The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-12-05 00:00:00

SELECTIONS.

A NIGHT WITH FATHER MATHEW.—On the 6th of
November Father Mathew gave a sumptuous entertain-
ment to a select party of friends. The waters were of the
most recherche description—the old bottled Niagara was
in fine condition, as were also the Danube and Valga ;
but In respect to aroma and flavour, the eau de Tamise
was pronounced incomparable, although a bottle of Seine
was on the table. The merry party kept it up until a late
hour.—Punch.

THE KING OF HANOVER AND THE DUKE OF CAM-
BRIDGE AT KEW.—lt was a fine spectacle I witnessed a
few months since, when those same survivors strolled on
the village green at Kew; fine, noble, manly, erect men,
though three score years and ten had been seen by each of
them ; and it was right pleasant to behold their truly
princely, and yet considerate and kind attention to all
who surrounded them. When the King of Hanover ar-
rived at Kew, a small deputation of the inhabitants waited
upon his majesty, to learn his royal pleasure with regard
to the reception of a few individuals to congratulate him,
on the part of the rest, on his happy return to the scenes
of his boyhood and his earliest remembrances. " Depu-
tation !" cried the king, " deputation ! I don't want a
deputation only. I want to see them all,—tell them all
to come and see me. I should like to try my memory,
and see how many I recollect."—Fraser's Magazine.
TREATMENT OF A HINDOO DEITY.—Lord Comber-
mere brought a Brahmin ox from India and presented it
to her Majesty. The " natural viciousness of the sacred
animal" rendered its confinement necessary. It was vi-
sited by the Queen and Prince Albert, and, as the news-
paper account states, "greatly admired for its beautiful
symmetry and immense size." Flaying been so admired,
it was forthwith sentenced to execution. It is to be hoped
that her Majesty's millions of Hindoo subjects will not
learn the fate of their deity. After it was killed it was,
says the report, beautifully dressed for the inspection of
Prince Albert and the royal visitors at the castle—dressed
not by the cook but by the butcher. The Hindoo deity
weighed 130 stone ; its heart 101bs. The hump of the
deity was by her Majesty's command cured and salted for
the royal table. The skin of the deity is to be tanned and
used as a hearth-rug. The horns of the deity are to be
polished. What would the Hindoos think of all this if by
chance they should hear it? And what a reverse of for-
tune was that of this ox ? Worshipped in one part of the
world, imprisoned in another ; its bump eaten by the
Queen of its worshippers, its skin made her hearth-rug,
its horns stuck up in a hall. This, should it be known,
will be a set-off to the gates of Somnauth, and give the
Mahometans the laugh against the Hindoos.
REPUBLICAN AMUSEMENTS.—At the Hotel de Ville,
Danton entered the hall with several of the insurgents ;
and the crowd, unwilling to waste time, began to fire at
the little statues and insignia of the French kings, which
ornamented this old building. When this amusement
palled—the French are easily ennuied—they formed cir-
cles, and danced the Carmagnole. Rum and brandy,
largely introduced among them, gave them animation after
their night's watching, and they were fit for any atrocity.
But the beating of drums, and a rush to the balconies of
the Hotel de-Ville, told us that something of importance
was at hand ; and, in the midst of a group of municipal
officers, Pction, the mayor of Paris, arrived. No man in
France wore a milder visage, or hid a blacker heart under
it. He was received with shouts, and after a show of re-
sistance, just sufficient to confirm his character for hypo-
crisy, suffered himself to be led to the front of the grand
balcony, bowing as the man of the people. Another fol-
lowed, a prodigious patriot, who had been placed at the
head of the National Guard for his popular sycophancy,
but who, on being called on by the mob to swear " death
to the King," and hesitating, felt the penalty of being un-
prepared to go all lengths on the spot. I saw his throat
cut, and his body flung from the balcony.—" Marston ;
or the Memoirs qi a Statesman," in Blackwood's Maga-
zine.

