The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-03-12 00:00:00

FRIDAY, MARCH 8.

At the sitting of the Court this morning, some further
evidence was given by the plaintiffs; after which Mr.
Kelly addressed the jury for the defendants, in a lucid and
comprehensive speech of upwards of three hours' duration.,
Several witnesses were then called, the purport of whose
evidence is that the two attesting witnesses (besides Mr.
Mewburn,) attached their signatures in March, 1830, and
not in December, 1829 ; that there were only about five
lines written at the top of the paper ; that there were no
signatures to it previous to their own ; that no seal was
fixed to the document at that time; that Wrightson, the
testator, was in a state of habitual drunkenness from the
time he acquired the property, drinking, on an•average,
three bottles of wine per day, one at night, and, sometimes
a bottle more when he had company ; that his wife en-
couraged him in the indulgence of this propensity, and or-
dered one of the servants to keep his decanter continually
supplied ; and,
that her second husband, Mr. Topham,
(the present plaintiff,) remained and slept at the house for
a period of six consecutive weeks between Januafy and
May, 1830. A number of minor facts, tending to the con-
firmation of the above, were deposed to, after which the
court again adjourned.

HOUSE ROBBERY.—Between the hours of seven and
eight o'clock on Saturday night last, the house of a mas-
ter-pilot, of the name of Samuel Slater, in Rupert-street,
was entered in the absence of the family, and a silver
watch, together with a variety of household articles, were
abstracted. No trace of either the thieves or the pro-
perty has since been discovered.
• - • •

•
SANKEY BROOK NAVIGATION.—A special general
meeting of this company was held at the office of Messrs.
Leigh and Eaton, Leigh-street, on Friday, for the pur-
pose of confirming the sale of the above navigation to the
company of proprietors of the St. Helen's and Runcorn
Gap Railway. The chair was occupied by Thomas Sands,
Esq., and, after a short discussion, the sale was con-
firmed.

HOUSE BREAKING AND ROBBFRY.—Yesterday, at the
Police-court, a young man named John Lyon, was charged
with having, with others, broken into the house of Samuel
Slater, a pilot residing in Hopwood-street, and carried off
a quantity of wearing apparel, &c. The complainant had
gone out on Saturday afternoon, leaving no one in the
house. •On his return he found the doors fastened inside,
but found his way into it, and found it " full of thieves."
They all then eseaped, and he found a pane had been
taken out of a window and the sash opened. He missed
three coats, three handkerchiefs, a watch and guard, a
vest, three silver tea spoons, &c.—in all of the value of
£9. He gave information to the police, and about three
o'clock on Sunday morning a constable saw the prisoner
with a quantity of articles, and asked him where he was
going with them. He replied to Mr. Green's, the dyers
in Copperas-hill. He detained him, and it turned out
that the articles comprised great part of the clothing
missed. He was committed for trial.

