The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-03-03 00:00:00

aoLtxa.—Or

;ed Hibernian w

and three
Sheridan.

Plice.calart

Majesty's custom

ed 2 lba, of tobacco
pints of brandy, on board the American ship
The officer said he found the articles on the
prisoner's person : he was carrying them ashore. Mr. Rush-
ton ordered the prisoner in each case to pay 20s. and costs,
or to be imprisoned seven days.

THE FUNDS— WEDNESDAY EVENING.—LittIe fluctuation
has occurred in the value of the public securities to-day,
which have maintained considerable firmness at quotations a
shade better. Exchequer-bills and India Bonds are gradu-
ally improving, and the latter hold by Is. the best position
in the market. Consols for money left off, 95i to l• ' ditto,
account, 95* to 1; Bank Stock, 177 to' 178 India Stock,
2671 to 268/; Three per Cents. Reduced, 961; Three-and-
a-Half per Cents. Reduced, 108*; New Three-and-a-Half
per Cents., 10241 Long Annuities, 1210 India Bonds, 68s.
to 70s. premium ; and Exchequer-bills, 675. to 695. premium.
In the foreign stocks Spanish Actives were quoted 20* to *;
ditto, New, 27* to ; Mexican, 30* to 311; Mexican Defer-
red, 81 to 9; Detch Two-and-a-Half per Cents., 55/ to I ;
Dutch Five per Cents., 1021 to a; Danish, 89 to 537 ; Colom-
bian, 24 to *: Brazilian, 77 to 78; and Portuguese Con-
verted, 39i. to a.

TYPE-COMPOSING MacHisn.—Our readers, no doubt,
have, from time to time, seen, in this and other papers, ac-
counts of a machine for composing type, which is intended
in some degree to supersede the present calling of newspaper
and book compositors. This machine is a patented invention
by Messrs. Young and Delcambre, of London. We have
never ourselves seen it in actual operation, but we had the
other day an opportunity of inspecting the section of a
working model, which, in our mind, was perfectly satis-
factory as to the capabilities of the machine itself. Like
many practical men, we were in the first instance decidedly
sceptical, having, as we thought, reasonable grounds for
supposing its merits to be greatly exaggerated ; but the
difficUlties we felt were speedily so far modified as to leave
no room for doubt upon the ultimate success of type-com-
posing by machinery. We do not, however, fora moment,
conceal our conviction that as far as concerns what is techni-
called " justification," the machine is defective ; that " dis-
tribution " is a more complicated operation than at present;
that there is an equal liability to mis-spell, to leave " outs,"
and make 6` doubles;" that the correction of errors will be
just as troublesome as at present; and that its ability to per-
form a given quantity of work is less than we anticipated.
The patentees indeed are at no trouble to deny or lessen these
defects; but, notwithstanding all these disadvantages, we
cannot resist the conclusion that the machine, even with its
present imperfections, can scarcely fail to succeed. Improve-
ments may, and will, no doubt, be made progressively, for
one will suggest another, that will materially reduce the
force of now existing objections ; and, therefore, we really
believe, having a knowledge of all the most formidable
obstacles to the change, that the time has now arrived; for
the spring, the lever, and the wheel of the mechanic to be
applied to the art of the compositor. Into the social, of as
some will have it, the moral effects of applying machinery to
a branch of industry hitherto supposed inaccessible to it,
this is not the place to enquire. The most prejudiced, hOvr-
ever, will be constrained to admit that if time and expense
are thereby saved it must go on. That, indeed, is one of the
laws of our condition. In the present state of society
(" artificial," as it is sometimes called) the progress of ma-
chinery in general, and of particular improvements in that
machinery, can no more be stopped than can the revolution's
of the planets; and experience has always shewn that op-
position either to one or the other has not only been futile
but has actually been the greatest stimulus to ingenuity.
The type-compositors, therefore, like many other trades
before, will have to give way as far as plain straight-forward
composition goes; but they will have this advantage, which
most other trades so situated have not had, that the more
difficult branches of their profession—tabular work for in-
stance, and jobbing in general,—cannot be done by any
machine either invented now or ever likely to be, conse-
quently there will always be occupation fur good hands. It
will be the inferior members of the trade, the half-educated,
as it were, who will be the most affected. The history:of
machinery for the last forty years is instructive; and We
should hope that compositors, who, as a body, are charac-
terized by intelligent foresight, will not be above learning
useful knowledge from that source. The machine of Messrs.
Young and Delcambre, judging from the model we have
seen, is light and elegant, occupying but little space, and of
no great weight. The mechanism is very simple, and the
materials of its construction are by no means of an expensive
character. We make these observations in this place in
order to suggest to the patentees a certain point which, in
our opinion, will stand greatly in the way of the common
adoption of their invention. It is this—that there is ap-
parently very little relation indeed between the actual value
of the machine and the money price which they put upon it.
Would not a revision of their scale, with a view to reduc-
tion, be likely to be more beneficial, by extending the
demand? We know other patents where such has been the
issue. In, putting forth this suggestion, we wish it to be
distinctly understood that we are advocates for every man
who has made any useful discovery profiting by that dis-
covery, and for his rights being protected for a reasonable
time in doing so; but at the same time there is a possibility
of that man " standing in his own light."