CAUSE OF IRELAND'S DISTRESS.—The canker of Ire-
land lies deep, and is wide-spread. It is to be found in
the wretched, starving, and uneducated condition of a
peasantry, over whom Popery has obtained a direful as-
cendancy. The immediate and pressing danger results
from the power of a hierarchy, which is at once the curse
of Ireland, and the source of danger to Great Britain. We
are now as a nation suffering the righteous penalty of the
neglect with which the moral state of Ireland was regarded
for generations and ages. Had England done her duty,
Popery would not now be enabled to intrench itself in Ire-
land, and nurture hatred to the Protestant under the name
of Saxon. The Irish landlords have been especially guilty,
Occupied in former generations with their own selfish pro-
jects for augmenting their rents, and squeezing out of the
people the highest rent that could be obtained; intent
upon solving the problem how the greatest amount of
money could be obtained from the occupiers of the soil,
when reduced to the lowest point of privation compatible
with human existence, the Protestants were driven from
their estates, and a lower class were introduced, consist-
ing entirely of Papists, accustomed to abject submission
to their priests. Of late years a better prospect has be_
gun to dawn. There is a greater number of landlords
anxious to elevate the condition of their tenants, and to
extend to them not only the comforts of life but the Privi
leges of religious instruction. Hence the redoubled efforts
of the Papacy to maintain their hold ; hence the fierceness
of the struggle now going on, a struggle of which the is-
sues are in the hands of God, but which, we humbly trust,
may yet terminate in the subjugation of an Antichristian
superstition, and the restoration of that pure Christianity,
from access to the knowledge of which Ireland has been
so long cruelly debarred.—Record.

THE ISTHMUS OF PANAMA.—" When the Spanish
discoverers first overcame the range of mountains which
divide the western from the Atlantic shores of South Ame-
rica," said a distinguished statesman, (Lord Grenville,)
" they stood fixed in silent admiration, gazing on the vast
expanse of the Southern ocean which lay stretched before
them in boundless prospect. They adored—even those
hardened and sanguinary adventurers adored—the gra-
cious providence of Heaven, which, after a lapse of so
many centuries, had opened to mankind so wonderful a
field of untried and unimagined enterprise." The very
same point of land where, in 1515, the Spaniards first be-
held the Pacific, is the spot formed by nature for the
realization of those advantages which their cautious po-
licy caused them to overlook. The Creator seems to have
intended it for general use—as the highway of nations ;
and yet, after a period of more than three centuries,
scarcely has the solitude which envelopes this interesting
strip of land been broken.—" Commercial Intercourse
between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans," in Blackwood'
Magazine.
" ANTIQUITY" IN PLEA FOR LATE HOURS OF BUM-
NESS.—The system of late hours has been spoken of as
one recommended only by " its antiquity." I find, how-
ever, that it is a modern innovation, and thus its only
prop is taken away, and it must topple down. Our grand-
fathers were wiser ; they had their shops in the city, and
resided in the suburbs; at four o'clock they retired to
their homes and families, leaving their shops sometimes
in the charge of a mere lad, who, about five or six, shut
up for the night. Those, however, who dealt in valuable
articles, closed them before they left them to join their fa-
milies at dinner. Yet these men grew rich, and the public
voice was never raised to express dissatisfaction at the
plan. People were clothed and fed then as well as now,
and nobody complained. If it be said, the population is
now larger, and the public wants increased, the answer is,
the manufactures have increased in a fourfold ratio to the
public wants; the shops are more than proportionately
numerous ; the supply exceeds the demand : hence the
spirit of competition, wkich leads men to adopt the most
expensive devices to outshine their neighbours, and to
entice purchasers to their. houses. Away, then, with the
pretext that the system of late hours has been adopted,
and is persevered in, only in respect for public conve-
nience.—Glance at the present System of Business among
Shopkeepers, by Edward Flower.

