The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1845-03-11 00:00:00

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THE GOSPEL PLOUGH.--." But now you will ask me
whom I call a prdate ? A prelate is that man whatsoever
he be that bath a flock to be taught of him ; whosoever
bath any spiritual charge in the faithful congregation, and
whosoever he be that hath the care of souls. But, now

linketh I hear one say unto me, Wot ye what you
_ Is it a work ? Is it a labour ? How then hath it
happened that we have had so many hun2red years so
many impeaching prelates, lording loiterers, and idle min-
isters? Ye would have me here to make answer, and to
s I show the cause thereof

Nay, this land is not for me to
plough—it is too stony, too thorny. to hard for me to
plough. They have so many things that make to them,
so many things to say for themselves, long customs, cere-
monies, and authority, placing in parliament, and many
things more. And I tear me, this land is not yet ripe to
be ploughed, for, as the saying is, it lacketh weathering ;
at least way, it is not for me to plough. For what shall I
look for among thorns but prickling and scratching ?
What among stones but stumbling ? What, I had almost

- ,
dare say, that since lording and loitering hath come up,
preaching hath come down, contrary to the apostles'
times : for they preached, and lorded not, and now they
lord, and preach not. Paul was no sitting bishop, but a
walking and a preaching bishop.—Gospel Magazine.
FRENCH CHILDREN.—I observed some French children
—the very small ones, fantastically dressed up as play-
things, seemed petted, caressed, and spoiled; but the elder
ones, from ten to sixteen, looking careworn, conceited,
independent, and miserable. Everything is gay in Paris
but childhood. Old age is gay—pleasantly so even when
fantastically so ; and death itself is tricked out in garlands
and "turned to favour and to prettiness." Why then are
the children so joyless? It cannot be that they are too
harshly restrained, or ruled by fear; for a cruel discipline
is no part of the French character, or the French educa-
tional practice; on the contrary, a French boy soon be-
comes his own master, and studies or lounges as he pleases.
Is it not that there are no firesides—no Comes ? It seems
a fine independent thing for a Parisian shopkeeper to dis-
pense with the plague of domestic servants—take every
day with his wife, the freedom of the restaurant and the
cafe; and, when he shuts' up his shop, leaves it to take
care of itself, while he lounges, or dances, or smokes, or
reads a journal, or does all these in some public garden,
or, better than all, goes to the play. But the pleasures and
comforts of children are of home growth, and require a
home shelter. They are also sad, wearied, wondering
spectators of the gaieties of their parents, which are all
associated with coquetry, gallantry, and feelings akin to
those in which they do not participate; and though some
amends is made by an early initiation into their essences,
and an early emulation of their symbols, still children, as
children, have no food for their affections in the whirling
kaleidoscope which dazzles them. In Prussia, children
are happier, because they are under a stricter discipline ;
but England, with all its imputed sins of fagging and flog-
ging, and excess of Latin versification, is the place where
childhood is most happy as childhood, happy in restraint;
happy in indulgence ; happy in the habits of obedience, and
respect, and filial love ! You would not find such a set of
careworn, pale, unhappy faces, in any charity school in
England, as you may mark in a throng of wandering, dis-
sipated boys in the gardens of the Tuileries.—TaYourd's
Rambles. .

OATMEAL VERSUS FLOUR.—Professor Johnson, in the
recent edition of his Elements, tells us, that, from expe-
riments made in the laboratory of the Agricultural Che-
mistry Association of Scotland, it turns out that oats are
far richer in all the three things essential than the best
wheat flour grown in any part of England—that they con-
tain eighteen or twenty per cent. of that which forms mus-
cle, five to eight of fat, and sixty-five of starch. The ac-
count, therefore, between shelled oats (groats) and fine
wheaten flour stands thus. One hundred pounds of each
contain—

