The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-11-03 00:00:00

VARIETIES.

TWELVEMONTH LAMP.—Take a stick of phosphorus
and put it in a large dry phial, not corked, and it will af-
ford sufficieat light to discern any object placed near it.
The phial should be kept in a cold place, where there is
no great current of air, and it will continue its luminous
appearance for more than a year.
ANTICIPATION OF REVENGE.—In Scotland it is cus-
tomary, when a death occurs in a family, to send the
neighbours an invitation to attend the funeral. A " guid
old wife" was passed by in one of these invitations, and
with her heart full of indignant grief, she watched the fu-
neral gathering, around a neighbour's door. It was
finally, too much for her, and she exclaimed, in a tone of
forced resignation, " Aweel, awed ! we'll hatve a corpse
o' our ain in our ain house some day ! See then wha'll
be invited.i' . _

SUPPLY OF WATER TO JERUSALEM.—Ancient Jeru-
salem must, like the modern town, have been chiefly
dependent upon these domestic precautions for this indis-
pensable article. This is demonstrated by the multitude
of ancient cisterns, which, indeed, are the same now in
use, no less than by the inadequate number of springs in
the neighbourhood. This natural deficiency was so fully
remedied by art and industry, that few places seem to
have possessed more ample supplies of water for every
purpose, or to have been so completely secured, in this
respect, against the casualties of war. Neither violence
nor stratagem could stop or divert the fountains which
were open for them in the heavens ; and the dearth which
reigned beyond the walls of the city must always have
presented very serious difficulties in the way of a besieging
army. It is remarkable, that in the numerous accounts
which we have in the Prophets and historical books of the
Bible, of the sufferings and desolations produced in this
country by drought, we seldom hear of any scarcity of
water in Jerusalem. Some difficulty of this sort is some-
times, though rarely, experienced in very dry seasons, by
families insufficiently provided with cisterns; and water
is then brought in goat skin bottles from a fountain a few
miles distant from the city, and sold at a low price to
those whose reservoirs are exhausted, or who are deposed
to indulge in such a luxury during the warm weather.—
Church of England Magazine.

WAS :‘ GUN COTTON" 4,NOWN TO THE INDIANS.—
We have beard a good deal lately of the explosive mate-
rial called " gun cotton." There may be some doubt
whether this substance, or something possessing very
similar properties, was not known to different tribes of
Indians at an early period. A quaint old voyager, who
sailed with Cavendish in the reign of El zabeth, narrates
the following incident which happened when the ship was
lying at Port Desire, on the coast of America, fur the pur-
pose of taking in wood and water :—" One day, while
most of the men were absent on their several duties, a
multitude of the natives showed themselves, throwing dust
upon their heads, leaping and running like brute beasts,
having vizards on their faces, like dogs' faces, or else
their faces are dogs' faces indeed. We greatly feared lest
they should set the ship on fire, for they would suddenly
make fire, whereat we much marvelled. They came to
windward of our ship, and set the bushes on Me, to that vie
were in a very stinking smoke ; but as soon as they came
within reach of our shot we shot at them, and striking
one of them in the thigh they all presently fled, and we
never saw them more." In New Guinea Captain Cook
saw a peculiar mode of " suddenly making fire," probably,
however, different from this. -"
Three Indians rushed
out of a wood with a hideous shout, at about the distance
of 100 yards; and as they ran towards us the foremost
threw something out of his hand, which burnt exactly like
gunpowder, but made no report. What these fires were
we could not imagine. We saw fire and smoke resembling
those of a musket, and of no longer duration."
A FISHY CAPITAL.—Let us for a moment, step ashore
in what our author styles the fishiest of modera capitals,
St. John's Newfoundland. Here codfish are the one thing
universal ; acres of sheds, roofed with cod, laid out to dry,
boats fishing for cod, ships loading with it, fields manured
with it, and, best of all, fortunes made by it. The accom-
plishment of the daughter, the education of the son, the
finery of the mother, the comforts of the father, all are
paid for by this profitable fish. The population subsist on
it ; figuratively, not literally. For, although the sea is
alive with cod, the earth covered with it, and the air im-
pregnated with its odour, it is carefully banished from the
dinner table, and "an observation made on its absence
from that apparently appropriate position, excited as much
astonishment as if 1 had made a remark to a Northumber-
land squire that he had not a head dish of Newcastle coals."
But the abundance which renders it unpalatable to the
Newfoundlanders, procures them more acceptable viands,
and all the luxuries of life. The climate ungenial, the soil
barren, crops are difficult to obtain, and rarely ripen ; even
potatoes and vegetables are but scantily compelled from
the niggard earth ; fish, the sole produce. is the grand
article of barter. In exchange for his lenten ratio of
bacallao, the Spaniard sends his fruits and Xeres, the Por-
tuguese his racy port, the Italian his Florence oil, and
Naples maccaroni. Everywhere, but especially in those
" countries of the Catholic persuasion" where the fasts of
the Itornish Church are most strictly observed, Newfound-
land finds customers for its cod and supplies of its wants.
—Blackwood. _

