The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-12-14 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

THE PRIVY COUNCIL AND EDUCATION.— Official notice
has been published that the first general examination of
schoolmasters who are candidates for certificates will be
held in Easter week next.
The United Presbyterian Congregation of North Leith
have presented a house ar.d garden, of the value of £1,250,
to the Rev. Dr. Harper, as a proof of the esteem in which
they hold him as their pastor.
Madame Mendelssobn Bartboldy, *widow of the cele-
brated composer, has received letters of condolence from
the Queen of England, the King of Prussia, and the King

Miss Birch, the celebrated singer, In” written to the
paper° to say that she did not keep her engagement with
the French Operatic Company in consequence of "an
insurmountable terror having taken possession of her on
account of the imperfection of her French pronunciation."
At the general rehearsal she was the victim of the laughter
and jokes of the company. She adds, "You can imagine
with what alarm I was seized on finding how easy it was
for a public, so fond of a joke as the people of Paris,
which makes game of everything, including itself, to find
in my accent a perpetual subject of pleasantry." Jenny
Lind and Alboni have already shrunk from a similar ordeal.

A CHARACTER.—LateIy died in London, William An-
thony, Esq., one of the most remarkable men of his day.
He was of a very ingenious turn of mind, and effected
many improvements in watchmaking, arid other mecha-
nism : 30 years ago he joined in a patent for the applica-
tion of steam-power to passenger vessels in the Thames.
In 1823 he singly resisted an attack of burglars on the
house, where he had a consignment worth £2OOO of
watches for exportation. In 1825 (the bubble year), he
engaged in many of the schemes then afloat, and lost con-
siderably ; but his love of speculation still led him to in-
vest large sums in exhibitions in the metropolis, and in
chemical works in Clerkenwell. He was also one of the
earliest shareholders in the Manchester and Liverpool
line ; but his speculations resulted in great losses. He was
engaged for nearly 20 years in a disputed reference of
partnership accounts, which cost him above £30,000. He
has left some freehold property to " his nearest of blood,
claiming within 12 months,' and in default of nearer,
then to his first cousin's son, Mr. Charles Nash.
FAMILY FREAKS.—Four years ago, says the Notting-
ham Journal, a young couple—the bridegroom twenty,
the bride eighteen—took each other " for better for worse"
in Nottinghamshire, and returned from church to a com-

fortable home. He was in easy circumstances she had a
snug life-annuity—tolerable securities for happiness. But
the honeymoon had hardly " filled its horn ' ere the bride
became false to her husband. Several suitors were at
first encouraged, but in a short time she settled' down
with a shoemaker, a married man and a father. The
injured husband entered the army. Crispin and' his
paramour fled into Derbyshire. Not lor.g had they lived
together before they were forcibly separated, the shoe-
maker returning home, and his depraved companion

nobody knew where. Lately, however, an acquaintance
received a letter from her, inquiring after her guilty lover,
and took it to her husband's father. He, strangely
enough, entered into correspondence with her in the
name of the shoemaker, and several letters have been ex-
changed, the lady begging him to rejoin her in London.
The hoax, it seems, " forms the staple topic of conver-
- -•

certain age." It is difficult to divine why so stupid, not
to say unbecoming, a correspondence should have been

carried on

PENINSULAR AND ORIENTAL STEAM NAVIGATION
COMPANY.—The seventh annual meeting of this company
waa held on Wednesday. This powerful association,
composed of the wealth of the merchant princes of En-
gland, which has opened up such extensive facilities for
communication with our important possessions in India,
and, still more distant, China, is progressing most satis-
factorily. An additional capital of half a million sterling
is about to be raised, for the purpose of extending opera-
tions in the East; and. in all probability, a line of com-
munication will be established with Australia, under con-
tract with the Government, for the conveyance of the
mails between those colonies and the mother country,
and which is to be effected by stated voyages from Singa-
pore to Sydney—a route at present almost totally unfre-
quented, but which, with government aid, it is expected
would be rendered profitable. Such an establishment
would be of Oe utmost advantage to the rising colonies
of New Holland, as tending to open new and extensive
markets for their agricultural and mineral' produce, and

the supplying, with greater facility, many articles of
merchandise which they now import. The financial
statement is highly satisfactory—a dividend, for the whole
year, being paid of 8 per cent., free of income-tax, with
large reserves, in the shape of "depreciation" and "in-
surance" funds, and the ordinary reserve fund, preparing
them for any casualties to their vessels, without a fear of
being obliged to encroach upon the capital. Upon the
whole, it would appear, that this important company was
never in a more prosperous state ; and their present
position, with the vastly extended undertakings now under
consideration, undoubtedly stamps it as the greatest un-
dertakine, for a company of private merchants, ever
established in the history of the civilized world.
THE INFLUENZA IN LONDON.—The rate of mortality
during the last twenty days has been something, we should
think, very far beyond what our best informed readers are
prepared to expect. The autumnal weekly average of
deaths in the metropolitan districts, containing at the last
census a population of 1,948,211, is 1046. In the week
ending Saturday, Noy. 27, the total deaths were 1677,
being 631, or 90 a day above the average. In the week
ending Saturday, Dec. 4, the returns of which• will not be
published till to-morrow, the total number of deaths was
2454, being 1408, or 200 a day, above the average. In
the fourteen days, therefore, ending last Saturday. there
were 2038 deaths more than usual, and as such to be
ascribed to the epidemic, or the prevailing unhealthiness
of the season. We are now informed, though we hope