THE WRONGS OF WOMEN.—You have rather puzzled
me, Eusebius, by giving me so wide a field of enquiry—
woman's wrongs; of what kind—of ancient or modern
times—general or particular ? You should have arranged
your objects. It is you that are going to write this " Fa-
mily Library," not I. For my own part, I should have
been contented in walking into the next village, an unex-
pected guest, to the houses of rich and poor—do you think
you would have wanted materials ? But forewarned is
forearmed—and few will " tell the secrets of their prison-
house," if you take them with a purpose. On your ac-
count, in this matter, I have written to six ladies of my
acquaintance, three married and three single. Two of the
married have replied that they have nothing to complain
of—not a wrong. The third bids me ask her husband.
So I put her down as ambiguous—perhaps she wishes to
give him a hint through me ; I am wise, and shall bold my
tongue. Of the unmarried, one says she has received no
wrong, but fears she may have inflicted some—another,
that as she is going to to be married on Monday, she can-
not conceive a wrong, and cannot possibly reply till after
the honeymoon. The third rep ies, that it is very wrong
in me to ask her. But stay a moment—here is a quarrel
going on—two women and a man—we may pick up some-
thing. " Rat thee, Jahn," says a stout jade, with her
arm out and her fist almost in Jahn's face, " I wish I
were a man—l'd gie it to thee !" She evidently thinks it
a wrong that she was born a woman—and upon my word,
by that brawny arm, and those masculine features, there
does appear to have been a mistake in it.—Blackwood.
" CHURCH PRINCIPLES."—This term as too often
used, is a mere cant expression—an undefined inappropri-
ate phrase, comprising an extensive sliding scale of doc-
trine and discipline, of which the private opinion of the
person who speaks is the regulating medium. So that in
fact ' Ctairch Principles' in the lips of most persons,
mean nothing more than " My principles on Church mat-
ters !' And the phrase is generally hurled at some other
person whose views are supposed to be lower down the
scale than those of the former. The expression forms a
substitution for the now old-fashioned word orthodox,
which in its day bore much the same indefinite import.
Are there then, it may be asked, no sound Church Prin-
ciples '—in other words, no scriptural principles on which
the doctrines and discipline of the Christian Church are
founded ? Undoubtedly there are ! And they are exhib-
ited not in an isolated canon, or neglected rubric, much
less in the writings of the third and fourth centuries, but
in the general sense and system expounded in the Thirty-
nine Articles, the Creeds, and Liturgy of our beloved
Church! Here are my' Church Principles!' and I would
no others ! And in these I look in vain for the unmea-
sured condemnation of unepiscopal Churches; for the
necessity of Apostolic descent to enable a minister to
make a valid sacrament ; for those exaggerated and self-
important dogmas, which appear now to be adopted even
by some otherwise enlightened and pious evangelists !
For such persons I especially tremble ; believing that ex-
travagantly High Church notions cannot long be held by
any faithful man without casting over his ministry a cold
mist, which chills every statement of Gospel truth—and
confuses the mind of his people. Church Principles.'
as generally understood, have little affinity to Gospel
principles; they are as Saul's armour to David, an en-
cumberance rather than a defence; and simple Gospel
truth, as the shepherd boy's sling and stone, often proves
more powerful even against the Giant Schism itself than
all the boasted and elaborate armoury of Church counsels,
degrees, injunctions, and traditions "—Rev. F. Close.
THE DUCHESS OF BERRY AND HENRY IV., THE
DUKE OF BORDEAUX.—But what was the situation of the
Duchess of Berry? Why did she not rush from the pa-
lace of St. Cloud, and, taking the young Duke of Bor-
deaux in her hand, present him to the troops and the
people, and exclaim, " Behold your King ?" Did she
want nerve and courage for such an undertaking ! Cer-
tainly not! Her romantic:history in La Vend6e, where
she performed such prodigies of valour, would at once
give the lie to such a supposition, could it even for a mo-
ment have been indulged. There were two reasons, or ra-
ther three, why such a line of conduct was not pursued by
Madame la Duchesse. The first was, that she lacked at
that critical moment energetic and decided advisers. Se-
cond, King Charles X. would scarcely allow the young
Duke of Bordeaux to leave ide. And third, the
Duchess of Berry was very irately informed as to
the real state of affairs both before and after the fatal or-
dinances of her father and monarch. The Count de Me-
nars had undoubtedly informed the duchess as to the