FERTILITY OF DUMAS, THE FRENCH NOVELIST.—It
is difficult to assign limits to the fecundity of a writer, and
to fix the number of lines that he shall write in a given
time. Romance-writing, especially, that frivolous style,
has a right to travel post, and to scatter its volumes in
profusion by the wayside. Nevertheless, time must be
taken to consider a subject, to arrange a plan, to connect
the threads of a plot, to organise the different parts of a
work ; otherwise one proceeds blindfold, and finishes by
getting into a blind alley, or by meeting insurmountable
obstacles. Allowing for these needful preparations,
supposing that an author takes no more repose than
is absolutely necessary, eats in haste, sleeps little, is
constantly inspired; in this hypothesis, the most skil-
ful writer will pruduce perhaps fifteen volumes a year
—FIFTEEN VOLUMES, do you hear, Monsieur Dumas?
And, even in this case, he will assuredly not write
for fame ; we defy him to chasten and correct his
style, or find a moment to correct his proofs. Ask
those who work unassisted ; ask our most fertile romance
writers, George Sands, Balzac, Eugene Sue, Frederic Sell-
lie ; they will all tell you that it is impossible to reach the
limit we have fixed, and that they never have attained it.
You, M. Dumas, have published THIRTY-SIX volumes in
the course of the year 1844; and for the year 1845 von an-
nounce twice as many. Well, we make the following
simple calculation :—The most expert copyist, writing 12
hours a day, hardly achieves 3900 letters in an hour, which
gives, per diem, 46,800 letters, or sixty ordinary pages of
a romance. At that rate he can copy five octavo volumes
a month, and sixty in the year, but he must not rest an
hour or lose a second. You, M. Dumas, are a penman of
first-rate ability. From the Ist of January to the 31st of
December you work regularly twelve hours a day, you
sleep little, you eat in haste, you deprive yourself of all
amusements, you hardly travel at all, you are never seen
out of your halve: consequently, if we suppose that your
dramatic compositions, the bringing out of your plays,
your correspondence with newspapers and theatres, im-
portunate visitors, a few casual articles—as, for example,
your letters in the Democratie Pacifique : (a series of five
letters containing a fierce attack on the Theatre Francais,
and on its administrator M. Buloz)—supposing, we say,
that all these various occupations monopolize only one-
half of your time, we understand that you may have copied
THIRTY volumes in the year 1844—but only thirty! the
six others must have been the result of your son's labours.
Now, if you are going to publish twice as much this year
as you did during the last one, how will you manage?
You must either give up sleeping, and work the twenty-
fours through, or you must teach your manufacturers to
imitate your handwriting. There is no other plan pos-
sible. To deliver your manuscripts to the printers as they
are delivered to you, would be to furnish proofs against
yourself.— Translation from a Pamphlet entitled " Fa-
brique de Romans; Maison Alexander Dumas el C 0.,"
in Blackwood.
LABORIOUS ZEAL AND PRIVATIONS OF THE COLO-
NIAL BISHOPS.—The Bishop of Toronto, when on a
visitation and confirmation tour in 1842, passed a night
on an island in Lake Huron, under incessant and pene-
trating rain, and amid a storm which blew down the tents.
And the same prelate, on the same occasion, when pre-
vented from proceeding to the place where he had re•
solved to hold a confirmation, by the dangerous state of
the roads and ferry, remonstrated with his clergy who
had made this alteration in his arrangements, and who
urged his not proceeding, and assured them that a road
which could be traversed by a priest and his people,
