The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-08-01 00:00:00

THE PACKET SHIP CONSTITUTION.

The increasing trade between this port and New York,
more particularly in the transit of passengers, has given
to the industry of America a stimulus in the building
of ships suited to that traffic, and produced a marked im-
provement in their size, capacity, model, and general
equipment. Hitherto clippers in speed and great in
burthen, they are now excelling in the more important
points—of producing fast-sailing, good carrying, well
ventilated and strong ships ; and in no instance is this
position more verified than in that of the packet-ship
Constitution, some particulars of which may not prove
uninteresting. In point of external appearance the Con-
stitution has all the symmetrical beauty of aline of battle-
ship. Her entrance is fine, her bearing good, and her
run such as would scarcely leave a ripple in her wake.
Her stem from the water-line has a graceful curve and is
surmounted by a colossal figure of General Washington,
with trail board richly carved ; her stern is also relieved
with scroll work, surmounted by the American Eagle.
The length of the Constitution, from stem to stern
post, is 200 feet. Her keel is 188 feet. The breadth
of beam is forty feet ten inches, and the depth of
hold thirty-one feet. She has three decks. A prome-
nade deck, usually sparred, but in this case planked and
caulked, a gun deck, and a berth deck. The between
decks are extremely lofty, and well ventilated,:but no
conception of their capaciousness can be formed by de-
scription. On the gun deck most comfortable staterooms
are erected, while below the berths
i for steerage passen-
gers are in great part constructed of iron, and are so roomy
that for the four voyages and a passage she has made, not
a single case of sickness has occurred. Yet, in case of
need, she has that significant sign, so lauded by our
talented townswoman Mrs. 'Maury,—" This ship carries
a surgeon." The saloon is splendidly, and at the same
time substantially, decorated. The state-rooms, which
rut down each side, are cut off by pannelling, in dark
and richly-feathered mahogany, skirted with rosewood,
and relieved with intervening pilasters, in white enamel,
picked out with gsild in correspondence with the mouldings
of the ceiling. The sofas and settees are upholstered
in crimson plush, and the whole has the appear-
ance, not only of splendour but of warmth and
comfort. The slate-rooms, as may be conceived
in a vessel of upwards of forty feet beam are
roomy. convenient, and well lighted. They are pro-
vided with accommodation for thirty cabin passengers,
and though now fully a week from the sailing day, only
one room is unengaged. The Constitution was built at
New York, by Messrs. Brown and Bell, at the time of
the dispute as to the Oregon Territory, and in strength is
so superior, that had that question not been satisfactorily
settled, she would have been purchased by the govern-
ment, and rated as a 44 gun frigate, but is fully calculated
to mount 60 guns. Tier timbers are solid Live Oak, her
planking oak to the water-line, and above that pitch pine.
Her knees are all well grown and fitted, and she is copper
fastened throughout and coppered. The scale cf spars is
fully equal to those of any American frigate. The Con-
stitution is commanded by Capt. J. Britton, whose long
connexion with the port as commander of the Rochester,
has gained him the esteem of the first in the trade, while
his generous, but seaman like conduct has secured
the acknowledged good wishes of all who had the
pleasure of his company at sea ; indeed, such is the
estimation in which he his held that his command will
give a preference to any ship. As a conveyance for
passengers the Constitution is most admirably suited ;
indeed the very fact of her being the largest merchant
ship (British or American) that ever entered this port,
will give her a strong recommendation. Her tonnage is,
by register, 1,6119, and her estimated burthen close on
2,000 tons. She is consigned in the passenger department
here to Mr. B. Byrne, jun., of Waterloo-road, whose ma-
nagement of her last voyage has been spoken of in high
terms of commendation. To strangers the sight of this
ship will be highly gratifying.

A telegraphic message received from Birmingham, on
Saturday, states that the detective sent to apprehend Dr.
Reynolds had succeeded in capturing him.
Inrsn VANITY.—Gen. Cavaignac, the Military Dicta-
tor of Paris, who suppressed the insurrection, is of Irish
descent and of the once princely race of the Cavanaghs of
Bon is.—Limerick Chronicle.

