The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-09-08 00:00:00

A MONEY-DIGGER.—An inquisitive Yankee, seeing a
labourer digging on a retired spot, inquired what he was
digging for. " Money" was the reply. The fact was of
course heralded to the curious in such matters, and the
money-digger was visited by three or four credulous fel-
lows, when the following dialogue ensued :—Visitors—
"We are told you are digging for money ?" Labourer—
" Well, I aint digging for anything else, and if you're
wise you had better take hold also." Visitors—" Have
you any luck ?" Labourer—" First-rate luck. It pays
well." No sooner said than done : the four fellows,
thanking the generous delver for giving them an invita-
tion to share in the golden harvest, off coats and went to
work in good earnest, throwing out many loads of earth,
till at length, getting very tired, the following colloquy
took place :—" Visitors—When did you get any money
last?" Labourer—" Saturday night." Visitors—" How
much ?" Labourer—" Four dollars and a half." Visi-
tors—" Thrit's rather small business." Labourer—" It's
pretty well ; 6s. a day is the regular price for digging cel-
lars all over town." The visiting loafers dropped spades
and vanished, quite put out with the man who dug money
at the rate of 63. a day.
WHAT ROME OFFERS FOR THE NEWMANITES.—They
must make their prayers to God in the names and at the
altars of the saints, and thus hare many Saviours and
many crosses instead of one. Ignorance and superstition,
the fetters of the mind, are highly prized in the commu-
nion where they have gone. Money there can be paid for
sins, and a price can be named for the commission of any
act, which is very different from the priceless blood of the
Redeemer for the sins of the world. Purgatory there is
a bank of usury for man's merits, and out of these pre-
tended and all unprofitable things a human dispensation
is framed for the pardon of sin, which overthrows the
truth of eternal condemnation in one state, and makes the
Judge to have more than one left hand at the last day.
They must place their hearts with all its secrets, known
best and only to God, in the keeping of another man's
knowledge, who is often inferior in delicacy and mind to
the penitent. The absolution we can give is rational, and
founded on the voluntary act of contrite confession as a
separate sinner, without payment. Whereas in Rome,
the penance is the price of the absolution, and the desire
of cleansing the soul without a change of heart, by the
mere act of verbal confession, leads to intolerable abuses,
and a repetition of crime. There everything is sold for
money, and you may know the price of pardon for the
deepest vice, and ransom the most costly of all things, the
human soul, as well as buy a string of trumpery beads on
which to say your prayers. They unite themselves to a
church which parades the relics of the dead as visible me-
morials of good and holy men before the eye, with all the
pomp and circumstantialities of a real spiritual being who is
supposed to be present by the ignorant, in dust, and
ashes, and timber, and nails. They give up their wives
and basterdise their children, if they retain their holy
orders in Rome. Are the wives of the English clergy
prepared thus to brand themselves with dishonour, and
stigmatise theiroffspring? Shall the most exclusive of all
rituals in the Mosaic church command the priesthood to
be married, and in defiance of common sense and the New
Testament, and the example of St. Peter and other apos-
tles, will a childish affection for the religious seductions
of a pompous ritual induce English women thus to em-
barrass their pnsition and family affections.—Hollings-
worth's Folly of going to Rome for a Religion.
FANCY STATIONERY.—The art of writing letters is
pretty nearly as old as the hills ; but, till within the last
twenty years, there was no such thing as a tastefully-got-
up epistle. There was a deficiency in the mecanique of
letter-writing. In Norway, at the present day, when a
person wishes to write a note, he cuts a piece from a large
sheet of paper: and something of this sort was prevalent
in Eneland forty or fifty years ago. It was consi lered a
great advance in taste when a paper-maker at bath got up
what he called his " Bath post"—a smooth yellow paper,
quarter size, with a small stamp in the corner of the sheet.
Matters remained at this point till a comparatively recent
period, when the whole business of the stationer under-
went a rapid and most extraordinary change—the estab-
lishment of the penny post alone caused the introduction
of many new auxiliaries to epistolary correspondence. It
cannot but be interesting to know who has led this great
movement—who has filled the ladies' writing-cases with
finely-tinted note paper—who has given to the world the
envelop, the enamelled calling card, and the numerous
other elegancies which now fill the shop-window of the
stationer. Different active spirits have contributed their
respective inventions in this useful department of art. but
the master-mind has been that of Thomas de la Rue.
Mr. De la Rue is a native of Guernsey. and was bred to
the business of a printer. He afterwards abandoned this
profession, and was engaged for a number of years in Lon-
don as a manufacturer of straw hats. In consequence of
the successive changes in fashion, which ended in the
general disuse of straw for bonnets, this ingenious person
was several times ruined ; but, possessing a boundless
buoyancy of temperament, and with inexhaustible inven-
tive faculties, he always alighted on some fresh novelty,
and recovered his former position. Finally, driven from
straw, he fell upon the idea of making bonnets of embossed
paper. This was a great hit ; but ladies soon discarded
paper hats, and Mr. De la Rue, forever abandoning bon-
nets, took up the card and paper trade. He had now a
wide field before him, and, in the preparation of various
little articles, excited and cultivated the public taste. At
the end of twenty years, we find him the elder member of
a company, with which are associated two of his sons.
What was once a small and obscure concern is now the
largest of the kind in the world. At one time Russia was
one of the best customers in Europe for playing-cards ;
but this trade is now at an end, in consequence of that
country having engaged in the manufacture itself; nor,
judging from the quantity it makes away with, does this
' step seem unreasonable. In Russia, card-playing is a
universal amusement, and will in all probability continue
to be so while the people remain illiterate, and political
speculation is attended with danger. To supply the de-
mand for cards, the Government took the fabrication of
the article into its own hands, and with much liberality
not only purchased from Mr. De la Rue a knowledge of
the manufacture, but induced his brother to take the entire
charge of the establishment in which the cards are made.
The quantity of cards thus made annually for Russian
consumption is a million of packs, the profits on the sale
of which are devoted to charitable purposes.—A day at
lie la Rue's.