state of Paris up to Tuesday evening, and on Wednesday
morning she communicated to Charles X. all her uneaai-
ness and anxiety. The monarch was imperturbable, and
assured the duchess that there was no reason for any ap-
prehension respecting the result. Even the arrival of a
young artist at the palace charged to take the portrait of
the king, and who gave a graphic and fearful account of
the scenes he had witnessed, did not move that prince,
who, after having listened with attention to the recital,
said, " Ce n'est rien, tout cela finira ce soir ; ce n'est
presque rien. Tenez, mon cher, ce que von: avez de
mieux afaire c'est de commencer anon portrait." And
then Charles X. sat down before the artist, and his fea-
tures did not evince the slightest change. Not so the
painter : he could not proceed. The king perceived it.
" Eh bien !" said the monarch, with unruffled composure,
"ce sera pour la semaine prochaine." When the artist
withdrew, the Duchess of Berry gave herself up to an
agony of grief, and Charles X. and the Duke d'Angou-
ieme both sought to console her. That was the moment
in which she stood in need of wise, firm, and courageous
advisers. But there were none who stepped forward ;
and She cause of her son was lost. I know very well that
there are some persons, still accurately informed with re-
gard to the events of 1830, who maintain that had the
Duchess of Berry acted as I have suggested she should
have done, she would have been made a prisoner, and that
her son would have been shot. I do not believe
this. The moment for such a line of conduct as that I
have described, would have been on the Thursday after-
noon, as soon as the forces of the king had retired to the
Bois de Boulogne, and when the Duke de Ragusa repaired
to St. Cloud. The whole city was at that time in a state
of indescribable apprehension. No government had been
organised ; the fear of a bombardment was very general ;
new barricades had been every where thrown up ; it was
not believed by any one that the conflict had terminated ;
the heights of Montmartre were looked to with the most
fearful anticipations. The Hotel de Ville was the spot to
which report after report was brought of the arrival of
fresh troops from distant garrisons, and of the determina-
tion of Charles X. to bombard Paris the next day ; and
these reports soon became known to the whole popula-
tion. That, then, was the moment when, if the heroic
Duchess of Berry had appeared, without escort, without
soldiers or guards, in the midst of the people, and had
exclaimed, " Charles X. and the Duke d'Angouleme have
abdicated ; the ordinances of Sunday last are withdrawn ;
the Chambers are to meet immediately; Casimir Perier
is prime minister; and now, BOHOLD YOUR KING—
Henry V. !" I feel not the smallest doubt that her mis-
sion would have been crowned with abundant success, and
that all other hopes and combinations would have been at
once abandoned. I admit that to have met the populace,
to have faced the yet 'vengeful and but partially avenged
Parisians, would have required much nerve, vigour, and
presence and strength of mind. But it is precisely be-
cause the Duchess of Berry was one of a million, and be-
cause her maternal love and energy were of the first order,
that therefore I advert to this subject. No real great
effort was made for the son of the duchess, until it was
" too late :" and he was neither to be seen nor heard of at
a moment when all was critical and important. It is not
impossible that the duke himself may be visiting England
when these pages shall appear, and that they may come
ender his notice. To him I say, " Prince , your cause
was neglected when there was time to save it. Itis now
too late."—Fraser's Magazine.

Tnit BANK OF ENGLAND.—In consequence of the
numerous complaints that have been made by the mer-
chants in the city and the public at the employes of the
Bank issuing sovereigns and half-sovereigns that are found
to be light in weight according to the Royal proclamation
Her Majesty dated the 2d day of October last, orders
have been given to the clerks by the Governors of this na-
tional establishment that no gold shall be issued unless it
has been previously weighed, and is according to the stand-
ard currency of the realm. To meet the demand that
will be made for the new sovereigns when the law comes
into operation on the Ist of January next, a very large
amount of the new gold coinage has been sent from the
royal mint on account of the Bank t o supply the emer-
gency that is likely to take place, as the quantity of
light gold now in circulation exceeds considerably that of
last year. and Government is determined to have it called
in. Henceforth all light sovereigns presented at the Bank
will only be received according to weight, and will be de-
faced so as to prevent the possibility of their being re-
used.