The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-07-23 00:00:00

BUENOS AYRES AND IIONIE VIDEO.

article from the Britannia,
We insert the following
it contains with the observation
qualifying the intelligence
Video :
publishes a
'hi oin set an
" The British Packet,. of
I bulletin under which General llosas has
that the Britannia ts-epnuchelish
teidealt3l%,.
translation of t
attempted to disguise the signal defeat of his troops in the
battle fought on the 28th of last month at the ' Mount.'
This account has been got up with so little tact, and ex-
hibits such palpable absurdity, that the Buetios Ayrean
writers have been deterred from attempting to raise any
plausible representation upon it that can at all serve to
cover the shame and lo.s whicil the besieging army
actually suffered in the affair.
" The action m:s fully and fairly described:in the litter*
written from the enemy's head-quarters by the Minister
of War who commanded the Monte Videan forces on the
occasion, and although we are accustomed to the system
of audacious lying constantly resorted to by the ltusista
partisans, All as the ha'tle was fought under the eyes of
all the inhabitants of this city, no one ever imagined
that so foolish a distortion of facts would have been
fabricated by the humbled enemy. The substance of the
bulletin, as it appears in the British Packet, is contained
in the following sentences; all the rest, and it is some-
what lengthy, is vamped up with mere repetHon and
ridiculous bombast in the usual strain of Buenos Ayrean
documents :

" ' Observing from the manoeuvres of the enemy that
they bad in view to surround us, their right wing being
600 in'antry, supported by two squadrons of cavalry, their
centre 1000 infantry, and their lett 400 sharpshooters, the
whole flanked by 500 infantry and 300 cavalry, 1 gave
orders to 'retreat, which was effected with the greatest
order, although' under the fire of the enemy's numerous
infantry, and our force altogether of both battalions only
amounting to 530 brave fellows' * * * The whole of
the enemy's infantry continued vigorously to assail ours,
until at last we had no ammunition left, and the firing
ceased throughout our line after we had expended 30,000
musket ball cartridge. We were yet 15 squares (1500
yards) from the rivulet, and our fine fellows, without any
other defence than their own breasts, continned their re-
treat. ** * Eternal honour, excellent sir to those
brave men, who being pursued in an open country by
forces so numerous, and without any cartridge, could yet,
by their intrepidity alone, keep those wretches in awe.
The brave Lieut. Ramon Marquez, of the battalion inde-
pendencia, who was ill at Cerito, come with a small skir-
mishing party to support the infantry, and this too with-
out ammunition. _
•

" After thus retreating 1500 yards, without one cart-
ridge, without any other defence than their breasts, from
before 2500 infantry and 300 or 400 cavalry, the list of
casualities, as given in the bulletin, shows only three
officers and eighteen men kilted, two officers and thirty-
five men wounded, and seven missing ! It is well ascer-
tained, however, that the real loss to the enemy, in
killed. wounded, and prisoners, fell very little short of
300 men, nor could it well be less from the nature of the
defeat, even according to their own description of it.
'' The whole affair consisted in a bold and resolute
attack, before which the enemy gave way, and fled in the
utmost route and confusion. Their principal loss was
Inflicted in the close and unrelenting pursuit by lancers
and infantry which followed. As to the cessation of the
enemy's fire from want of ammunition, after having ex-
pended 30,000 rounds of ball cartridge, the statement is
partly true, but the expenditure consisted in the fugitives
throwing away their muskets and cartridge boxes, which
on being collected afterwards by the victors were found
to be well stored with the said cartridges."
* See "Britannia" of the 30th of March.

BAZAARS or DAMASCUS.—The bazaars, like the Palais
Royal of Paris, have their restaurants, where the mer-
chants or the loungers may find dinner. Tables and
covers are, of course, out of the question. The pur-
chaser provides himself with one of the cakes we have
mentioned, which serves him at once for bread, plate, and
napkin, and the cook supplies him with little pieces of
baked mutton about the size of nuts, stuck on a skewer,
somewhat in the fashion of our cat's meat. A man, says
Lamartine, might fare of the best in Damascus for two
piastres a day ; the common people live for less than half
that sum. He might hire a very pretty house for two or
three hundred piastres a year; so that, all expenses in-
cluded, he might live at his ease upon an income of
fifteen or sixteen pounds a year. It is the same all over
Syria.—Library of Travel.

THE LATE REGATTA AT EASTHAM.

We would rather encourage regattas than horse races.
With the sports of the turf a spirit of reckless gambling,
and other kinds of demoralization, affecting both rich and
poor—notwithstanding all magisterial eff;rts—appear to
be the inseparable concomitants ; and the only ostensible
advantage they claim, namely, the promotion of a fine
breed of horses, becomes daily more questionable,—first,
from the fraud practised on courses; secondly, from the
general knowledge of horses possessed by our country-
men, of which, from motives of gain, they will avail
themselves under any circumstances; and thirdly, that
from the establishment of railways over the kingdom, and
the comparatively diminished demand for those animals,
useful as they are, we need be under no apprehension of
the requisite supply, either as regards number or quality.
egattas (especially as regards sailing vessels) are not only
free, or nearly so, from the objections stated of horsing.
but besides being equally healthful and truly national,
the 3 may conduce (and it is acknowledged have conduced)
in a high degree to our ascendancy on the ocean, by in-
ducing- new experiments in the modelling and delicate
handling of vessels which, though comparatively small,
are the very germs of that perfection, in construction and
management, which it is desirable to attain, not only in
our ships of war, but, as far as possible, in bur mercantile
marine.

