The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-11-12 00:00:00

13itritt geb3s.

Three mounted police have been engaged for the Pres•
cot district.

A bunch of strawberries of full-grown size was plucked
in a garden at Lancaster last week. They were grown in
the open air, but had not ripened.
A wretch named William Ashcroft, was fined 10s. 6d.
at Prescot, on Tuesday, for biting a :piece of flesh com-
pletely out of his mother's arm !
INGENUITY OF THIEVES.—Last week some thieves in
trying to gain admission to a shop at Manchester applied
a treacle plaster to one of the panes of glass, which was
then cautiously broken and the window unfastened.
The horns of the fat ox that was roasted in celebration
of the appointment of Clement Royds, EEq., to the office
of High Sheriff of Lancashire have been formed into two
snuff-boxes and presented to that gentleman, as a memo-
rial of the esteem of the donors.

The annual meeting of the Manchester Protestant As-
sociation took place on Monday evening, when the Rev.
Hugh Stowell presided. The proceedings were characte-
rised by unusual enthusiasm, and multitudes were obliged
to remain outside.
A SERIOUS MISTAKE.—A mob in Stockport, on the
eve of the municipal election, grossly ill-treated Mr.
Baker, the magistrate, and his daughter, smashing their
coach, and knocking down the driver, under the supposi-
tion that the carriage contained a " bottling" party.
On Tuesday night Mr. Thos. Sergeant, a respectable
man, living at Hindley, near Wigan, was returning home
when five men emerged from the railway slope on Am-
berswood Common and threw him down, rifled his
pockets and kicked and abused him shamefully.
On Tuesday Mr. Waller, cotton manufacturer. accom-
panied by his wife and man servant, was returning from
Manchester to Stockport in a whitechapel, when the
horse took fright and the parties were thrown out. Mrs,
Walter was unfortunately killed and her husband had one
of his legs broken.

A number of cellars in Blackburn have been flooded,
in consequence of a man named Parkinson blocking up a
sewer which ran under his house. Considerable damage
was done to the residences and furniture of many poor
people, and several children narrowly escaped drowning.
Some of the sufferers were taken into the workhouse, and
food and bedding furnished to those who disliked going
there. The matter is at present undergoing a searching
investigation.

Ccrrow IN INDIA.—On Thursday, a special general
meeting of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce and
Manufactures was held " to consider the plan of a pro-
posed mission to the East Indies, the object of which is to
ascertain, by an unbiassed but minute investigation on the
spot, the real obstacles which prevent an ample supply of
good cotton from being obtained thence, and the causes
which impede the extension of our commerce with that
country." The meeting was numerously attended, and
amongst the gentlemen present were Mr. Thomas Baxley
(who occupied the chair),Mr. William Brown, M.P., Mr.
Alexander Henry„.M.E, Mr. John Bright, M.P., Mr.
James Kershaw, M.P.,, Mr. Alderman Watkins, Mr.
Lewis Williams, Mr. Simpson, Mr. W. R. Callender, the
Mayor of hienchestes,, fa. The proposal "ma cordially
Wood t(t.,

NEW MAYORS.—Manchester, John Potter ; Salford,
James Higgins ; Halifax, John Crossley ; Wakefield, J.
Holds wort h ; Oldham, Mr. Collinge; Beton, William.
Gray ; Macclesfield, J. J. Osborne ; Wigan, R. Darling-
ton ; Leeds, G. Goodman ; Bradford, W. Rind ; Stock-
port, G. Turner; Durham, J. H. Foster; Doncaster. G.
Johnson ; Hull, T. W. Palmer.
FEARFUL COLLIERY EXPLOSION. —On Thursday, a
fearful colliery explosion took place in one of the mines
at the collieries of Messrs. Evans, at Haydock, by which
eight lives were sacrificed. The hands, numbering from
twenty-five so thirty, went to their work in pit No. 13, at
five o'clock in the morning. Some of them, who were
approaching old workings, had only the day previous beets
ordered not to use naked candles, but on the morning is
quistion they put that order to defiance, and the dreadful,
catastrophe ensue , which we now have to record. Each
of the men was furnished with two safety lamps ; but
some of the more foolhardy, imagining the gas from the
old works was not of such a destructive kind, ventured to
throw their lamps aside and use unprotected candles. In
about an hour after the explosion, the dead bodies of eight
persons were brought up and removed to their respective
homes. A few others were more or less burnt, but only
one remains in a dangerous state.

CLAtniroyAxcE.-21n answer to a correspondent of the
Bolton Chronicle, Dr. Haddock, who has devoted consi-
derable attention to clairvoyance, says in that journal of
Saturday :—When I first put the enquiry, at the request
of Sir John's naval friend and former coadjutor, the im-
pression on my mind was that Sir John and Pll his cotn-
pamons had perished by the destruction of his ships in
the ice before he could reach Barrows Straits, and this
suspicion seemed to receive additional confirmation when
Sir J. C. Ross returned from Leopold's Island, without
discovering a trace of Franklin thronght his course. In
opposition to this opinion my Clairvoyant has said, and
still says, that Sir John is alive, although many of the
crew are dead, and she has invariably stated the time to
be such as to give him a great western longitude, and.
from other details a higher northern latitude. What she
has exactly said is known to Sir John's personal friends,
to Lady Franklin, and in official quarters also, so that
when the proper time arrives there will be every opportu-
nity to compare details with facts, without any possibility
of collusion or mistake. A,' present, what we do know,
both negatively and positively strengthens the probability
that the MAIN POINTS stated by the Clairvoyant are true.
At a sitting on the 24th August she said that Sir John.
had not seen any of the ships sent out in search of him,
and, in answer to a question, he had not seen the North
Star, but she could see a ship approaching him, which,
to her did not seem a long way off. On the 7th of Sep-
tember she says that Sir John has food, but, again, that
he had not seen the North Star. On the 15th of Sep-
tember that Sir John had been met by a ship commanded.
by " a white-headed" man and relieved; and she mani-
fested great excitement on the occasion. The North
Star's log shows that that ship bad discovered no,
trace of Franklin, but that she commenced landing pro-
visions in a conspicuous part of Barrows Straits on the
23rd of August. The return of the Prince Albert has led
to the knowledge that about that time, certainly within a
day or so (but .I am here writing from memory) that she
said a ship was approaching Franklin, traces of the gallant
adventurer had been discovered at Cape Riley, situate at
the N. W. extremity of Barrows Straits, considerably to
the westward of the point to which Sir J. C. Ross pene-
trated, and directly in the track that I have been led to
expect Franklin took; and it is now known that the re-
lieving ships had passed Cape Riley several days before
she says Franklin was met. I am informed that both
Sir John Ross and Captain Austins are " white-headed"
men, and as they were both on the track, I consider it
as highly probable that Sir John Franklin has been met
and relieved.