might well be adventured on by a bishop. The Bishop
of Montreal drove in an open cariole through " a raging
snow-storm," and over, of rather in, deep snow, in which
the horse was occasionally almost buried, in order to hold
a confirmation, and administered that apostolic rite in a
" diminutive wooden building," (the Church sojourning
literally in tabernacles,) while melting snow poured down
upon the altar part where he was officiating. The vene-
rable Bishop of Nova Scotia travelled under a powerfully
hot August sun twenty-five miles, to consecrate a church,
and hold a confirmation; he began the journey by water,
and after contending for a time with a high and contrary
wind, was obliged to shift into a settler's waggon, and
traverse roads so rough and dangerous, that parts were
only passable on foot ; on his arrival, he went through
the two offices of consecration (church and burial-ground)
and confirmation, and delivered an address to the newly
confirmed; and after tarrying awhile at a settler's four
miles from the church, he went forward twelve miles of a
wretched road, part of it through a deep wood full of
stumps, and roots, and stones, after nightfall, and after
crossing a long ferry, arrived at his destination at mid-
night ;—and these exertions were made, let it be borne in
mind, by a man of advanced age, now upwards of forty
years in orders, and more than twenty years a bishop,
and whose life, both as priest and bishop, has been spent
in labours such as these, and in a rough and variable cli-
mate. The energy and endurance of the Bishop of New
Zealand are so well known, and have attracted so much
attention, and the instances of them are so many, that it
will suffice to adduce his " pushing four hours in the dark
in a canoe through a swamp, and then wading a quarter
of a mile to terra firma through black mud up to the
knees," when making an inspection of his diocese, and
visiting his mission stations ;—his travelling on that visi-
tation tour, (on which he was absent from his home more
than six months,) by sd* 1180 miles, walking 762, riding
only 8.9, and going
in an open boat 249, making a total
of 227 ii ;—and again, in another visitation tour, walking
in two days seventy miles, and swimming across a river,
in order to be present on the third day (Sunday) at the
services at one of the mission stations ; looking upon an
immersion, from the swamping of a boat, " without any
very serious apprehension," because • nil his party were
swimmers, and be had no baggage ; fording one river with
the aid of a tent-pole, and wading through another with
" the water to the neck," and in which " the strength of
the stream made it difficult to walk." And these only
bodily labours; for daily he was evangelizing, preaching,
saying prayers and services of the Church, as well in the
native language for the aborigines, as in English for the
settlers ; baptizing, solemnizing marriages, and constantly_
conferring with natives " to win them to Christ," and
with Europeans to confirm and stablish some, to lead
others to repentance.—Oxford and Cambridge Review.

Not. 3, 1846.

SirtDo, 3larriagts aiib Deatips.

BIRTHS.

On the 4th of September last, al Calcutta, Mrs. WILLIAM
THONISON, of a son.

On the Igth of September last. at Mitchell. near Stratford,
Canada, the wife of Mr. J. MOFFIT, of two sons and two
daughters. The mother died within four hours of her delivery,
but the children survived. The family were from Ireland, and
in very poor circumstances.

. -----
On the 27th ultimo, at Egremont, the wife of F. R. GROTE.
Esq., of a daughter.

On the 3oth instant, the lady of JOSEPH GODDEN, Esq.,
surgeon, of Oxton, Cheshire, of a daughter.
Same day, at 6', Abbot ford-place, Glasgow, Mrs. A. G.
M'COMBE, of a son.