rich
men, who have usurped the place of our " old English mer-
chants," who collect every branch of trade into one focus,
who have immense wealth, and are ever on the look out, in
every market, for " cheap goods," i. e. for poor manufaCtu-
rers, who are in difficulties. From these men they purchase
(or in more proper terms, they rob and steal, by taking ad-
vantage of their distress) large quantities of goods at thirty,
forty, or fifty per cent. below " cost prices.' These goods
are then re-sold by them, at a profit, but still under the price
which they cost the manufacturer. The fair trader is then
shown these " cheap" articles, by his own customers, who
have purchased them of the slaughter-house men, and, though
he is not himself a needy man, he is, of course, obliged to
lower the price of his own goods, and when he returns home,
he is forced to reduce the wages to his work-people, or he
must give up manufacturing.--Oast/er'a Fleet Papers.
At the farm•steading of Mr. Douglas, of Kirkaldy, a hen
lately took up her abode with a young pig, and laid an egg
every morning, which grumpily as regularly made his break-
fast of. The hen, after sitting the usual period, walked out
with the pig (she having, as she seemed to assume, batched
him). and she now goes about, cluck, clucking, with her four-
footed brood, and feeds him in the usual way a hen does her
chickens. He lies at night with his head under her wing
(being two or three times as big as herself), and if any person
attempts to touch him, she flies at them furiously. Some-
times, when going about the doors with him, he takes it in
his head to have a dance, when she seems a little astonished,
and runs backwards and forwards after him, trying to check
bis daffin' •, but in vain until it suits himself. He proves a
most unruly and ungrateful fellow ; for, notwithstanding all
her care and attention, he goes off and leaves her sometimes,
at which she appears to be very uneasy. She feeds out of the
same trough with him, and when she gets a particularly good
piece, she ticks, ticks, until he comes and takes it from her.
—Scotch Paper.