The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-08-23 00:00:00

ever, that cause of complaint-is removed.' HAiDWIFI

sensibly and in a straightforward manna
the operation at least for a year of, as far as regarded
bad clause in the bill ; forasmuch as tl
d by many neculiarith

wished to de

rer
haraeter

such a

Mersey was
belonged to no other river—shifting- sands rendering it;
navi"ation very difficult ; argal, the safe pilotage of vesselsrequired the skill and aid of men acquainted with thl
changes constantly occurring. I have been on th(
Mersey—may I never say Mersey on me ! I con
alder his lordship's remarks mo..t applicable. it
cleverly, though briefly, showed the absurdity of th
measure, by allowing, in the payment for license
tors of foreign vessels, American vessels, ves,
1,11 sorts and of all countries, to navigate the
sey, it may be without having been in it befo
Moreover, the bill struck a fatal blow at the pilots o

'Liverpool. By the bye, they almost deserved what they
have got by their yaw-yawing all this time; I would have

got the bill kicked into the middle of next session for a
keg of tobacco, and another of Hollands, as parliamentary
fees. Lord STANLEY, of Alderley, rather a smart man
made a good hit in opposition to the amendment ; he said

the Liverpool authorities had conceded the whole principl
of the bill, for they had expressed their willingness t
allow vessels trading with Scotland, Ireland and London

to have the new licenses. These vessels might have
occasion to be away for a time, say at Boulogne, Bourdeaux,
&c., and come back equally ignorant of the state of the
Mersey. Lord STANLEY said a good deal, but the above
is the gist. Lord COLCIIESTER, rather a 'quiet man in the

house, is a sailor, heard on thequarter dick ; he is of the
same age as HARDWICRE, a Conservative soul also ! He
is the son of Mr. ABBOTT, who was speaker of the House
of Commons for 15 years, retiring with his title in 1817;
the same speaker whom the then well-known JACK
FULLER denominated "the little man with the big wig."
_ _

He was one of the last celebrities of the last age
politicians—grey hair, grey powder on it, grey coat, grey
waistcoat, grey tight pantaloons on his spindle shanks—
he looked like an animated pen wiper ! His son, the
present Lord, ably backed HARDWICK; but the
ARERDERICIANS had it, and the original clause was carried.
Had a good fight been made in the Commons, CARD-
WELL'S drivelling might have been " squelched."
As far as regards the majority of the London newspapers,
daily and weekly, the abolition of the advertisement duty
does not as yet show a great increase in the olla podrida
advertisement columns. Most probably the salutary abro-
gation of the tax has not had time to make its operation
felt. There is one remarkable fact with which I have
made myself acquainted, namely, that the sixpenny adver-
tisements—the want places" description of announce-
ments—do not seem to " tumble in" so fast or so nume-
rously as was expected by the projectors. Two of the daily
metropolitan papers, I believe, take advertisements at the
above figure, and, as I have intimated, take literally nothing
by the motion. " There is reason in roasting an egg,.
clitioth the old proverb ; we are all workers, but where is
e servant worth having that would grudge a shilling
to advertise her or his " wants," and get a place in conse-
quence ? Then why reduce the charge so low as sixpence,
Which "pays nobody ; and, as far as the newspaper is con-
cerned, it turns out a bait that don't take—a cock that
won't fight, as the two papers I refer to now find.
Sir JA:NrEs GRA-RAM'S paper, the old Whig Morning
Chronicle, is trying hard to get on,—good reporting—
good but heavy
writing in its leaders,—criticisms, musical
and literary, light sometimes and thoughtless: but always
smart; they could not well be - otherwise, considering who
does them ; early intelligence and so-forth—all may do
much : JAMTS GRAHAM and Admiralty influence may do
more during the ensuing dead period,—the no-Parliament
period, when editors, I suppose, and scribblers gasp for
news, as landed trouts for water. The Times managers
certainly do their business in no mean, no niggard man-
ner. I say nothing about their giving pensions to their
-retired litterateurs, bonuses to their parliamentary re-
porters after a hard session; they (the managers) are
absolutely, among other "improvements," going to build
a public-house of their own, in order that the men, from
the editors down to the porters and printers' devils, all
have honest " witteLs aril drink" during the night—their
hours of work, without having recourse to night taverns,
where bad liquor is too frequently vended. " Whiteheaded
Bob" (Lows) will get the Times proprietors a license in
twenty-four hours.
The green curtain dropped for the season at the Royal
Italian opera on Saturday, at midnight, after a brilliant
evening ; the opera was " William Tell," which never
went so like Italian. TAMBERLIN ably vindicated his
position as the first tenor now in England. The house
was very crowded,—the artists were demanded and rede-
manded ; to crown all, COSTA had his ovation on the stage.
Kim° and Gaisi had cart loads of bouquets and floral
wreaths cast at their feet on Thursday. We may not hear
them again. "O ! Patria dolce." The Italians, when
well to do, like to en their opera in fair Italia ; the love
of country is vastl dy
strong in them. " God save the
Queen " was given as usual—not very well, but very
loyally.

