The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-11-19 00:00:00

SELECTIONS.

A MAN OF ONE IDEA.—Some ten years ago, Robert
Owen was taken by a party of friends to see the tragedy of
" Macbeth ;" and when it was over, he was asked his
opinion of the piece. "It is very sad," replied the phi-
lanthropist, "to see individeals placed in such injurious
circumstances. In our new system, there will be nothing
of this kind, except to show what a shocking state the old
society was in.—New Quarterly Review.
MILITARY BLUNDERS.—Besides what is due to the
comfort, 1 appiness, and proper training of the hoops, we
must bear in mind that the conduct of subordinate offi-
cers will frequently exercise a very serious influence on
the most important events. " Colonel Napier tells us,"
says a recent military writer, " that the error of a staff
officer made Colonel Colburn attack a French redoubt in
the Pyrenees, which caused the lives of 200 men of the
52d Regiment to be needlessly sacrificed." In the same
volume we find the Duke of Wellington informing the
historian that many of his manoeuvres were injured at
Waterloo by generals " whose only fault was dullness."
How many men have fallen in consequence of the blun-
ders of these gallant dunces, it is of course not easy to
say. At Marengo, the mistake of a commander of a
patrole caused Gen. Nimph's brigade of cavalry, more
than 2,000 strong, and which might have changed the fate
of the day, to be detached towards Acqui, at the very
moment when action was about to commence. In the
campaign of 1805, the credulity of Prince Auersperg and
the want of decision of a Major of Artillery enabled the
French to obtain possession of the bridge of Vienna ; a
misfortune that occasioned the needless slaughter of
Hollabrun, and ultimately, as many think, to the dis-
aster of Austerletz. In 1806 again, it was the incompre-
hensible folly of Colonel Massenbach, who, as he tells us
himself, did not know the east from the west, that led to
the surrender of Prince Hohenlohe's army at Prenzlaw.
These are but a few instances of the hundreds I could
give, showing the terrible consequences that may result
to nations and armies from the incapacity of officers even
of inferior rank. It is in the detail of actions, into
which history cannot enter, that the most fatal and fre-
quent results of military inability are to be found.—
Sabertash, in Fraser's Magazine.
A BATTLE WITH RATTLESNAKES.—RattIesnakes are
proverbially abundant upon all these prairies ; and, as
there is seldom to be found either stick or stone with
which to kill them, one hears almost a constant popping
of rifles or pistols, among the vanguard, to clear the route
of these disagreeable occupants, lest they should bite our
animals. As we were toiling up through the sandy hil-
locks which border the southern banks of the Arkansas,
the day being excessively warm, we came upon a perfect
den of these reptiles. I will not say thousands—though
this, perhaps, was nearer the truth—but hundreds, at
least, were coiled or crawling in every direction. They
were no sooner discovered than we were upon them with
guns and pistols, determined to let none of them escape.
In the midst of this amusing scramble among the snakes,
a wild mustang colt, which had, somehow or other be-
come separated from its dam, came bolting among our
relay of loose stock, to add to the confusion. One of our
mules evidently impressed with the impertinence of the
intruder, sprang forward and attacked it, with the ap-
parent intention of executing summary chastisement;
while another mule, with more benignity of temper than
its irascible compeer, engaged most lustily in defence of
the unfortunate little mustang. As the contest was car-
ried on among the waggons, the teamsters soon became
very uproarious, so that the whole, with the snake fracas,
made up a capital scene of confusion. When the mule
skirmish would have ended, if no one had interfered, is a
question which remained undetermined ; for some of our
company, in view of the consequences that might result
from the contest, rather inhumanly took sides with the
assailing mule; and soon after they entered the lists, a
rifle ball relieved the poor colt from its earthly embarrass-
ments and the company from further domestic disturban-
ces. Peace once more restored, we soon got under weigh,
and that evening pitched our camp opposite the celebrated
" Caches"—a place where some of the earliest adven-
turers had been compelled to conceal their merchandise.
Journal of a Santa Fe Trader.
SLEEPING AT INN s.—Beds have vast attractions; beds,
to wit, of down and roses. But we are not told who has
slumbered there the night before. In fact, we never ask
the question. Mine hostess assures us, that they have
been well aired; but she does not mean that they have
been aired by the noonday's healthy sunbeams. She
gives you to understand, by saying that the bed has been
well-aired, that, in fact, it has constantly been slept upon
by a successon of travellers, of whose health, or the want
of it, not the slightest mention is ever made. The last
occupier may have been one, whose
" Form was fresher than the morning rose,
When the dew wets its leaves ;"
" The softest blush that nature spreads,
Gave colour to her cheek ;"
or, on the contrary, the bed might have been occupied by
a rough. skinned, pimpled victim to turtle soup and curs-
coa. He had been nearly a month, at Harrogate, without
benefit, and was on his way on the continent, with his
medical adviser, to try what the spas of Germany would
do for him. A person, on whose veracity I could depend,
and who seemed to have scrutinised the general state of
dormitories with a considerable degree of attention, once
told me' that he had not passed a single hour in bed for
14 years. He said he was his own master in that respect,
and could suit himself as he thought fir. He added, that
his aversion to enter a strange bed was extreme. He did
not know who had been there before him, or what impu-
rities might be lurking in the region of the feather bed,
or whether it had been aired by Phoebus or Bacchus ; and
that the possibility of getting into a damp bed acted upon
his nerves more terribly than did the operation of Sir
Robert Peel's income tax. " And how did you manage,"
said I, " without a bed ?" " Uncommonly well," said be.
