The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-12-31 00:00:00

PUNCH'S ALMANACK.

The jokes, all brimful of mirth and merriment, are
strewed about in reckless profusion, and are well worthy
of the clever illustrations, so remarkable both for the
healthy moral feeling inculcated by them, and the admir-
able manner in which they have been designed and exe,-
cuted. We subjoin a few racy bits of rhodomontade from
this medley of fun and humour :
Clothworkers' Company present Sir R. Peel with the
Livery. (Sir R. having turned his coat so often, the
company thought he wanted a new one.)
WICKED BUT INGENIOUS FRAUD.—A poor woman
having sent a little child to the nearest public-house for
the loan of a newspaper, the heartless landlord gave the
infant the Morning Herald.
The grasshopper is placed on the new Royal Exchange
tower. Poor insect ! he won't find many green blades
there.

Numerous robberies of attorneys' chambers in Lincolns'
Inn. The thieves claiming the property as next of kin.
EXTRAORDINARY LONGEVITY.—There is at present a
man at work at Hungerford bridge who, as a boy, wit-
nessed the laying of its first stone. He is in possession of
all its faculties.

THE HEBREW PERSU A SlON.—Twenty•eight Jewish
weddings celebrated on the 7th of May.
The Duke's statue erected at the Royal Exchange.
Shame! that he who leathered so many should be allowed
to go without a shoe to his foot.

To BE S mo.-500,000 courteous readers, if they expect
to find a joke here.
REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF PRESENCE OF MIND.—
A gentleman being pursued by Levi (the Jew Sheriff's
officer), took refuge in a pork shop.
In the Douse of Delegates at Tennessee, the members
attack each other with chairs, and so break up their
sittings.

MELANCHOLY REVERSE OF FORTUNE.—George the
Fourth taken down from the New-cross to macadamise
the New-road.
A MEETING CALLED TO ESTABLISH AN AGRICUL-
TURAL COLLEGE—SO that the Plough-boys may be as
learned as the Harrow-boys,

Two THOUSAND Two-HUNDRED AND FIFTY PHEA-
SANTS HATCHED BY FOWLS, AND TURNED INTO
WINDSOR PARK.—Now, gentlemen, make your game.