Muscular matter
Fat

Wheat. Oats.
10 lbs. 18 lbs.
3„ 6 „

Starch

63 „ 89 „
What do you say to these numbers, Mr. Cockney ?—You
won't pity us, Scotch oatmeal-eaters, any more, we guess.
Experience and science are both on our side. What makes
your race-horses the best in the world, may be expected
to make our peasantry the best too. We offer you, !here-
fore, a fair bet. You shall take ten English ploughmen,
and feed them upon two pounds and a halt' of wheaten flour
a-day, and we shall take as many Scotch ploughmen, and
feed them upon the same weight of oatmeal a-day—if they
can eat so much, for that is doubtful—and we shall back
our men against yours for:any sum you like. They shall
walk, run, work—or fight you, if you like it—and they
shall thrash you to your heart's content. We should like
to convince you that Scotch parritch has some real solid
metal in it. We back the oatcake and the porridge against
all the wheaten messes in the world. We defy your home-
made bread, your baker's bread, your household bread,
your leaven bread, and your brown Georges—your fancy
bread and your raisin bread--your baps, rolls, scones,
muffins, crumpets, and cookies—your bricks, biscuits,
bakes and rusks—your bath buns and your sally Inns—
your tea-cakes, and saffron-cakes, and slim-cakes, and
plank-cakes, and pan-cakes, and soda-cakes, and currant-
cakes, and sponge-cakes, and seed-cakes, and girdle-cakes,
and singing-hinnies—your short-bread and your currant-
buns—or if there be any other names by which you de-
signate your wheaten abominations, we defy and detest
them all. We swear by the oatcake and the porridge, the
substantial Bannock and the brose—long may Scotland
produce them, and Scotchmen live and fight upon them ! !
—Bla-kwood's Magazine.
EFFECTS OF THE WINDOW-TAX IN COURTS IN LARGE
TOWNS.—II is in places like these that thousands on
thousands are every year born, every year live, and every
year die. These are the plague-spots of great cities—
these are the very courts and sanctuary of fever—the native
places of foul and loathsome pests which in the thick heats
of the summer time walk abroad, smiting down youth and
strength, and scarring, with furrowed traces, the once fair
skin of the beauty, which they spare not. We know that
in all great cities which have risen gradually and slowly,
ere the principles of ventilation and drainage were attended
to, there must exist narrow streets and unwholesome al-
leys like these. It is scarcely possible that without the
recurrence of some such catastrophe as the fire of London,
they could be altogether altered, and their had qualities
altogether remedied. But, for Godsake, let all be done
that can he done. Let in as much light and air as you can ;
the builder has done mischief enough—let not the tax-ga-
therer be called in to do more. Better it would be to put
premiums on windows in such situations than taxes.
There are the poor herding together—sitting, sleeping,
cooking, washing, in the same chambers. This is bad
enough, even were windows and air-holes everything that
could be desired. But are they so ? Every aperture that
can by possibility let in a ray of light upon the gloom of
frowsy underground cellars and dingy blackened cham-
bers, is construed into a window. Down comes the tax
upon it ; and by next quarter the hole is blocked up, and
the inmates may grope and gasp as they best can. We
hardly know a more melancholy sight than a house with
half its windows blocked up, to avoid the duty payable
upon them. The mind flies from the out to the inside of
such a dwelling—and a dreary picture it sees there. Rooms
illuminated only by an eternal twilight, not bright in sun-
shine—dim when a summer cloud passes—dark from the
morning to the evening of the cheerless winter day ; then
passages, like the passages from cell to cell in gaols, where
you grope, and stumble, and feel your way; staircases
where your only guides are the bannisters or the wall, and
kitchens like the bottoms of mines. Outside the sensation
is as dismal. You look upon the house deprived of half
its windows as upon a one-eyed man. The thing is unna-
tural. There is no cheerfulness, no lightness of expres-
sion about it. The architect may have been skilful, and
the form of the fabric may be graceful ; but the skill has
been thrown away—the grace lost. The tax-gatherer has
overthrown the artist in the struggle.—Jerrold's Mag.