The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-07-18 00:00:00

Knowledge indeed is as necessary as light ; but it has
been wisely ordained that light should have no colour,
water no taste, and air no odour, so knowledge should
be equally pure, and without admixture.
Too much leisure leads to expense ; because when a
man is in want of objects, it occurs to him that they are
to be had for money, and he invents expenditure in order
to pass the time.
PUN UPON Purr.—" Why is an honest man like a car-
penter?" said one gentleman to another. " I can't tell,"
was the answer. " Why because he is a plain dealer."
" I see it now, you have made it a deal plainer,"
was the reply.
PUTTING A THING TO ITS PROPER USE.—" Your a
regular muff, sir," said a traveller to an Irishman, in a
great passion, while disputing in a London coffee-house.
" Thank you," replied Mr. O'R. coolly ; "ifl am a muff,
I have done my duty : I've made you warm." _ _ _

• •
AN ATTORNEY'S.•
PnN.—An old gentleman accused his
servant, among other thefts, of having stolen his stick.
The servant protested perfect innocence. " Why, you
know," rejoined the complainant, " that the stick could
never have walked off with itself." " Certainly not,"
said the attorney for the defence, " unless it was a walk-
ing stick."
A COUNTRYMAN'S OPINION ON THE " Six POINTS!'
—We shall come to a pretty pass if we are to have a fresh
election every year, pay men for being elected, and yet let
any idle, good-for-nothing fellow who never had industry
to earn anything, or thrift to keep what he had, be quali-
fied to be a member. Members will be like blackberries,
growing in every hedge, if this is to be the way of it.
Why, I know some half-a-dozen of these chartist fellows,
who are always talking in at the " Star," where I put up
my team, when I go in with the corn to Foxtown, who
would then all be for being parliament men. To hear
them talk to us, you would suppose they were the only
folk in the universe who knew anything about right or
wrong ; and yet, I could never find that any one of them
ever stuck to any honest business long enough to pay his
way. Then they are terrible fellows for getting hold of
other folk's money, for their "great schemes," as they
call them ; they talk very big of the pounds of money
they send up every month to their chartist member in
London, who says he is buying such a lot of land that he
will give fifty thousand of us, if we will pay him a little
ready money at once, an acre or two, and a house, and
tools, and I don't know what besides, some day or other.
These fellows who call themselves agents for him, to my
way of thinking, are not of the sort I should like to trust
my money to,—let alone the sending it on such a wild
goose chase.—Polities for the People.
VEGETABLE IN S TINCT.—If a pan of water be placed
within six inches on either side of the stem of a young
pumpkin or vegetable marrow, it will in the course of the
night approach it, and will be found in the morning with
one of its leaves floating on the water. This experiment
may be continued nightly until the plant begins to fruit.
If a prop be placed within six inches of a young convolvu-
lus or scarlet runner, it will find it although the prop be
shifted daily. If after it has twined some distance up the
prop, it be unwound and twined in the opposite direc-
tion, it will return to its original position or die in the at-
tempt ; yet notwithstanding, if two of these plants grow
near each other, and have no stake around which they can
entwine, one of them will alter the direction of its spiral,
and they will twine round each other. Duhamel placed
some kidney beans in a cylinder of moist earth; after a
short time they began to germinate, of course sending the
plume upwards to the light and the root down into the soil.
After a few days the cylinder was turned one-fourth
round, and again and again this was repeated, until an en-
tire revolution of the cylinder had been completed. The
beans were then taken out of the earth, and it was found
that both the plume and radicle had bent to accommodate
themselves to every revolution, and the one in its effort to
ascend perpendicularly, and the other to descend, had
formed a perfect spiral. But although the natural ten-
dency of the roots is downwards, if the soil beneath be
dry, and any damp substance be above, the roots will as-
cend to reach it.—Farmers' Magazine.
EXTRAORDINARY SC ENE .—A most extraordinary
scene occurred at Nant turnpike-gate, near Llangefni, on
Friday, the 30th ult. On that day Hylton's collection of
wild beasts in caravans, drawn by several horses, came
from Llangefni to the turnpike-gate, and 6d. for each col-
lar was demanded as toll. When this claim was paid the
gate-keeper refused to let the collection go through unless
2d. more for each collar was paid, upon the ground that
only 4d. had been paid for each when they passed through
on their way to Llanerchymedd. The person in custody
alleged that whatever had been demanded had been paid
at that time, and that if a further charge had been then
made it would have been paid ; but that the property had
since that time changed hands by being sold to another
party when at Llanerchymedd. The gate-keeper was de-
termined not to open the gate, and the keeper of the wild
beasts was fully as determined to pass onward ; and each
party loudly insisted upon the correctness of his own view
of the case. A respectable farmer who happened to be
in the adjoining field was referred to as to the respective
rights of the parties. The clause in the turnpike act was
clear as to 6d. a collar being chargeable where the carriage
drawn was upon springs, but the wild beast man insisted
that there was nothing in the act to compel him to pay
tolls for another man's property or beasts. The pikeman
called to his assistance the lime burners and carters from
the adjoining quarries, and the caravan man summoned
his trusty keepers. Words grew louder and blows fell
faster, until at length the battle became general ; bloody
hands and broken heads were seen and felt ; staves and
the butt ends of carters' whips were met with long poles
and short truncheons. The issue of the battle was for a
considerable time doubtful. The pikeman's wife, and
children were crying and roaring in the house, whilst the
wild beasts in their respective dens were sending forth
terrific yells. The elephant, after removing the gate, was
unchained, came to the rescue, decided the day and cau-
sed the discomfited Monaites to fly in great disorder to-
wards Glynhwrfa, leaving the pikeman and his gate at
the mercy of the victors, who subsequently passed onwards
with lighted pipes and flying colours.—Chester Courant.
RELUCTANCE TO ENTER THE CLOISTER. A curious
instance occurred at Rome, and was narrated to us by a
general officer who was present at the time. A young
lady was destined by her parents for the cloister. She
had regarded herself as the wife of one to whom she was
much attached. The parents not approving this marriage,
placed her, as is usual in such cases, in a monastery, where
she could never see him, and she commenced her noviciate.
Before doing so, however, the young gentleman found
means to communicate to her, that he would attend in the
church at the conclusion of her noviciate ; and that if she
still loved him and preferred marriage with him to the
taking the veil, he would be there to claim her, and give
her the home and protection which her own family would
deny her. The year rolled slowly away. The noviciate
bad ended. The profession was publicly announced—the
bells rang merrily as for a bridal ; the first flowers of
spring were blooming on the floor of the monastic chapel.
The Cardinal had arrived ; the young novice, fair as the
young moon in May, knelt with her white veil floating be-
hind her, and her eye glancing eagerly from face to face in
the assembly, till it rested on him, whom for that long and
sad noviciate she had never seen, and whose presence at
this moment assured her of his faithfulness in the past.
The service proceeded till the Cardinal asked the usual
question as to her willingness for the life of a cloister ; she
at once declared her unwillingness. The Cardinal was
astounded. The assembly was greatly excited. And on
her being again asked for her reasons, she pointed to the
young man who was present, and said boldly, " My wish
is to be married to that gentleman." She was the next
instant on her knees before the Cardinal, beseeching him
to forgive her, and to permit the marriage. The feelings
of the Cardinal and all the assembly were deeply moved.
The service ceased. The Cardinal declared that she must
not be received into the sisterhood, as she had herself re-
fused her consent. He made enquiry, and in the end
himself married the young couple. And thus she found at
once the home and the protection she required, and the
want of which would otherwise have consigned her against
her own wishes to the cloister for ever. This, however, is
a scene that cannot be of frequent occurrence.— Seymour' s
Pilgrimage to Rome.