PoRTuoDESE AND JAMAICA TARIFFS.—We find in the
Cork Constitution of Tuesday last, a report of a meeting held
in that town for the pnrpose of hearing froni Mr. Fagan, the
result of his mission to London, respectiog the Portuguese
Tariff and the Jamaica Inland Duties. It appears that Ire-
land, particularly the South, up to a recent period, carried
on a very extensive trade with Portugal, principally in butter,
one of the staple products of that agricultural country. By
the assimilation in 1835 by the Government of Portugal of
the duties on all foreign produce imported into that country,
including that of Great Britain and Ireland, this important
trade has been lost to Ireland, owing to the successful com-
petition of Holland and Germany. This assimilation was, ih
a great degree, caused or suggested by the assimilation, in
1831, by England, of the duties on French and Portuguese
wines. As England, in the pending treaty with Portugal,
proposes to reduce the duty on the wines of that country over
40 per cent., it is considered but an act of just reciprocity
that Portugal, in return, should place its trade with Ireland
on the former footing, or nearly so. This subject was pressed
upon Lord Aberdeen by Mr. Pagan and Mr. Serjeant Mur-
phy, and at the close Lord Aberdeen said that in reference
to the subject there would be no difficulty ; bnt he said,
" Gentlemen, 1 think it right to state to you, that in conse
quence of the difficulties in which the revenue is placed owing
to the suspension of the treaty, we have taken measures, so
that unless it be speedily brought to a close it will be broken
off altogether." The duty on Irish beef and pork, as incladed
in the contemplated Portugal treaty, was subsequently pressed
Upon Lord Aberdeen's attention but his lordship declined
to give any explanation on the subject, as it would establish
a bad precedent to give the details of pending negbciations.
With reference to the Jamaica duties Mr. Fagan said he did
not possess sufficient information to go before Lord Stanley,
but he had forwarded a letter to his lordship, who stated that
" he had given positive instructions that there should be no
greater sum than five per cent. Island duty." Mr. Gould
in proposing a vote of thanks to Mr. Fagan and Mr. Murphy,
read the following memorial from Messrs. Robinson and
Girvin, of this town, to Lord Stanley :
" My Lord—Having been long established and extensively
engaged in the cure and exports of provisions to the West
Indies, we have been greatly alarmed by the receipts of the
inclosed new Tariff of Island duties, enacted by the Jamaica
House of Assembly, to come into operation on the sth of
April next, and unless "vetoed" by your Lordship, will en-
tirely destroy our business, and be of the most serious injury
to the Provision Trade of Ireland, and also of great disadvan-
tage to British shipping, as they have hitherto derived con-
siderable benefit in carrying out supplies from the United
Kingdotn, which must eventually cease unless some differen-
tial duties be established in lieu of them. We beg respect-
fully to instance the following articles in our line or business,
and to contrast the new schedule of duties with the one now
in operation, viz :
Pork and Beef from the United Kingdom now pay 4s. per
brl. of 20o0lbs.•, from the British Possessions, ls.; if Foreign,
12s. per cwt. additional, or 255..5d. By the New Tariff it is
proposed the duty from the United Kingdom and British
Possessions shall be 20s. per barl., and from Foreign Coun-
tries 3s. per cwt. additional, leaving only a protection of
ss. 4.id. per brl. in favour of Pork Beef from the United
Kingdom. "Hams and Bacon," British, now pay ss. per
cwt., and if Foreign 12s. per cwt. additional—it is now pro-
posed to raise the duty on British cure to Bs. per cwt.—and
upon foreign to 3s. per cwt. additional, giving a protection
of 3s. per cwt. only, instead of 12s. as hitherto existed. The
Tariff regulating the importation of the above articles into the
United Kingdom, admits foreign beef and pork, at Bs. per
cwt, or about 14s. 3/d. per brl. of 2001b5., and the article of
bacon and hams at 14s. per cwt. ; so that your lordship will
perceive the inequality atone glance, and also the consequences
we predicate.
" We therefore earnestly entreat your lordship's early and
favourable consideration to this subject, and remain, My
Lord, your Lordship's humble and obedient servant,
(Signed)
" ROBINSON & GIRVIN.
"-Liverpool, Feb. 22, 1843."