PERSEVERE.—Many of the blessings universally desired
are frequently wanted, because most men, when they
should 1 bour, content themselves to complain ; and ra-
ther linger in a state in which they cannot be at rest than
improve their condition by vigour and resolution.—
Rambler.
HINTS FOR EVENING PARTIES.—Now convert old
gossamer into opera hat, by doubling it up, and lay in
small talk for approaching evening parties. Now practise
the Polka with arm-chair, and rub up old imitations a la
Joel of neighing horses, and sawing wood. Now read up
familiar Joes, and learn new jokes for quadrilles. Now
study in the looking-glass for comic song, and flour your
postilion's wig for masked ball. Now compose speech to
toast " The Ladies," and commit to memory a return
thanks" when your health is proposed at supper.—Punch's
Ahnanack.
A writer in the Westminster Review, just published, in
an article on the legislation of 1844 says, he has taken
the trouble of making a rough estimate of the number of
words contained in these statutes" (those of one year, in
which there were considerably fewer acts passed than
usual), and he found them amount to 762,000 ! " Now"
says he, " the whole Bible is comprised in very few more
words ; whilst the New Testament contains only about
198,000. Thus the entire code of Christian Law, with the
history of its Author, is corn prised in about one-quarter of
the words which the Imperial Parliament uses to express
the laws it enacts in a single year."
EDUCATION IN BOKHARA.—This, though of a very
useless, not to say mischievous, character, is very labo-
riously carried on. From sunrise until late in the day
are schoolboys kept plying their tasks under tutors un-
sparing of the rod. The children are tormented for suc-
cessive years in acquiring words whose sound awakens
no idea in their minds, and the young men who pursue a
life of study in their colleges are employed in disputations,
in comparison with which the worst sophistry of our
western schools, in the worst ages of European literature,
was wisdom. What wonder that, under such teachers,
the people are subject to every superstitious fancy, whe-
ther it be of Islam or Gheber origin. Ignorant and su-
perstitious, the Bokharians are also universally vicious.
Though rude savages in alrthe arts and conveniences fa-
miliar to European civilization, they are immersed in all
the debaucheries of low London or Parisian life, and
visited by all the diseases which attend such a course. ,
A BROKER'S RIGHT OF LIEN.—Up to the middle of
the last century it certainly was doubtful whether a factor
had a lien, and could retain for the balance of his general
account. About that time, however, a case occurred be-
fore Lord Hardwicke in which the question arose; and
after argument thereon at the bar, his lordship adjourned
the cause, and desired several merchants, who had been
examined in the course of the proceedings, to attend in
court, in order to be consulted by him with reference
thereto. They attended accordingly, and after having
asked them several questions upon the custom and usage
of merchants relating to the matter in doubt, his lordship
gave his opinion to the effect—that if there be a course of
dealings, and a general account between the merchant and
factor, and a balance be due to the factor, he may retain
the ship and goods or produce, for such balance of the ge-
neral account, as well as for the charges, customs, &c.,
paid on account of the particular cargo. The same opi-
nion was afterwards confirmed by Lord Mansfield, and
several other eminent judges; and at length the proposi-
tion, that a factor has a lien for his general balance, came
to be considered as too well established to admit of dis-
pute.—Russell's Treatise.
SENSE " AFTER DECAPITATION" ?—A most extra-
ordinary paper was read at the meeting of the Paris Aca-
demy of Sciences, containing an account of some re-
markable experiments on decapitated persons, by M.
Bonnafont surgeon-major of the army. He stated that in
Algiers he had read that in the head of a decapitated per-
son the sense of hearing retained its power for a minute
and a half. At two executions M. Bonnafont himself
tried the experiment. Assisted by the late Sub-Intendant
de Falloy, he had a stool placed nett- the instrument of
death, and upon it a vessel filled with pounded plaister.
Immediately after the first execution, which was performed
with remarkable celerity, the executiouer took the head
and placed the bleeding part upon the plaister, so as to
prevent the further flowing of blood. M. Bonnafont then
placed his mouth to the ear of the decapitated Arab, and
called him by name, while M. de Falloy watched the eyes.
In vain they shouted for a minute and a half ; neither the
eyes nor any of the features showed that the hearing re-
tained the slightest degree of sensibiLty. M. Bonnafont
concluded by stating (as might be believed without his
experiments) that after the complete separation of the
head from the body there must be, if not instant death, so
great a syncope that death arrives without any of the
senses retaining the slightest degree of force.
DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR AND BIRTH OF THE NEW.
—The year was old that day. The patient year had lived
through the reproaches and misuses of its slanderers, and
faithfully performed its work. Spring, summer, autumn,
winter. It had laboured through the destined round, and
now laid down its weary head to die. Shut out itself from
hope, high impulse, active happiness, but messenger of
many joys to others, it made appeal in its decline to have
its toiling days and patient hours remembered, and to die
in peace. Trotty might have read a poor man's allegory
in the fading year; but he was past that now. And only
he ? Or has the like appeal been ever made, by seventy
years at once upon an English labourer's head, and made
in vain ? The streets were full of motion, and the shops
were decked out gaily. The new year, like an infant heir
to the whole world, was waited for with welcomes, pre-
sents, and rejoicings. There were books and toys for the
new year, glittering trinkets for the new year, dresses for
the new year, schemes of fortune for the new year, new
inventions to beguile it. Its life was parcelled out in al-
manacs and pocket-books; the coming of its moons, and
stars, and tides was known beforehand to the moment ;
all the working of its seasons in their days and nights were
calculated with as much precision as Mr. Filer could work
sums in men and women. The new year, the new year.
Everywhere the new year ! The old year was already
looked upon as dead ; and its effects were selling cheap,
like some drowned mariner's aboardship. Its patterns
were last year's, and going at a sacrifice, before its breath
was gone. Its treasures were mere dirt beside the riches
of its unborn successor.—The Chimes.