WHAT HAS FREE TRADE DONE ?—The House of Com-
mons, by a majority, have voted for the repeal of the
Navigation Laws. Free trade will soon have done its
work, so far, at least, as the House of Commons is con-
cerned. It is gradually but unceasingly advancing, and
swallowing up successively all the great interests of the
empire, save that of the capitalists, as it moves forward.
The agricultural interests will find themselves deprived,
in February next, of all protection ; and the British cul-
tivator exposed to the competition, without any shield
save a nominal duty of ls. a quarter, of states where
wheat can be raised, with a fair profit in average years,
at 18s. a quarter, and brought to this country for 10s. at
the very utmost of freight. As soon as we have two fine
harvests in succession, it will be seen to what state this
system will reduce British rural production. The West I
India interests have been next assailed ; and our colonies,
upon whom free labour has been forced, upon a compen-
sation being given to the proprietors on an average of a
fourth of the value of their slaves, are speedily to be ex-
posed, with no protection but a differential duty of ss. 6d.
a hundredweight, diminishing ls. 6d. a year, till, in 1854,
it disappears, to the competition of slave colonies, where
sugar can be raised for £4 a ton, while in the British
colonies the measures of government have precluded its
being raised for less than £lO a ton. As a natural con-
sequence, cultivation is about to cease in those noble
settlements ; the forest and the jungle will speedily sup-
plant the smiling plantations, and £100,000,000 worth of
British property will be lost beyond redemption. Do-
mestic manufactures were at the same time assailed,
though with a more gentle hand than rude produce.
Protective duties on them were lowered, though not en-
tirely removed ; and the consequence is, that at this time
there are 8,000 hands wholly unemployed at Manchester,
and above 10,000 at Glasgow, and distress to an unparal-
leled extent pervades the whole commercial and manu-
facturing classes. Nothing daunted by these calamitous
results, so exactly what the opponents of free trade pre-
dicted would ensue, so diametrically the reverse of the
unbounded prosperity which they promised the nation as
the consequence of their changes, the Free-traders, in
pursuance of their usual system of preferring their own
opinion to the evidence of facts, are preparing to apply
the same system to the commercial navy of the country,
and, by the repeal of the Navigation Laws, against the
opinion of Adam Smith. to depress our shipping interest
as much as they encourage that of foreign states, and
endanger our national existence, by crippling our own
means of defence as much as they augment the means of
attack in the hands of our enemies. Not content with
rendering us dependent for a large part of our bread on
foreign nations, they are determined on measures calcu-
lated to deprive us of the means of maintaining our naval
superiority, or upholding the national independence.
They are set upon saving the nation a few millions a year
in freight, though the consequence is, that we shall be
alike unable to withstand a pacific blockade or hostile
aggression, This country has already suffered greater
losses, and been more severely crippled in its resources,
by the effects of three years of free trade and fettered
currency policy, than by the whole efforts of Franco
during, a war of twenty years.—Blavkwood,