EXTENSIVE ROBBERY OF MONEY.—At the police-
court yesterday, a woman of abandoned character, named
Maria Davies, and a young man, were brought before
Mr. Rushton on a charge of robbing a person of the
name of Thomas Smith of the sun-r of £5O. The com-
plainant stated that .he had come to the town, to which
he was a stranger, from Bradford, on Thursday last ; and
being accosted by the female prisoner, he treated her to a
glass, and afterwards went with her to a house in Cum-
berland. There, after having had some more drink, he
was awakened in the night, and told to leave the house,
when be found that his " fair friend" had decamped, and
that all his money (iu country bank notes, and 27 sove-
reigns) had disappeared! He gave information to the
police, and the female prisoner was found. It appeared
she had changed a £lO Bradford note at Mr. Hancocks,
in Marybone, who afterwards took it to Mr. Barnard's
bank, where it was stopped. Another £lO note of the
Huddersfield bank was found ; but one of them only was
identified. The male prisoner was in her company when
she was apprehended, and, it appeared, had stated, at her
suggestion, that he had given it to her, and that he Lad
received it from an uncle in Shropshire—he being drunk
at the time ; but no distinct evidence was brought against
him, he was discharged. The remainder of the money
was not found. The female was coin onitted for trial.
DR. ROTH'S AUTOMATON CALCULATORS.—We have
much pleasure in learning that Mr. Wertheimber, the
Patentee of the automaton calculators, has arrived in this
town, where he intends staying for a few days. We have
had an opportunity of inspecting this most wonderful
invention, and can add our unhesitating testimony to the
high opinion which our contemporaries of the Metropoli-
tan Press have expressed of its merits. There are four
different machines; the first is a counter, and indicates,
with unerring correctness, the number of revolutions, or
quantity of work performed by machinery with rotary or
any other movement to which it may be adapted. The
second performs addition, simple or compound, from one
farthing up to a million of pounds, the third, addition
and subtraction, and the last, the four rules of arithmetic
up to thousand millions. The operation is extremely
simple and easy and the regularity with which the succes-
sive transmission of figures are made, and the instanta-
neous rapidity with which it returns to 0 (zet o) necessary
for commencing new operations, are quite remarkable.
Such machines have engaged the attention of the scientific
for upwards of two centuries ; something of the kind was
attempted by Perrault in 1720, Poetius 1728, Peregre in
1750, Prahl, 1789, Gruson, 1790, Gutle, 1799, &c., &c.
The instruments however, which these eminent persons
produced were of very limited utility, partaking more of
the character of toys, than of practical inventions, and
have long since sunk into oblivion. To another class
belong the machines invented by Napier in 1617, called
the " Virgulce Neperianae," as well as the two other
Works of this celebrated Scotchman, viz., the " Multi-
plicationis promptuarium," and his " Abacus Arcalis" ;
in his footsteps followed Demean, 1731, Jordan, 1798,
Leopold, Petit, and others. All the machines mentioned
in this brief sketch required the attention to be fixed,
and did not attain the object. Hence the aim of scientific
men has been to invent a self-acting instrument for cal-
culations, which can alone deserve the name of a calcu-
lating machine. The first attempt of this kind was made
by Blaise Pascal in 1640, his machine though it performed
addition and subtraction mechanically, was so difficult
to work, and its mechanism so imperfect, that it was soon
discarded and forgotten. A similar fate awaited a ma-
chine for adding and subtracting invented in this coun-
try, by Samuel Moreland, in 1666. The insufficiency and
defects of these instruments gave rise to subsequent en-
deavours to improve them. Lepine in 1725, and Hillorin
de Boistessandeau in 1730, were not more successful than
their predecessors, nor did Gerstens' invention, submitted
in 1753 to the Royal Society of London, afford greater
satisfaction. We pass over several attempts made with
partial success by Polenius in 1709, Leibntz in 1673, and
others, and come at once to the well known Machine un-
dertaken by Mr. Babbage, in 1821, for Government, in-
tended to form tables of progression by mechanical means,
for the use of surveyors. A portion of this machine
forming a progression up to five figures was complete;
£17,000 had been expended on it already, and the project
was abandoned in 1835. Mr. Gabbage is at present oc-
cupied with the plan for another machine, and all friends
of science must wish him success.—We now come to
speak of the recent attempt of Dr. Roth, of Paris, for
the last three years this gentleman has been engaged in
the construction of arithmetical machines, and has ac-
complished 'his scheme of performing mechanically all
the operations of arithmetic. The machine in its present
state, works, asLWe have stated, addition, subtraction,
multiplication, and 'division, quite mechanically. The
aritmetical progression is of most importance; and when
we consider the variety and utility of the functions per-
formed by a small instrument, and its comparatively in-
significant price, we cannot but congratulate the inventor
on his decided success, and express our cordial wishes that
he may meet with every encouragement to persevere in
his highly interesting and important labours. Mr.
Wertheimber, the proprietor and Patentee, has had the
honour of submitting the invention to her Majesty and
her royal consort at Windsor Castle, both of whom were
pleased to express their admiration of the machines and
to honor the Patentee with an order for two of each sort.
li
It has been highly approved by the Admiralty, which has
adopted the counter,-for registering the number of strokes
made by their steam engines, and the Board of Trade, to
whom Mr. Wertheimber has supplied several of the
Machines. The Roal Institution, the Society of Arts,
and the Institution of Ci,il Engineers ; and many scien-
tific Bodies have likewise honoured the Patentee with
testimonials of their approbation. —For price and other
particulars we refer our readers to the advertisement in
another page.