. -- -
POLICE CASE EXTRAORDINARY..—On Tuesday last, a
plain-looking man,
named Wright, who resides in Bannister-
court, Carpenter's-row, stated to be a joiner and carpenter,
and who appeared to be in want of shaving, was brought be-
fore the sitting magistrate on a charge of stealing a quantity
of too/8 from a brother chip who boarded at the opposite
house.—Police-officer Toole stated that the prisoner had been
put into his charge by the complainant, on a charge of steal-
ing from him a number of planes (smoothing and moulding),
a rot of chisels, a gouge, a file, two hammers, a lot of screws,
tacks and nails, a sprig-bit, two squares, a hand-saw and a
tenant saw, an auger, a brace and bits, an axe, an adze, and a
(variety of other articles used in the trade, most of which he
witness) afterwards found at his lodgings, secreted amongst
some shavings and saw-dust. " The prisoner, after being
taken into custody (added the witness) gave me a box on the
chest, struck me on the head with a hammer so as nearly to
nail me, and also tried to gouge me by putting his thumbs in
y eyes ; but I stuck to him like glue, and finally, on his
cuffing me with his hands, I secured him with hand-cull's."
—The complainant said, the prisoner had come to him some
days before to borrow the axe; but he had lost so much by
lending that he refused, though he so far persuaded him, that
it was nearly Lent. The :prisoner had, however, contrived,
during his (witness's) absence, to break open the lock of the
shop, and bolt with the articles. He met him on the key
(quay) and axed him about stealing the axe, but could make
no handle of it.—One of the hands who worked at the shop
swore he saw the prisoner cut off across the street with the
hand-saw.—A little boy saw him put a sprig-bit into his
pocket.—Another witness observed him break open the door
with a Jemmy and decamp with the.fack-plane.—The articles
were produced and identified.—It appeared to be a great bore
to the prisoner when the brace and bits were brought against
him, and the court augured still worse of him when the auger
was produced. When the squares and a Plummet were
shown, the case became more and more crooked, and out of
plim.—The prisoner, when asked what he had to say, screwed
his courage to the sticking place, and addressed the bench at
some length. A great deal, he said, had been brought against
him, but he trusted the complainant would be balked in
fastening a charge upon him of forcibly opening a door. As
to the Jemmy, it was " all my eye and Betty.' and no Jack
of them could make a plain story of it. As to steeling
hey
were the witnesses were surely speaking in irony, for they
were all of cold iron, without steel. No one could .see him
with the saw, and the testimony given on that point was only
of a see-saw kind, which he should set his teeth against. We
denied having struck the officer : he was not in the habit of
striking—except occasionally for wages. As to the sprig of
a boy who had spoken of the sprig-bit, there was not a
bit of
truth in his allegations. Why should they tax hint with the
tacks ? Stories had been got up against him, one over
another, but he trusted they would be razed to the ground.
and those who raised them be completely floored, He had
been a tenant of the same landlord for many years, and, as
1 he entertained a terror mortis, he swore he had not taken
either the tenant-saw nor the mortice-iron. The case agai him had plainly been moulded, and the witnesses drilled, but
t
it was altogether disjointed, as any joiner in the trade
would
admit. The fact was, he had had a quarrel with the com-
plainant on a knotty point, and he had been cross-grained
with him ever since. He concluded, without calling any
witnesses, by throwing himself upon the bench.—The.Bench
decided that the case was too plain to admit of doubt.
The
defendant had endeavournd to make a case himself, and had
and the measure of
done a deal to smooth it over, but had failed. All the evi-
deuce squared and dove-tailed together
punishment would hinge on the prisoners previous character.
—The bridewell-keeper said the accused was an old file, who
had repeatedly chiseled and screwed honest people out of
their property.—The magistrate said, " This adds (adze) to
the enormity of the offence. I have some doubts whether I
shall send you where a jury will be impannelled tn.try you. 1
shall take care, however, that you shall not make a tool of I
me. You must be punished. Let him be locked up for three months,"