" My apprenticeship," continued he, "to the hard floor
only cost me a fortnight, and after that all went right."
He then informed me, that the advantages which he had
acquired by abandoning the bed for ever were incalculable.
Ile said that so long as there was a current of fresh air
in the place where he laid him down to rest, lie was ex-
cellently accommodated for a fair spell of sleep. Tra-
velling had no longer any nocturnal terrors for him.
Whilst others were anxious about the paraphernalia of
their bedrooms, and peevish when things were not to
their liking, he stood smiling on, pitying their distresses,
and happy with the thought that he could stow himself
away for the night in a moment, free from bad bugs, bad
breaths, and bad bedding. '• And you will never more
sleep in a bed ?" said I. " Never," said he, with a smile
of contentment on his face. " Nature has accommoda-
ted herself to me, and I to nature. What more can I
wish ? He ceased on saying this. I entered fully into
his feelings ; and ere I retired to rest, I thought if we had
more of fortitude and less of self love, things would go
better with us, both night and day, than they do at pre-
sent.—Waterton's Essays on Natural History.
HORRORS OF ANIERICAN SLAVERY.—Numbers of the
poor slaves in America come to an untimely end by a se-
rves of acts of barbarity inflicted upon them at different
times, which, though they do not kill them immediately,
et undermine the constitution by degrees, so that they
do not live out half their days. It is not the mere whip-
ping while at their labour in the field which destroys
them, but the repeated punishments and sometimes tor-
tures they are made to endure, at the caprice of an over-
seer, when their labour is over in the day. Frequently
they are made to wear chains, and to work in them for
weeks together, which occasions them to suffer by exco-
riations of the skin and flesh. Iron collars are frequently
fastened to their necks, which, while they give them pain,
for the same reason hinder them from sleep, on account
of their long-projecting prongs. They are often put with
their feet in the stocks, and left there all night, (and
this for days and weeks together,) where they suffer again,
and where sleep is again impossible, and yet they are
made to rise as early in the morning to their work as the
rest of the gang, though then unfit for labour. That
dradful instrument, the thumb-screw, is also at times ap-
plied to them. It is screwed down tight till it produces
great pain, sometimes forcing the blood out of the ends of
the thumbs. The overseer then takes away the key, and
no one can relieve their sufferings, even though they faint
with the pain, till the same key is brought to unlock it.
The damp and loathsome dungeon is another source of
punishment, in which the victim may lie for months, and
even years, for so Judge Stroud says, if the owner wills it.
These instruments then of torture, which are more or less
used, together with hard and forced work of fifteen hours
per day, produce a slow and lingering death, which is as
much murder as if the victim bad been killed outright.
The same judge confirms a part of this account. " his,"
says he, (the slave's,)" life is ordinarily passed in inces-
sant toil. He is awaked from his slumbers at the call of
his master often before dawn ; he continues his heartless
labour with but slight intermission for rest and food till
night has closed around him. Hard worked and scantily
fed his bodily energies are exhausted." The same worthy
judge says also, " The master may at his discretion inflict
any punishment upon the person of his slave. Again,
" where," says he, p. 40, " the life of a slave is thus feebly
protected, his limbs, as might be expected, share no better
fate." I quote again from the act of 1740 of South Caro-
lina. "In case any person should wilfully cut out the
tongue, put out the eyes, castrate or cruelly scald, burn,
or deprive any slave of any limb or member, or shall in-
flict any other cruel punishment, other than whipping with
a horse-whip, cow-skin, switch, or small stick, or by put-
ting irons on, or confining or imprisoning such slave, every
such person shall for any such offence forfeit the sum of
one hundred pounds current money." " This section
has," continued the judge, " as far as I have been able to
learn, been suffered to disgrace the statute-book from the
year 1740 to the present hour. Among all the mutations
which Christianity has effected within the last century,
she has not been able to conquer the spirit which dictated
this abominable law. To say nothing of the trifling pe-
nalty for mutilation, what idea of humanity must a people
entertain, who by direct legislation sanction the beating,
without limit, of a fellow-creature with a horse-whip or
cow-skin, and the infliction of any torture which the in-
genuity and malignity of man may invent, in the applica-
tion of irons to the human body, and the perpetual incar-
ceration, if the master so will, of the unfortunate slave in
a dungeon keep, however loathsome ?"--Clarkson's
Letter.