A PRISON IN BOKHARA.—The prison is called the
Kana Khareh—a name which it has received from the
swarms of ticks which infest the place, and are reared
there on purpbse to plague the wretched prisoners. I have
been told that, in the absence of the latter, some pounds
of raw meat are thrown into the pit to keep the ticks
alive. This institution of refined cruelty has, probably,
given rise to the fable of the pit of scorpions, of which I
have repeatedly heard accounts given at Orenhurg.—
Tr•avels in Asia.
BROKER AND PRINCIPAI..—If the factor or broker
have notice of the bankruptcy of his principal prior to the
time at which he gets possession of the property on which
he claims his right of lien, this will in some instances di-
vest him of that right. Formerly, indeed, it was held
that a trader could under no circumstances confer a
right of lien on his factor after having committed even a
secret act of bankruptcy ; and the reason assigned for this
rule was, that after the bankruptcy the goods became the
property of the assignees, so that, to have allowed the
bankrupt to give his factor a hut thereon, would have
been to permit the latter to claim that right on goods sent
to him by a person to whom they did not belong. But the
law on this subject has been recently very much altered by
statute ; and it is presumed that a factor or broker would
now be held entitled to his lien, if the goods or policy on
which he claimed were shown to have conic to his posses-
sion before the date and issuing of the fiat against his prin-
cipal—provided, that is, he had, at the time they so came
to his possession, no notice of any prior act of bank-
ruptcy having been committed by him ; and further that,
in the case of a factor, even if he were to have notice of
the bankruptcy of his principal whilst he was in the
course of selling the goods, he would still have a right to
proceed with the sale, to receive the money, and to hold it
in payment of his ow❑ balance.—Russell's Treatise.
EDUCATION.—At the recent assizes, Baron Alderson
said—" The calendar before him, like the one for the
county of Hants, which he had just left, showed that they
could not look to education alone for the prevention of
crime. In the county of Hants three-fourths of the per-
sons charged with criminal offences were able to read and
write--in an imperfect manner certainly—but still able to
read and to write, whilst only one quarter were incapable
of reading and writing at all. Formerly they used to say,
when they saw a number of persons in the calendar, most
of whom could neither read nor write, that their inability
to do so was the cause of their committing crime; now,
however, as they found that the greater proportion of
prisoners could read and write, they could not ascribe
their criminality to that cause. It showed that to teach
the people to read and write, was to give them a certain
degree of power ; but to educate them properly was to
show them how to exercise it, how to use it for the pub-
lic good and for their own individual advantage, and for
their eternal salvation: that was the real education that
ought to be given, and which anybody out of bedlam
ought ever only to have dreamed of. In the calendar
then before him, he found that 30 of the prisoners were
imperfectly able to read and write, whilst 16 could do
neither ; therefore the proportion of the imperfectly edu-
cated classes, over those totally uneducated, was in this
county two to one; and in Hampshire, to which he had
just alluded, three to one. 'When they said that ignorance
was the cause of crime, they should give to the term igno-
rance its proper meaning. Man's ignorance of his moral
and religious obligations was the cause of crime, and not
only his mere ignorance of reading and writing. Pro-
bably very often the reverse of that was the case, when to
the secular knowledge imparted was not added a know-
ledge of the higher responsibilities pertaining to the du-
ties in life in which each party was placed. The longer
they lived, the more they came to the conclusion that
unless they educated the people of this country in reli-
gious and moral, as well as useful learning, they would
accomplish no great good by their education."
A LABOURER'S SPEECH.—" Now gentlemen," said
Will Fern, holding out his hands and flushing for an in-
stant i❑ his haggard face, " see how your laws are made
to trap and hunt us when we're brought to this. I tries
to live elsewhere, and I'm vagabond. To gaol with him !
I come back here. I goes a nutting in your woods, and
breaks—who don't ?—a limber branch or two. To gaol
with him ! One of your keepers sees me in the broad day,
near my own patch of garden, with a gun. To gaol with
him ! I has a nat'ral angry word with that man when I'm
free again. To gaol with him ! I cuts a stick. To gaol
with him ! I cats a rotten apple or a turnip. To gaol
with him ! Its 20 mile away; and coming back I begs a
trifle on the road. To gaol with him ! At last the con-
stable—the keeper—anybody—finds me anywhere, a doing
anything. To gaol with him, for he's a vagrant and a
gaolbird known; and gaol's the only home he's got."
The Alderman nodded sagaciously, as he should say a very
good home too ! " Do I say this to serve my cause !'
cried Fern. " Who can give me back my liberty ; who
can give me back my good name ; who can give me back
my innocent niece? Not all the lords and ladies in wide
England. But, gentlemen, gentlemen, dealing with other
men like me, begin at the right end. Give us, in mercy,
better homes when we are lying in our cradles ; give us
better food when we're a-working for our lives; give us
kinder laws to bring us back when we're a-going wrong ;
and don't set gaol, gaol, gaol, afore us, everywhere we
turn. There an't a condescension you can show the la-
bourer then that he won't take as ready and as grateful as
a man can be ; for he has a patient, peaceful, willing heart.
But you must put his rightful spirit in him first ; for whe-
ther he's a wreck an' ruin such as me, or is like one of
them that stands here now, his spirit is divided from you
at this time. Bring it back, gentlefolks! bring it back ;
bring it back afore the day comes when even this Bible
changes in his altered mind, and the words seem to him
to read as they have sometimes read in my own eyes i❑
gaol—' Whither thou goest, I can not go; whither thou
lodgest, I do not lodge ; thy people are not my people •
nor thy God my God !' "—The Chimes.

