The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-05-28 00:00:00

VARIETIES.

Why are young ladies like arrows ?—Because they are
all in a quiver when the beaus come.
Mahomet's father is said to have been so surprisingly
handsome that the day he was married 200 virgins of the
tribe of Koreish died of broken hearts.—lrving's Life of
Mahomet.

OCCURE.ENCE IN ONE OF OUR COMMON SCHOOLS.
—The teacher, a young lady, put the question to her
scholars, " Who made you ?" The oldest boy in school
could not tell, neither could any of the scholars, till she
questioned the smallest and youngest urchin in school.
He answered promptly, that God made him. The
teacher, turning to the oldest boy, said, "Are you not
ashamed not to know what this little fellow knows ?"
" replied the ' big 'un,' " Thunder ! I should
think he might know ; 't aint a fortnight since he was
made."

CHILDREN'S DlSCLOSURES.—Childrensometimes make
unexpected disclosures, which produce great awkwardness.
A gentleman dining with a friend one day, was struck by
the earnestness with which one of the little girls recarded
him, and, taking her on his lap, he caressed her. " Please,
sir," said she, " tell me what is in the house next to you ;
I'd like very much to know and to see it ?" " And tell
me, my little dear, why you wish to know ?" " Because
I heard mamma say, sir, thatyou were next door to abrute."
We may suppose how mamma felt when she heard herself
thus quoted. " What are you about, my dear ?" said his
grandmother to a little boy who was sidling along the
room, and casting furtive glances at a gentleman who was
paying a visit. "I am trying, grandmamma, to steal
papa's hat out of the room without letting that one see
it,' said he, pointing to the gentleman, " for papa wants
him to think he is out."
IRISH AND SCOTCH PARTRIDGES.—There is a singular
difference in habit between the partridge of the north of
Ireland and that of the opposite portion of Scotland, as is
well known to sportsmen who have-shot in both countries.
I have myself remarked it with some interest. An Irish
covey generally spring without uttering a call, but the
Scotch covey shrieks with all its might when sprung. The
Scotch birds, too, even when very little molested, more
knowingly take care of themselves than the Irish ; their
watchfulness is extraordinary. Their sense of hearing,
as well as of sight, must be remarkably acute. A sporting
friend, who has had much experience in both countries,
remarks, that he has more than once seen every bird of a
moderate-sized covey shot in Ireland, but never saw this
done in Scotland. He has bagged as many birds from a
certain number of individuals in the former island as he
has from the same number of covies in Scotland.-7'homp-
son's Natural History of Ireland.
AN AFRICAN SECRET SOCIETY.—There is a secret
society in Cape Mount, as in most countries, called the
Pourra Society. The rules are mutual assistance, sworn
secrecy, to such an extent that, done should reveal any-
thing in a distant country, his brethren will travel after
him, determined to kill him wherever they may meet
him. Of course, they have many other rules, which,
from the above reason, are kept pretty secret. The ap-
plication of the gridiron is really in use among the Pourra
men, and the initiated are marked by a hot iron, from
the lower end of the backbone to the shoulder-blades.
In the vicinity of every town is a Pourra bush, and,
during a meeting, it is certain death to be found in it.
The term used by the natives is, " burying wisdom."
The elder brethren, dressed as demons and wild men, with
feerful howls and imprecations, raise, as they pretend,
the devil, and by his alt name the candidate. A feast
ensues, after considerable noise and howiine, and shriek-
ings, perfectly bewildering, and exciting the curiosity of
the uninitiated.—Forbes's African Blockade.
THE BEGGING-LETTER WRITER.—He has beseiged
my door at all hours of the day and night; he has fought
my servant ; he has lain in ambush for me going out and
coming in • he has followed me out of town into the
country ; lie has appeared at provincial hotels where I
have been staying for only a few hours; he has written
to me from immense distances when I have been out of
England. He has fallen sick ; he has died, and been
buried ; he has come to life again, and again departed
from this transitory scene; he has been his own son, his
own baby, his idiot brother, his uncle, his aunt, his aged
grandfather. He has wanted a great-coat, to go to India
in; a pound, to set him up in life for ever; a pair of
boots to take him to the coast of China ; a hat to get him
into a permanent situation under Government. He has
frequently been exactly seven-and-sixpence short of in-
dependence. He has bad such openings at Liverpool—
posts of great trust and confidence in merchants' houses,
which nothing but seven-and-sixpence was wanting to
him to secure—that I wonder he is not mayor of that
flourishing town at the present moment.—Dickens's
.ffousehold Words.
''EEpoRTING A SPEECH BY LORD BROUGHAM.—The
present occupiers of the reporters' gallery are a very
honourable body of men. Amongst the seniors, if not
the seniors, are Mr. Dodd, the author of the Peerage,
and of the useful little blue-coloured volume, the " Parli-
amentary Companion," who has been in the gallery for
the Times for between thirty and forty years; and Mr.
Tyas, another veteran of more than thirty years' parlia-
mentary service on the same paper. Tyas is said to have