and trust without sufficient grounds, that since last Satur-
day, the rate of mortality has continued to increase. It
is scarcely necessary to remind the public that this is a
greater mortality than any which this generation has
known. The total deaths from Asiatic cholera in the me-
tropolis and its vicinity in 1832 was not more than 5275.
The most important feature of the epidemic is that which
every household has probably experienced for itself, and
which is borne out by the returns of the Registrar-Gene-
ral. It operates rather as a noxious and lethal element,
attacking each particular infirmity of constitution, assist-
ing ill tendencies, and giving the last blow to sickness, to
weakness, and to age. The weak head, the weak lungs,
, the weak throat, have had to stand the brunt. of the in-
fliction. In the last published returns, i. e., for-the week
ending Nov. 27, very little is set down to the head of
" influenza," which has, of course, a more limited signi-
fication in medicine than in popular parlance. The
greatest increase is in what are called the zymotic class
of diseases, and in diseases of the lungs.and other organs
of respiration.— Times.
THE CHARTIST ESTATE.—A correspondent of the
Gloucester Journal thus describes the politico-agricul-
tural colony recently founded in that locality. I deter-
mined to judge for myself, and there being a fine day, last
week, off I started for Lowbands. The first glance of the
estate is anything but attractive to an Englishman—to an
Irishman it must appear a kind of " model Tipperary."
here the resemblance ends. The settlers are an intelli-
gent, sensible, and civil body of mechanics, who have left
their profitable occupations in the north to enjoy, in the
west, what they describe as a profitable independence.—
Well, good luck to them—Mr. O'Connor's judgment was
sadly at fault in his selection of the spot upon whichto try
his plan. The distance of the Lowbands estate from
Gloucester is about nine miles ; it is nearly all arable, and
the soil, in most parts, a strong, wet, clay, unfit, since the
last rains, to be much worked until the spring. They
have not a draught horse upon the place, and consequently
they are compelled to pay others for hauling their coal.
Mr. O'Connor has had the estate partially drained, but the
drainage is miserably defective. The morning I was there,
several of the ailottees were engaged in letting down the
water from their allotment upon those of their neighbours.
Unless some more main drains are speedily cut to suit the
convenience of the holders, they will find that, after a deep
fall of snow and a sudden thaw, it will be next to impos-
sible to live there in health. The young wheat is just
above the ground, but not a barn or straw house is there
on the estate ; there must, therefore, at additional expense,
Thelotmaeiniott
tae
ebsawr till
will have
strawvo
no
vheoguesteab ye-.
till spring, and no bread corn till harvest ; and I could not
be erected
harvest.o neach
a
but notice that many of them were sorely puzzled to say
l
how they were to exist till next harvest—how those who
have no money from other sources can ever live there and
save money enough to pay for their allotments, is more
than I can see or they can tell. Again, upon the death of
the present owners, the estate must be either sold or di-
vided ; and, if it should come to a division amongst the
children, I shall feel that the landowners of Redmarley
will deserve sympathy. Mr. O'Connor has got the wrong
men for the work, and, more than that, he has brought
them to the wrong place. -
EDUCATION IN WALES,—COMMISSIONERS' REPORTS-.
—ln the session of 1846 a motion was made, praying her
Majesty " to direct an inquiry to be made into the state:
of education in the principality of Wales, especially into
the means afforded to the labouring classes of acquiring a
knowledge of the English language." The Secretary of
State undertook to have this inquiry conducted under the
authority of the Committee of Council on Education,
Three Commissioners, Mr. R. IL W. Lingen, Mr. Jelin-
ger C. Symons, and Mr. Vaughan Johnson, were sent
into Wales. The first undertook the inspection of the
counties of Carmarthen, Glamorgan, and Pembroke; the
second of Brecknock, ardigan, Radnor, and 'Monmouth ;
the third of North Wales. The reports, therefore natur-
ally divide themselves into three parts. Our present bu-
siness is with the first part. The object of the govern-
ment was to have a full and exact account of the state of
education in the principality ; every facility, for this pur-
pose, was given—each commissioner having the permis-
sion to associate with him two or more assistants versed
in the Welsh language. The area inspected by Mr. Lin-
gen contained 2376 square miles, and a population (1841)
of 365,388. The number of day schools, excluding the
few where the lowest terms exceeded 6d. a-week, were 712
day-schools, said to contain 30,910, or about 1 to 12 of
the population, and 913' Sunday-schools, said to contain
72,392, or just about lins of the population. The edu-
cation of the district is therefore carried on principally by
the means of Sunday-schools. Through them the younger
portion of the labouring classes in Wales can
.generally
read, or are in course of learning to read, the Scriptures in
Welsh. A fifth of the population are in them, about half
this number is returned as able to read the Scriptures.
These schools organized some of them well, seine of them
ill, are especially attractive to the Welsh people. They
are the best conception of the wants and objects of edu-
cation and of the means of applying it, which the volun-
tary principle, acting with great energy, has been able to
work out for itself. Whatever the amount of instruction
conveyed in them, they are stated " to be real fields of
mental activity." The activity, though, is within a piti-
able narrow range, and often of a most pernicious or waste-
ful tendency. "The topics current in them are those of
the most general (religious) interest, and are treated in a
mode partly didactic, partly polemical, partly rhetorical,
the most universally appreciated. Whatever ignorance is
shown there, whatever mistakes made, whatever strange
speculations started, there are no superiors to smile and
open their eyes."
FEARFUL MURDERS AND SUICIDE.—OR Wednesday
this town was horrified by the news of a tragedy, such as
was never before known to have taken place within its
precincts—the murder of four children by their mother,
having cut their throats with a razor, and the taking of
her own lite by the same means. The woman who per-
petrated these crimes was the wife of a jobbing brewer,
named Ritiont, who, at the time of the occurrence was
absent from home. The co.ttage in which the family re-