The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-04-11 00:00:00

itt4

10,40t0

h—titifaliONt br tq }lmam _
the kindets Detk a lohor tiitid titan. 606blik by Atli of
Parliament. .The case was postponed until yeSidday fok the
attendance of Messrs. Vincent HiggitiS and Son, whdo the
captain asserted, were alone liable; he having agreed that it
should be " delivered free on board ;" on the other hand it
was asserted, that they were delivered when placed on the
quay. Mr. Rushton inquired of Mr. Robinson how that
was? when the latter asked who would he liable if any were
missing ? to which the answer was, Higgins and Son, when
Mr. Rushton inflicted a penalty of 10s. and costs, on Higgins
and Son, thus settling a question of some importance to the
mercantile community.
APRIL NODDIES.—A practical joke was played upon many
of our townsmen, of the lower order, on Saturday week. Mr.
Sloan, of the Royal Amphitheatre, it will be remembered, by
way of raising the wind to pay to the poor of the parish a
moiety of the penalty in which he was mulcted by the bench
at Kirkdale, on the recent informations instituted against
him by the proprietors of the Theatre-Royal, for playing the
drama in an unlicensed building, issued last week but one a number of orders for admission to the performances on pay-
ment of reduced prices. The speculation, we hear, was a
successful one. At all events Mr. Sloan assures us that it
brought three hundred pounds into his exchequer, which
otherwise would have fructified in the pockets of some less
deserving parties. The practitioners of " All Fools' Day"
seem to have taken their cue from this circumstances, for on
Saturday evening the doors of the Liver Theatre were be-
sieged at an early hour, and manager, money and cheque
takers were all alive with the hope of having a bumper house.
The doors were no sooner opened than there was a tremendous
rush towards the interior, especially at the pit entrance, and
at the latter place upwards of sixty orders were presented to
the following effect :—" Royal Liver Theatre. This order
will admit two to the pit, if delivered at the pit door on
Saturday evening, before a quarter past seven o'clock, on
payment of sixpence ! ! March 29th, 1843. W. C." The
order was printed and had every appearance of being genuine,
but the lovers of fun, in their anxiety to have a laugh at the
expense of their neighbours, had forged the initials of the
manager, and the holders being one and all turned back were
suddenly reminded that it was the first of April. The same
thought at the same time struck the manager and his servants,
but though there was much disappointment evinced by all
parties, they speedily regained their wanted equanimity, and
joined in one shout of laughter at the joke of which they
were the victims.

UTTERING BAD COIN AND NOTES.---111 the crown court,
on Thursday last during the trial of a shop-keeper and
hawker named Royle, for uttering two £5 notes purporting
to be of the Halifax and Huddesfield Bank, he knowing
them to be forged, and who was eventually acquitted. Mr.
Wilkins who defended the prisoner, in the course of his ad-
dress to the jury, related an anecdote relative to himself as
illustrative of the frequent occurrence of parties in respec-
table life becoming possessed of base money, and offering it
without knowing it to be so, by which their character and
liberties were for a time jeopardized. After stating that in
the case before them it had been moved that about the time
of the transaction imputed to the prisoner, and while he
was travelling in his vocation in Yorkshire, a vaat number
of forged notes had got into circulation in that county, one
delinquent put into circulation paper of that description
purporting to be to the amount in all of £lOOO ; he said in
effect :—On the very day I was admitted to the bar, 1 travel-
led on foot with a young fellow student from one town to
anoth3r in the south. We became warm with walking, and
observing a small house of entertainment on the way side,
at the window of which a welcome notice of " Prime Devon-
shire Cider sold here." we both entered and asked fora glass
each of that cooling beverage, which was served to us by the
landlord, and for which I handed him half-a-crown to be
changed in payment. Bonnyface felt the coin, looked at it,
and then gazing with a rather droll expression of vision at us,
and again at the piece, said, with a knowing laugh, " It wont
do, I'm too old a cock to be caught with this sort of chaff."
My young friend, who had not much knowledge of the world,
became surprised and indignant at the imputation' endeavou-
red to repel it, and with some warmth said to the landlord,
" Sir, you dont know who you are speaking to. We are
gentlemen belonging to the bar !" " I have no doubt what-
ever but what you have both of you been brought up to the
bar before naw !" I thought it wiser under the circumstances,
to satisfy so ugly a custom, by paying him in good money,
but on putting my hand into my pocet for that purpose I
found that 1 had fewer than six other half-crowns equally
base! Here was an aggravation of our predicament, from
which, however, we eventually escaped by explaining who
we were, and how I bad become possessed of the money, when
within an ace of being committed to durance vile. The
fact was that a man in the town we had left, had for some
time been pestering me to assist him with a concert he was
getting up, and I had received from him all the bad half-
crowns in change on giving him my donation towards it.