BOKIIARA.—A new work entitled " Bokhara ; its
Amir and its People," (translated from the Russian,)
gives some facts of painful interest relating to that Orien-
tal city, which has recently been associated with the trea-
cherous murder of two British officers. We extaact the
following :—ln winter all intercourse between Bokhara,
Cabul, and the neighbouring states is cut off by the snow,
and in the spring " the clayey soil becomes so miry, that
not only camels are prevented from passing it, but even
horsemen are obliged to go over the ground with great
caution." A Russian merchant will not spare his cattle
to reach his market, but the author of the work before us
says, that the agent of a large commercial house, with
ample means to facilitate expedition at his disposal, re-
quired a whole fortnight to transport his merchandise
from Kagatan to Bokhara, a distance of 46 miles. When
such difficulties oppose the transit of commerce, it may
appear strange that the name of Bokhara should stand so
prominent in Oriental and Russian trading transactions.
The geographical position of the town of Bokhara consti-
tut,s it the central point of all the commercial routes be-
tween Eastern and Western Asia, and through which the
chief products of that part of the world are sent to Eu-
rope. It is also a convenient depot for all the states lying
south of it on their way to the north, because from its
very gates commence those vast steppes which form the
Russian frontier. But the trade of Bokhara is in a very
primitive state, for it is still carred on through the medium
of fairs on certain fixed days, and not, great thoroughfare
as it is, with a continuous flow. The territory, or as
Kharitoff terms it, the Khanat of Bokhara, has only
three branches of industry—agricultural, commercial,
and that of handicraft; manufacturing industry does not
exist, though there is one manufactory of articles in cast
iron. The agriculture, properly so called, of Bokhara, is
of the rudest and least efficient kind ; its horticulture, in
which the inhabitants take delight, and which, in passing,
we may observe, constitutes almost their only innocent
pleasure, is somewhat better, but still far from being
skilfully managed. They have great abundance and many
varieties of grapes, but they make no good wine; they
have most of the tropicid fruits, and might. in their cold
climate, many of those which ordinarily flourish in the
temperate zone, but they do not rear them with judg-
ment. Cotton is universally cultivated, but not to the
profit it might be both as an article of domestic use and
for exportation. But the fact is that the wretched Bok-
harians live in a state of grovelling vice, under the baneful
tyranny of a rutbless yet wily despot and a profligate
priesthood, in whose hands the civil administration of the
country is held.

" DANCING OVER THE DEAD."—Such is the startling
title given to a printed address by George Alfred Walker,
Esq., surgeon, author of " Gatherings from the Grave-
yards," The Grave-yards of London," &c. ; and the
subject matter is the notorious Enon Chapel, Clement's-
lane, Strand, the condition of which as a place of sepul-
ture is so painfully described in the work first named. It
appears that a society of teetotallers are now the lessees
of this bulding, and they have removed the pews and con-
verted the place into a Temperance Hall, in which occa-
sionally " plain and fancy dress balls " are held, " an effi-
cient band engaged," and " quadrilles, waltzes, country
dances, galloppades, reels," &c. are danced. We do not
find that the Polka has yet entered this Hall. Under
these circumstances, the vaults for the dead still being in
the loathsome state of rankness and corruption they were
described as being in in 1810, Mr. Walker states, that
here " has been established a regular round of dancing,
and other similiar amusements ; and that, at this moment
preparations are in progress for a grand ball,' and the

usual saturnalia of Boxing night.' "—A person named
Fitzpatrick occupies the house attached to the chapel, for-
merly the residence of Mr. Howse, the minister. The

following statement by Mr. Walker is worth peruEal,
though not very pleasant reading : " fhe man Fitzpatrick,
desirous of deepening the kitchen of the house, the ceil-
ing being very low, employed John Mars, who proceeded
with the work during several successive Sundays. The
flags composing the floor, extending from back to front,
and occupying the whole length of the house, were taken
up, and a vast quantity of human bones were found, coy-

eF•iig the whole- of the floor of the kitchen. The labour

although persisted in, was hopeless; for, after thrusting
an enormous quantity of bones through a door made in
the buck wall dividing the late burying-place from the
kitchen, the man gave up the work in disgust and despair.
Ile found the less destructible portions of this army of
dead, although passive in their resistance, beyond his
' management.' Flavin dug upwards of two feet in depth,

in various directions—having literally filled, as far as the
space would permit, the cellar, and even the opening,
with human bones—finding, after his utmost efforts, his
labour must be interminable without actual removal of

the enormous ;;;;;11;;;b;;VZheVa;sturotinded,
—the man, although willing perhaps to fulfil his engage-
ment, yet failed to do so. It is proper to observe, that
the door abose mentioned was made many years since, but
was hidden from the view of persons attending the funer-
als of their deceased relatives or friends by a screen made
principally of the same materials of v.hich the sides of

. . .....-.. _
the font in the chapel are composed, viz., the wood of
coffins. The foundations of the chapel, in consequence
of repeated grave digging, are in a condition the most
dangerous. The roof of the chapel, containing a heavy
lantern, gave way some years since; and I declare my
conviction that any violent shaking on the floor of the
building (independent of the atrocious desecration in

converting such a place into a dancing room) may pro-
duce consequencee that are fearful to contemplate."