been the author of the sharp critiques on Lord Broug-
ham's classical knowledge; and is spoken of as the hero
of another gallery tradition. The story runs that Tyas
had been luxuriating over a glass of wine and the pages of
Cicero, when the hour came, and be was due in the
House. As he took his place, Lord Brougham was
speaking, and soon the pencil of Tyas was on his track.
The legal orator went on, and the mind of the reporter
unconsciously kept upon the double thread of Brougham
and Cicero. The scholar in the gallery thought the
scholar on the floor of the House would remember a fine
illustrative passage in the Roman Orator. But he passed
it and concluded the harangue. Tyas went to work to
write out his notes, and when the arguments required it
he put in nearly a page of Cicero. Brougham reprinted
the speech, adopting, without remark, the whole of the
interpolated matter.—The Fourth Estate, by F. X.
Runt.
EFFECTS OF VOTE BY BALLOT IN GREECE.—The
vote by ballot is converted into a constitutional method
of counteracting any evil effects that might otherwise arise
to ministerial candidates from the use of universal suf-
frage; for man is fallible, and the Greeks felt inclined, in
some places, l o oppose the system of Coletti. We recom-
mend the plan adopted to the attention of an eminent
historian of ancient Greece, who has more faith in the
wood of the ballot-box than in the moral responsibility of
the elector. When the number of electors in a district
was about five thousand, and it was feared that three
thousand might vote against the government candidates,
and only two thousand in their favour, the ballot-boxes
were doctored beforehand, by having one thousand votes
placed in them before the process of the public ballot
commenced. Intimidation was resorted to, to prevent at
least one thousand of the real voters from attending, and
it was generally successful with the middle classes ; but in
one unlucky district, which contained only about four
thousand voters, six thousand tickets were found in the
ballot-box. At times, the success of the opposition was
so great that nothing could be done at the t me of voting.
The persons charged to convey the ballot-box to the place
appointed for the scrutiny, were, in such cases, waylaid by
armed bands, and the ballot boxes were destroyed. These
scenes were enacted, even in Attica. We believe that, in
order to s^cure free institutions to any people it is more
necessary to create a feeling of moral responsibility, than
to protect the electors from the effects of intimidation and
fraud merely when they exercise the franchise. National
liberty cannot be protected by a wooden box ; it must be
fought for boldly before the face of all mankind. The
vote by ballot injures the nation more than it protects the
individual ; and it can only cease to do harm in a state of
society where perfect equality reigns among the electors
themselves, and between the electors and the elected.—
Blackwood's Magazine.
KERRY SCHOLASTICS : THE PRINCIPLE OF Asso-
ciAefoN DEvELopED.—Schoolmaster loquitur :—S.
Here now, isn't this a lovely letter, Terry ? Did you
ever see a swan in full sail? That's him to the life, if
there was only a sup of water under him. You must call
out Ess. (Terry : Ess!) You have it nate. See how
Stately he is ! a mighty, elegant, stout, clever-looking
letter, and one of the .best in the whole alphabet, being
the father, and grandfather, and great grandfather of
all the Saints of the blessed calendar, that would be no
Saints at all but for his introduction. So you must rivi-
rince the S beyand all the other letters ; and rimimber
that be stands for Sunday and Soap, wanst a week before
going to overtake the Mass ; and Salt with the potatoes
that day any how; and Saxons (bad scran to them) that
drive us into holes and corners (myself of the real old
stock that says that) : and School, where yer getting into
great learning already, and will soon come to the history
Scipio, king of the ould Romans. and Solomon, that
built the biggest chapel in the world; and Sampson. that
pulled it down over his own shoulders. And now, Terry,
dear, don't forget S stands for Straw ; and remind:your
father of the holes there in the roof, that he promised to
mend up for me again winter, and that it's for a O'Sul-
livan ! T. Down you pop now to T, a real nate letter,
balanced as trua as a,
what
at the fair.
the Ball out
Tee ! (Terry : Tay !) No, that's Tay what quality
do be drinking with creme and lumps of sugar in it. Try
again, Tee ! (Terry : Tee !) That's right, ray dear,
and you'll know him again when you'll see Mick Hal-
loran coming up from the river. with two pigging of water
banging acrass the lift over his shoulders. You must
know he stands for Tutor, and I being your tutor, he
stands for me, and likewise for Turf and Twopence, (the
regulations of this flourishing Academy,) and Tiber, the
great river that runs through Rome, and Throy, a big
city in the Aste, that was taken by the Phenishons just
before they came to settle in ould Ireland. It also stands
for Tara, in the county of Meath, the capital of the
counthry in ancient tirees, and twice the size of Dublin,
that's only a new city, and them that lives in it none of
the raal Irish at all, but mostly new comers, an' very
troublesome people and hard to plan. My hand t'ye,
wouldn't give a . stone out of ould Trinity for all the
burnt bricks and Smoky chimblys in Dnbhn that were
never heard tell of in mild times. Move along now.—
Dublin University Magazine.