The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-09-12 00:00:00

EXTENSIVE ROBBERIES. —On Thursday information
was received by the police of the following robberies :
From Mr. E. L. Batt. 15, Parliament-street, London, a
bill of exchange for £15,000 ; from Mr. Higgins, the Ship
Inn, St. Katharine-hill, Guildford, three bags, one con-
taining 100 sovereigns, another 15. the third £37 in silver;
from Mr. Lewis, 18, Duke-street, Piccadilly, a box con-
trifling jewellery, &c., value £l4O ; from 24, Lloyd's-
square, Clerkenwell, eighteen £5 and one £lO Bank of
England notes, and a quantity of plate. jewellery, &c. ;
from Roberts and Ruby, auctioneers, Moorgatelstreet,
£270 in gold and a £lO note.
ARCTIC EXPEDITION.—We have received some little
information as to the voyage undertaken by Sir James C.
Ross to ascertain, if possible, the fate of Sir J. Franklin
and his party, through the arrival at Stromness, on Tues-
day, of a Hull vessel, the cutter Bee, Captain Weldon,
which went out for cod fish, and has returned with 8,000.
From the log-book of the Bee our correspondent copied
the following intelligence :—" July 16. Spoke the schooner
Mayflower, Smith. who had seen the American whaler
M`Lellan, of New London, Jackson master, with 40 tons
of oil. The American reports Her Majesty's ships, under
Sir J. C. Ross, as having reached Lieveley, Disco Island,
on the 2d inst., all well and Captain Ross had left de-
spatches for the Admiralty, to be forwarded by the first
Danish vessel for Europe, and that Captain Rossimmedi-
ately proceeded in search of his friend Sir John Franklin.
The crews were all well." Slender as this intelligence is,
it is gratifying, as indicating the success which had up to
that time attended the expedition of discovery. Disco
Island lies on the west coast of Greenland, at the entrance
to Baffin's Bay, near 70 degrees of latitude. It is a dreary
spot, with scarcely any vegetation, and inhabited princi-
pally by reindeer. The bay of that name is extensive,
being about 160 miles in circuit. A voyage of five or six
degrees farther north will lead to Barrow's Straits, and
those regions where intelligence of Sir John Franklin is
most likely to be procured. The circumstances under
which Sir James undertook his exploratory adventure
were most favourable. The two ships, the Enterprise, of
470 tons, and the Investigator, of 420, were built as strong
ias wood and ron could make them, with due regard to
their sailing qualities. They are larger and more elegant
in appearance than the Erebus and the Terror, which
were fitted with screws, worked by steam under high
pressure. The disadvantages resulting from this plan
were obvious, the most valuable portion of the vessel
being occupied with cumbrous machinery. In the pre-
sent expedition these inconveniences are avoided. 10
each ship is attached a launch boat, fitted with a screw
propeller ; and these boats are so constructed as to be
easily stowed amidships; whilst the steam machinery,
which is light and portable, occupies but little room, and
can be shipped and unshipped in a very short space of
time. The intention of the launches was for the double
purpose of being serviceable in towing the vessels and in
exploring open seas during a dead calm. The ships were
fully provisioned for three years, and amply supplied with
instruments for rnagnetical and meteorological observa-
tions.—Edinburgh Advertiser.

LAW .INTELLIGEYCE.

A WEALTHY PETITIONER.—A petition has just been
filed under the Debtor and Creditor Arrangement Act, to
obtain protection of the Court of Bankruptcy, by Mr. J.
Fitzgerald, of Portland-place, Regent's-park, the Oak
Lodge, Leamington, Brighton, and other places. The
debts of the petitioner exceed the enormous sum of
£133,000, and his application to Mr. Commissioner Fane
is attributed to water having got into his mines at Pendle-
ton, in Lancashire, and involved him in very serious
losses. His proposition to creditors, in liquidation of
his debts, is to pay £6,000 per year, secured upon the as-
signment of the Pendleton mines, the machinery, work-
ing utensils, &c., until the whole of his debts are satisfied,
and in case of his death then his widow, Mrs. Mary
Frances Fitzgerald, is to continue an annual payment of
£4,000. Several of the creditors' debts average above
£10,000: but upon the first meeting under the petition a
sufficient majority of the creditors acceded to the propo-
sition, and the learned Commissioner awarded Mr. Fitz-
gerald protection from arrest. The petition has been
filed under what is commonly known as Lord Brougham's
Debtor and Creditor Arrangement Act, and before an
applicant to the Court of Bankruptcy can obtain protec-
tion, he must get three-fifths of the creditors present at
the first meeting and nine-tenths of his creditors at the
second meeting before he obtains his final protection.

RAILWAY AFFAIRS.

Mr. George King has resigned the secretaryship of the
Chester and Holyhead Railway.
A. guard at the Crewe station was crossing the line on
Saturday morning when a down-train, coming at a great
speed, sum, k and killed him.
An accident, which providentially was not attended
with any serious consequences, occurred on Wednesday
to Mr. Stephenson, at the Conway station of the Chester
and Holyhead Railway.
THE COLLISION ON THE LANCASTER AND PRESTON
RAILWAY.—The jury in this inquiry, being unable to
agree upon a verdict, were on Wednesday discharged by
the Coroner upon entering into recognisances to appear at
the next General Assizes.
The South Devon Railway Company have determined
to abandon the atmospheric system of traction, after
having expended upwards of £300,000 in the experiments
upon it. The system is too expensive. It costs £lOB to
carry £lOO worth of passengers.
The opening of that portion of the Great Northern
Railway from Doncaster to Reedholme, in connexion with
the Askern branch of the Wakefield, Pontefract, and
Goole line, a portion of the scheme of the Lancashire
and Yorkshire Company, took place on Thursday last.
The number of passengers, according to the return re.
cently published, who have travelled by railway during
the half-year ending on the 30th of June last, amounted
to 26,330,492,—which is just about the population of
England, Scotland, and Ireland.