With these opinions, we should exceedingly regret that
the unfortunate accident that occurred on Tuesday last
at the Eastham Regatta—and which naturally threw a
gloom over the proceedings, which has not yet dispersed—
should he the means of arresting the progress of aquatic
amusements on our noble river; and we would, therefore,
point out what in our opinion (bating those occasional ac-
cidents that occur in race or no race, and which cannot
always be averted even in our streets) would prevent the
recurrence of a casualty such as that we have now to de-
plore. " A Yachtman, 'in his letter to a contemporary,
has so hit the nail on the head, that we need do little
more than second his laudable protest—adding, however,
a few statistics.

It is but a few years since racing-gigs were introduced
on our river. They were originally, and are still, for the
most part, built in London, after the fashion used on the
narrower, more placid, and landlocked Thames. Our
Mersey is more properly an " estuary" than a " river",
and is subject, withal, to a short heavy sea when the wind
blows against the tide—often extremely dangerous f• l. open
boats at certain places, both in mid-channel and in the
bights and bays. They may sail in comparatively smooth
water ior a time on one shore or the other, and in a
moment get into (to them) an angry and treacherous sea-
way,
which a stout boat only can stand. The first gigs
we here observed were pretty good of their class, but still
not sufficiently safe in genera construction and bearing.
Since then, it appears to us that they have been gradually
dwindling down finer, and lighter, and weaker,—and so
cut away between the rollocks, that they have but little
side left to resist a wave. It was said of the two Kil-
kenny cats, that after their fight there was nothing left
but a bit of the tail of each ; and (though the subject is
really serious) we cannot help thinking that the rowers in
our river, in their anxiety for light and sleek craft, have,
before they contend at all, cut down their boats so that
there is little left but the keel. We have measured some
of them since the unfortunate accident alluded to; and
the safest we could find was about 45 feet long, 141
inches only(!) in depth of hold, and but 3 feet 3 inches
in extreme team for all that length, and as sharp fore
and aft as a needle. Her limbers (if we may so call
them) were scarcely equal in thiOkness to our little
finger ; and it was deemed prudent—and prudent it was
—to stretch upon her a forecastle of waterproof calico,
to keep her from going down by the nose. Her planks are
of deal, about one-eighth of an inch thick, and less at the
rivets. We put it to any nautical man whether he would
venture his carcase in such a veneer-built shell, which
would scarcely stand a puff of wind on dry land, much
less the trying, though small, cross.seas of the river
Mersey. As an instance of the shallowness of these
boats, we may state that the height from the real level of
the gunnel amidships to the top of the rollock-pins is ten
incites. So slender, indeed, is their scantling, that re-
course is had to bits of brass wire (we cannot say rods) to
keep them from falling asunder. We would say of such
boats that they may be very well as race-gigs in a smooth
lake or canal, two feet deep, where the parties may, in a
misadventure, wade out ; but they ought not to be en-
couraged on the Mersey. We have ourselves no desire to
report the coroners' inquests that will inevitably be the
consequence of their further use here. In April, 1842,
we had a lamentable instance of their inefficiency. On
that occasion, while some young gentlemen were crossing
our river from the villa of a highly respected townsman in
Aigburth, to the Cheshire side, the I)MA—though they
were not running a race and doing the best for them-
selves—went to pieces from under them near the Sloyne,
and three of them were drowned. We then entered our
protest against them, and our opinion is confirmed. We
will venture as far as any man in a good boat, but we
must have something substantial to bear us up, so that we
may trim our sails or pull our oars without the constant
dread of being swamped, or finding our vessel's back
broken by a bit of a sea.
To avoid all these misadventures we have only at re-
gattas to have boats of sufficient strength and bearing.
We saw a skiffat the regatta much better adapted for our
river than the best gig there; and though she did not run
a race, she proved herself—having a fine bottom and ample
bearings above—swifter than any skiff that ran, and per-
fectly safe. We also observed a larger captain's gig,
which ran in the women's race, and another fine boat
calcula'ed for almost any sea-why in which an open boat
can live, and she sprang from her cars like an eagle. The
general depth of our river (or boatmen's) gigs is two feet
four inches; and they are withal sharp, strong, and finely
proportioned. We should say that a racing gig foe the
Mersey should be at least two feet in depth ; and if she
be proportionately and strongly built, we shall have no
accidents in regatta weather. It would be an easy matter,
too, to insist on every rower taking with him, appended.
or attached to his person, a life-belle in case of accident
by collision or otherwise. These life-preservers are now
made so that they may be used as cushions to sit upon,
and if attached to the person by a string, no would
fatality
arise. Besides, if all parties pulled in goiou ren.nanUYdsea.
the
spectators (in place of being
worthy boats, all would have an equal
tealcrr)aarnc .
of an acci-
dent) would enjoy
glad to pay the intended Mersey he the sport in
withc mst:Pe satisfaction. We
wilt
Yacht Club (noticed
elsewhere) are
not permit row-boats to join in their days'
proceedings that are not built and regulated in a safe and
prover manner.
We shall probably return to the subject, and furnish the
dimens!ons, &c., of gigs that may be considered suitable
for our river, after consulting some of our better versed
nautical friends.