THE COMING HARVEST.—The Gardeners' Chronicle
publishes returns from various parts of the country of the
present appearance of the crops. They indicate a full
average produce of wheat, a various yield of barley, a
comparatively poor crop of oats and of beans, a very bad
crop of peas, good promise of a turnip crcp, and a heavy
crop of hay of variable quality. They indicate also a stock
of wheat on band considerably beyond the average of past
years at tins season. On the whole, we think there was
at the date of these returns every reason for thankful
anticipation regarding the ensuing harvest.
THE SEA LIONESS.—One of these amphibious crea-
tures having been captured in the South Seas, by a Cap-
tain Triscott, has been brought to England, and is now
exhibiting in London. It evidently belongs to the seal
tribe, from which it differs in the general squareness of
its head and the specific flatness of its nose. Its eyes are
round and brilliant, end its skin is covered with smooth
blackish gray hair, while its fins are like the hands of the
human being. One of its peculiarities is in its teeth,
which consist of only four in front, besides a few small
grinders." A living specimen of the " sea lioness" has
never before been seen in this country, and the present
opportunity, therefore, will not be lost by the stu lents in
natural history. But we may remark the animal seems
rather to be in a dying than thriving condition.
SILVER.—In the Lords Committee on the Bank Act of
1844, Mr. Glyn was asked, " Do you approve of that clause
of the act which restricts the Bank in the purchase of
silver bullicn ?" To which he replied, "-I certainly do
not. I think the restriction to one-fifth is very in-
convenient, and practically, in the spring of last year,
was found so. Merchants from the Pacific, whose
returns are very much in silver bullion, found, when it ar-
rived last spring, that there was no market for it here, and
they had to send it over to Paris for returns in bills of ex-
change, and when they came back there was a difficulty in
discounting. The interval lost, which is about six weeks,
is a verY serious thing to a mercantile house. And there is
another evil in it. Supposing the amount of bullion
held in the issue department to be in the exact propor-
tions allowed by the act, with one-fith silver, and supposing
that £400,000 of notes go in taking the same amcunt of
sovereigns out, that immediately alters the proportions,
and the issue department must necessarily sell silver
bullion to keep the proportions right, and thus reduce
the circulation another £lO,OOO to keep up the pro-
portion."
NARROW ESCAPE OF HER MAJESTY'S DOCKYARD
FROM FIRE.— On Saturday morning her Majesty's dock-
yard at Devonport most narrowly escaped a serious con-
flagration. As an inspector was going his rounds at one
o'clock, he saw some smoke issuing from the Old Horn
engine-house, closely abutting on the roof of No. 4 dock,
in which the Cambridge, eB, is repairing, and on opening
the door discovered the werkmens' dresses, which were
deposited there, in a blaze, and a policeman's lantern
burning in the midst of the fire. With the assistance of
the serjeant and the policeman on the beat he turned on
the ready prepared hose to the water-pipe, and very soon
extinguished it. On subsequent examination, by the
admiral superintendent and the Queen's solicitor, of the
policeman stationed on the beat, the man stated that he
lost a key in the engine-house, and lighted his lantern
teem the corporal of the guard's lantern, and by the aid of
which endeavoured to find it, when. hearing the inspector
of police coming the rounds, to avoid being detected with
his lantern lighted, he placed it on the floor of the build-
ing, and threw some of the workmens' clothes over it, and
thus the fire originated. The man was remanded until Mon-
day, when he will be re-examined. It was fortunate that the
smoke was discovered so promptly, for the building wilt
full of inflammable materials ; and if the fire had acquired
any strength, the roof of the dock and the line of battle
ships would have been inevitably destroyed, and it would
have been impossible to have estimated the extent of the
damage her Majesty's dockyard would have sustained.