The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-04-30 00:00:00

lers have been paid for in advance, in order

eir execution

Ts received in Paris from the South American

with France as becoming
Dore extensive every yer. At Valparaiso, however, com-

at the comme

.s been carried to excess, and ti

overstocked
ready sale,

11 other articles of French produce meet a

particularly in demand

French merchants exercise

We leave it to our free-trade friends to explain the
cause of this commercial progress.

.
The Government, we now learn, are about to
make an effort to improve the condition of the
agricultural population and render them better
consumers of produce and manufactures; and this
they also propose to effect by a currency operation.
The Constitutionnel, of Thursday last, thus an-
nounces the nature of the operation in question :

"The Government, in accord with the Bank of France,
has just come to a resolution which will have the effect of
giving some alleviation to agriculture, which is now re-
duced to the most distressing situation in consequence of
the lowness of prices. It is known that after the rovolu-
lion of February the Provisional Government issued suc-
cessively two decrees to assist commerce and manufac-
tures—the one established discount banks ; the other es-
tablishing general warehouses, placed under the surveil-
lance of the state, where manufacturers and merchants
might deposit their merchandise, and receive acknowledg-
ments which were negotiable by simple endorsement.
The new measure to which the Government is about
to have recourse in the interest of agriculture is
nothing more than an application of this system of public
warehousing. The question now is to utilise in favour
of agricultnral produce,
,which is so seriously affected,
the means employed to assist commerce and manufactures
after the revolution of February. Flour will be admit-
ted into these general warehouses, which will be placed
under the surveillance of the state. The depositor will
receive an acknowledgment, taken from a register, a copy
of which will be retained. This acknowledgment, which
will express the market value of the article, fixed by a
duly authorized appraiser, will be negotiable by endorse-
ment, and hearing the government stamp, and represent-
ing a tangible and readily realisable value, will be re.
garded as equivalent to a second signature, and many
thus, through the medium of discount banks or other es-
tablishments of credit, find their way to the Bank of
France. We, in fact, are informed that the Bank of
France has agreed to discount these acknowledgments of
deposits of flour to the extent of 15,000.000 ; it will thus
find a useful employment for a part of its capital, and
will open a new source of business without infringing on
the rules of its statutes."

How far such a system would be judicious, if
adopted as a permanent measure, we shall not
undertake to say, although we see few objections
to it. That it will materially relieve the French
agriculturist at the present moment cannot be
doubted. It is the inability of this class to hold
back their produce which is deluging the French
markets, and driving large supplies to our own
ports ; and if it be the fact that the present abund-
ant harvest in France is an exceptional one, and
that she is not in ordinary years capable of grow-
ing grain sufficient for her own wants, the offer of
aid from the State and the Bank is both wise and
patriotic. Our own government, alas ! is content
to stand coldly aloof, whilst its agricultural masses
are sinking into insolvency and ruin. Au indus-
trious and once thriving race may oe swept from
the face of the land, sooner than it will permit a
monetary or fiscal dogma to be interfered with !

The English steamer Royal Victoria arrived at Gibraltar
on the 18th, in nine days from Liverpool.
PACKET-SHIP ASHBURTON.—The packet-ship Ash-
burton arrived here on Sunday, from New York, and
shortly before the vessel reached the river the passengers
presented the following very gratifying letter to her com-
mander, Captain Bunting :

_
" Off the N.W. Lightship, April 28, 1850.
" DEAR SIR,—We, the undersigned, passengers on board the
packet-ship Ashburton,' beg to offer you our very sincere
thanks for your kindness and attention to us during our pas-
sage from New York to Liverpool—nothing has been wanting
on your part to secure the comfort and happiness of all on
board. We cannot separate without noticing the quiet and
gentlemanly bearing of Mr. M. Williams, and the other officers
of the ship : may you and they experience every earthly com-
fort, and your labours ever be crowned with success.
" We remain, dear Sir,
" Yours ever gratefully and obliged,
"MARY E. CLOWES.
STANFELL CLOWES.
Signed, THOS. WADDEL.
J. M. WNEICE.
DR. ADAMS."

"To Capt. R. L. Bunting,
" Packet-ship Ashburton."

LEGAL FUNNINESS.—There appears just now to be
prevalent amongst the members of the legal profession a
strenuous desire to be witty, and to say smart things with
a view to raise a laugh. Even the bench has caught a
little of the infection, Mr. Baron Alderson, especially,
seizing every opportunity to let off his ponderous jokes.
The following are specimens, sufficiently lively perhaps
for the dull element of a court, though scarcely up to the
standard of Punch. In a trial for an illegal committal,
held in the Court of Common Pleas, in Westminster, on
Wednesday last, it was urged that the warrant did not
state on the face of it the offence—an insult to the judge
of a county court—for which the committal was made.
The counsel for the plaintiff argued that, unless this was
done, officers might execute warrants of the most illegal
kind; and he asked—" where were you to draw the line
if the officer ordered you to take a man and hang him?"
Mr. Whately's reply, " round his neck" raised a laugh
amongst the learned assembly. Mr. Temple continued—
" if the insult depended upon the caprice_ of the judge,
and need not be set forth, a man's liberty might depend
upon the state of the judge's digestion, and on whether or
no he had supped heartily the night before." The law
ought really to be amended if there is any doubt upon
this point. One of the insults in the case before the court
appeared to have consisted in the plaintiff's having " put
his thumb to his nose on meeting the high bailiff in the
street," and " twining a white feather before the judge."
The latter offence counsel contended " might so irritate the
judge as to render him incapable of fulfilling his office;
and taking a sight' was also a gross insult. Stating
these insults at length in the warrant, however, would
tend to render it ridiculous." The court took time to con-
sider its judgment upon the knotty points in question.
—Baron Alderson's perpetration was in a case in which a
publisher of the name of Ingrain was proved to have pi-
rated an engraved wrapper, the copyright of which be-
longed to the publishers of the Illustrated News. His
lordship having inquired if the defendant was not the
party concerned with Mr. Judge in pirating the royal
etchings, and received a reply in the affirmative, remarked,
—" Well, then, we here have that person ravishing, as it
were, the productions of both ' high and low.' " Domi-
nie Sampson would have exclaimed at this " Pro-digious