ZOOLOGICAL GAILDENS.---If these gardens are not
filled, it is not the fault of the enterprising proprietor,
who seems determined that he will not lose public patron-
age for want of attractions. In addition to the many we
have already noticed, he has now announced a new Grand
eomic Pantomime, by M. Le C' '

ISTODTII AND SOITTII WAS
tenth annual meeting on Fri,
the ch • air, the directors' report

kNK.At the seven-
r. Richard Griffith in

:fated ti

of

lc, for 0-

tlnounted to £11,479. 7s
"ere Paid a dividend, for
eceniber last, at the rat
the reduced capital (E 1(
and. anaonnting to £3,2
half-Year ending the 301
per cent,, •-•

)th of June last,
eh the proprietors
Idinz the 31st of

t. per annum on

• per annum, amOuntin
two dividend, king £7,271. Bs
the dividends there remained a Si
19s. which the directors ha
the reserved fund,
previously at the Cailledd 'sum
of thatof
fn OM .

ied Tto the cm

tory and encou,
rotation, but we

were Mx

1 to oe

circulated. among the pr
were re-elected; the usv

I the Pr9Mciing

CO.IOIE.RCIAL

MONETARY

noNDA.Y

NEWS

NIGEIT

THE confident impression entertained at ti
part of last week, that political affairs in the Au.,
had been brought to a peaceable settlement, led to
an improvement in the Funds which operated bene-

ni the money in

discounts having subsided, a tone of confidence was
partially restored, and still further confirmed when
Thursday passed over and the Bank Directors
made no advance in the minimum rate of discount,
a step which had been anticipated. Towards the
close of the week, however, rumours became rife
of fresh difficulties having been started with refe-
rence to the Turkish question, and the advance in
Consols was barely maintained, although there was
evidently a disposition to keep up the market. The

weekly re

turns of the Bank of England show
mother decrease in the stock of bullion, a result
which cannot altogether be attributed to higher

prices and increased employment in this country,
which must before this have been pretty well
lrovided for, but must, in a great measure, be
-ing to demands from abroad. The la[,,tions of late have led to a considerable balance
trade against this country, even greater than
apparent by a comparison of imports and exports,
as by far the greater part of the increase on the
latter is to distant places from which no adequate
return has yet been received. The ill effect of this
continued decrease has, however, been much allayed
by the receipts by the Harbinger, which are sup-
posed to amount to nearly £600,000, and the other
consignments arrived and daily expected.
The tone of the market for Foreign and Colonial
produce has in some measure improved, particu-
larly with reference to sugar for refining purposes,
but there is an evident disinclination to enter into
any extensive transactions until all doubts with
reference to political affairs are definitively removed.
It is satisfactory, however, to observe that nothing
has yet occurred to disturb that confidence in com-
mercial security which generally prevails.
The reports from the cotton manufacturing dis-
tricts show a general inactivity and unwillingness
to enter into any engagements beyond demands
for immediate consumption. This is owing chiefly
to the difficulties in the money market causing
higher rates for discounts, and also to the greater
cost of production from working the mills short
time, and the demands of the operatives for in-
creased wages, by which the margin for profits is
considerably diminished, and less encouragement
a to speculation. Prices, however, are fairly
i
.stained, and there s no immediate prospect of
iy falling off in legitimate business. In the
woollen districts a fair amount of. trade is doing,
but not at prices sufficient to realise great profits
at the present high rates for the raw material. In
the hosiery trade activity still prevails ; but foreign
orders for lace goods are not quite so numerous as
were anticipated.
The Government do not seem very willing to
adopt the conclusions of the Committee on Decimal
Coinage, which was obtained by Mr. WILLIAM
BuOwN, M.P. for South Lancashire, without fur-
ther deliberation. The Committee recommend
tl- 't —f-.vving shall be taken as

nat the present pouna sterun6
unity, and that other coins shall form decimal pro-
portions of it, thereby rendering necessary a sup-
pression of the half-crowns and a total alteration
of the present copper coinage, with the additional
and still greater inconvenience of revolutionising
the whole system of weights and measures. In
hesitating to adopt such a theoretical scheme, the
Executive have exercised a sound discretion, for it
will be found far easier to devise such a plan upon
paper than to put it into actual practice. If we
compare the advantages and disadvantages, the
former will be confined to the mere additional faci-
lity for keeping mercantile accounts by saving the
labour of reducing pence into shillings and shillings
into pounds, and something more in the calcula-
tion of cwts., quarters, and pounds ; whereas the
evils are beyond all power of estimation, rendering
it necessary for a whole population to go to school
again, and then making it more than doubtful
whether it was worth while going through so
much to gain so little. By the present system, we
have the intelligible fractions of halves, thirds,
quarters, and eighths, which are practicable both
in quantities and values ; but by the Decimal sys-
tem divisions must be fifths and tenths, and exact-
itude would be in the majority of instances all but
impossible. Indeed, the value of the system of
decimals has been considerably overrated, being
chiefly applicable to abstruse calculations, and but
little to the business of every-day life. If we sup-
pose, however, for the sake of argument, that the
system had any value in itself, its adoption would
still be an evil, for a new generation must arise
before the common people would comprehend it, or
be able to adapt themselves to the change. The
Committee have referred to the examples of France
and America as proofs of its practicability, but they
are instances by no means applicable to Great
Britain. In the one case it was a new people,
ready to adapt themselves to any system, having
all their habits to form ; and in the other instance,
it was a nation who had destroyed everything old
during the horrors of a Reign of Terror, and who
accepted the new system for the simple reason that
it was new. We are, however, an old people,
having ancient customs and long-formed habits ;
and such a change would produce a greater revolu-
tion than that which altered the succession from
the male to the female line of the Stuarts.
The return from the Bank of England for the
week ending the 13th of August gives the following
results, when compared with the previous week :--
Public deposits ... £3,315,392; Increase £1,097,165
Other deposits ... 12,190,020; Decrease 285,508
Rest 3,344,226; Increase 1,543
On the other side of the account—
Government securities £13,027,582; Increase £249
Other securities ... 13,611,721; Increase 385,020
Notes unemployed ... 7,863,225; Increase 333,785
The amount of notes in circulation is £23,100,015,
being a decrease of £422,780 ; and the stock of
bullion in both departments is £17,309,574, showing
a decrease of £124,986, when compared with the
preceding return.