The report of the Manchester, Buxton and Matlock,
after adverting feelingly to the death of the engineer of
the company, Mr. G. Stephenson, declared that the di-
rectors would immediately authorize the works on the
I•ne t, Rows ey, if approved of by the half-yearly meeting.
No further call is to be made this year, and the arrears
are to be strenuously enforced.
A SAD PROSPECT.—The Irish railways present a me..
lancholy spectacle for the shareholders. At the Water-
ford and Limerick meeting, a resolution was passed to
discontinue the payment of 4 per cent. on anticipated
calls, the chairman sagely observing that the line, when
completed, would only yield 11 per cent.: 10,000 shares
were declared forfeit.— one-fifty of the capital. Lucky
fellows those—too poor to pay! It is said that the total
arrears of unpaid calls, in the kingdom amounts to some
nine millions. a great portion of which may be considered
worth nothing.

LIVERPOOL, MANCHESTER, AND NEWCASTLE JUNC-
TION RAILWAY.—At a meeting of shareholders in Man-
chester last week, a resolution was passed approving of
Mr. Leeman's motion, because it was plain and open ;
while Mr. Parson's was cautious worded and uncertain ;
and a committee, consisting of Mr. John A. Hobson, Mr.
Henry Rawson, and Mr. Peel, was appointed to assist in
carrying the same into effect. A second resolution was
passed to the following effect :—" That this meeting views
with great alarm the proposal of the directors to make
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co-operate in procuring a division of the funds and pre-
venting any further unnecessary expenditure, and that each
be requested to express his assent to or dissent from Mr.
Leeman's resolutions. The greatest earnestness of pur-
pose marked the proceedings.
MORE RAILWAY COLLISIONS.—On Tuesday morning,
on the London and North Western line, two collisions
took place at Leighton station, by which not less thsn
fifty persons have sustained injuries of a more or
less serious character. Upon the Rugby train reaching
Leighton there stood on the line a number of ballast
trucks, headed by a powerful engine. From some cause
or other, this train was not moved out of the way, and the
engine of the Rugby train struck the hindermost truck,
by which it was smashed, the carriages being forced com-
pletely across the line, and several of them broken to
places. Many of the passengers have been much injured,
some being wedged in the carriages, and others lying
underneath them. The driver of the mail train was
thrown to a considerable distance from the line. Jnst at
this critical juncture (shortly after three o'clock, a.m.)
the Manchester and Liverpool train came up, and from
some cause or other, it was not stopped, and the engine
ran into the train lying across the line. The effect of this
second collision was to throw the engine and tender of the
mail trail across the down, and to crush several of the
succeeding carriages. The driver and stoker had a narrow
escape. The former was severely injured, and is now lying
at Leighton ; but the stoker appears to have been thrown
by the concussion completely over the ruins of the broken
carriages and waggons—described by an eye-witness to
have been between twenty and thirty feet high—on to the
embankment on the down line, where he alighted corn-
paritively unhurt. The passengers in the train all suf-
fered more or less, but no injuries beyond a few cuts and
bruises appear to have been sustained.
THE LANCASHIRE AND YORKSHIRE RAILWAY COM-
PANY.—The half-yearly accounts were presented at the
half-yearly meeting on Wednesday. The total amount
received to the capital account, up to the present time, is
£8,448,579 ; the total sum expended is £8,242,627 ;
leaving a balance in hand of £205,951. £645,010 have
been expended on capital account in the last half year,
the principal items in which are £68,692, for stock in land
and works ; £38,488 for locomotive engines, carriages,
waggons, workshop, &c. ; £46.715 for the Burnley Branch,
£29,495 for the Heywood Extension ; £21,769 for the
Ardwick Junction ; £97,582 for the Wakefield, Pontefract,
and Goole ; £168,625 for the Liverpool and Bury ;
£38,830 for the Huddersfield and Sheffield ; and £108,497
for the West Riding Union Lines. The amounts received
on revenue account during the last half-year were :—For
passengers, parcels, and mails, £77,907 ; goods, £95,540;
live stock, £641 ; carriages, £196 ; rents, £978 ; total,
£175,624. The expenditure was :—For working expenses,
£66,546 ; rates and taxes, £4926 ; duty on passengers,
£2015 ; total, £74,488 ; leaving a balance on the half-
year, applicable to interest on loans and to dividend, of
£100,775. To this must be added £13,279, the surplus
brought forward for the half-year ending December 31st,
1847 ; and from the total so obtained must be deducted
£20,353, interest on loans for the half-year ; leaving a net
sum applicable to the payment of dividend of £93,702.
Of this sum, the directors purpose to divide £89,985
among the shareholders, at the rate of six per cent. per
annum, leaving, at the expiration of the half-year, and
after the payment of dividends, a surplus in the hands of
the company of only 4,716. The report was adopted.