The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-08-13 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

SPARROWS, PROTECTORS TO THE FARMERS.—The
Perseverant of Limoges contains a curious calculation of
the damage to farmers in France, which is annually caused
by sparrows. It estimates the consumption of corn of
each sparrow at one gallon ; and, reckoning that there are
ten millions of these birds in France, makes the total loss
amount to more than nine millions of francs ; but, on the
other hand, it is supposed that the insects which they de-
stroy would occasion a much greater loss if these birds
were not in existence. As a proof of this, it is mentioned
that in the Palatinate the government had ordered all the
sparrows to be killed, offering a premium upon their
heads ; but the ravages caused by insects when the sparrows
had disappeared were so great, that premiums were offered
for the importation of sparrows.—Farmers' Magazine.

THE STARVING MlLLlONS.—Cheapness is an apparent
boon to the very parties it is trampling under foot. The
starving man fancies, that if bread were cheaper it would
come within his reach, and does not perceive that it is its
very cheapness that has altered his own position so la-
mentably. Food is almost beyond his reach; but he
ought to strive to raise his own position, and not to cheapen
bread ; for cheapness increases the disproportion between
his wages, and the price of his food. The great mass of
the people, and particularly the petty shopkeepers, men
who before were in trade and comparatively wealthy, but
who now earn but a scanty and precarious living, clamour
for cheap food, not perceiving that cheapness has caused
their ruin, and that cheap food will further reduce their
profits.—Science of Trade.
A SOLDIER IN A PASSION.—A howitzer shell fell in
our battalion, burst the instant it touched the ground, and
covered us with smoke and dust. When we had cleared
our sight, we saw that four men of one section had been
struck down. Three were dead, but the fourth sprang up
unharmed, though the splicters of the shell had carried
away his knapsack and pouch, and bent his musket.
Pausing for a moment, he looked strangely on the havoc
around him ; then seizing the pouch and musket of one
of the slain, he ran like a madman, in total disregard of
the calls of the officers, right on towards the enemy. In
our front was a hostile battery of eighteen or twenty guns;
having arrived within two or three hundred yards of this
rather formidable opponent for a single man, he halted,
levelled his musket, and fired; then calmly loaded again,
took a deliberate aim, and fired a second, and afterwards
a third shot; and having thus cooled his wrath or cou-
rage, returned leisurely to the battalion, saying only, as
he resumed his place in the ranks, " The black fiend seize
upon those rascals I" The scene, of a single infuriated
individual, operating with his musket against twenty
pieces of artillery, was so extravagantly ludicrous, that
though our position was far from being a merry one, it
was utterly impossible to refrain from laughing. I met
the same man on the following day, rejoicing in the cap-
ture of a French knapsack, which had amply replaced
the lost one, for it contained, besides some linen, a silver
watch, and several five-franc pieces. Of his attack on
the battery he could give no account, saying that he did
not know what he was doing.—From Military Tableaux,
in Fraser's Magazine.

FORTIFICATIONS OF CONSTANTINOPLE.—The walls of
Constantinople are tripled on the landward side, having a
ditch between each ; and from the numerous fragments of
granite and marble columns, many of them bearing in-
scriptions, everywhere mingled with the masonry, it is
evident the fortifications were built of the remnants of
the ancient capital. They appear in some spots to be very
ruinous, and in many places are thickly overgrown with
ivy. Frowning over these, towards the sea, are the Seven
Towers, a formidable state prison, which may be con-
sidered as the Bastile of the East. These clusters of
forts were originally five in number, and at first erected
by the immediate successors of Constantine, to strengthen
the fortifications at one angle of the wall which sur-
rounded the city, but Theodosius had erected an arch
flanked by two towers, to celebrate his victory over Maxi-
mus. The structure has since borne the name of the
Seven Towers. Each tower is about 200 feet high, and
of vast solidity, as the ruins of one of the most ancient,
which fell in 1768, sufficiently testify. The malls which
inclose them are double, and enormously thick, being
built of immense blocks of solid stone; and, until the
invention of gunpowder. were justly deemed impregna-
ble. This once redoubtable fortress is, however, rapidly
falling to decay, and a slender garrison are now its only
occupants. If we are to believe the old traditions, al-
though many of them evidently pure exaggerations, the
interior of these towers have been the scene of the most
revolting barbarities. An aperture is entitled " the well
of blood," which is said often to have overflowed with
human gore ; and a little court is pointed out within the
precincts of the building, which is believed frequently to
have contained a pyramid of human heads, so high that,
standing on its summit, one might look over the walls,
and behold the expanse of the sea of Marmora.—Poly-
technic Review.
CAUSES OF THE DISASTERS IN AFFGHANISTAN.—
These three ruins issued from these most culpable negli-
gences :-Ist, Starvation fell in one day upon the British
host ; and that it was which placed them at the mercy of
the enemy. 2dly, The troops were inadequate to the ex-
tent of the defences; so that, together with starvation,
loss of sleep fell upon the fighting men. 3dly, As ano-
ther effect from that cause, a perpetual Penelope's web
was to be maintained ; for as often as detachments went
out from cantonments against many of the neighbouring
forts, before they could possibly have time to destroy
these nests of hornets, back they were summoned to the
defence of their own Tares; often in broad daylight, by
combined assaults of the enemy on their own ramparts,
but always by the approach of night. So that all momen-
tary advantages became idle and useless ; none could be
followed up, none could be maintained. Lucan says of
Caesar, when besieged in the fortified palace of the Ptole-
mies at Alexandria, that often, whilst thrown on his most
difficult defence, the matchless soldier became the as-
sailant—

" Obessusque gerit, tanta est constantia mentis,
Offensoris opus."
But what he did as a trophy of his superiority, we did by
imbecile improvidence and for final ruin. Yet even these
shocking neglects or oversights were not the worst. Let
us now suggest what they were. Wherefore were the can-
tonments placed in proximity so close to Cabool ? Let
that be answered, and we shall see the early commence-
ment of our infatuation. Two considerations will clench
the case, and then we shall leave it. Ist, The canton-
ments were never meant to act upon the city of Cabool :
that task was thrown upon the Bala Hissar from its situa-
tion. And yet no trial had ever been made of the power
possessed by that fortress. The private houses were
known to be forts : not until rebellion commenced was it
ascertained of what strength they were •, and eventually
the city proved mo"e formidable to the Bala Hissar than
the Bala Hissar did to the city. Such a blunder of igno-
rance and miscalculation, we believe, was never heard of.
But, 2dly, Even that was a trifle when compared with the
capital evil—and the capital evil was this. The enemy was
allowed, throughout the autumn of 1841, to accumulate
ad libitum in Cabool. Retainers of the chiefs, Ghilzyes
and others, gathered unwatched throughout October.
Now mark what followed from our choice of cantonments.
Had they been fixed fifteen or even ten miles off, the im-
possibility of marching daily to and from Cabool would
have strangled the rebellion in its first three days. The
evil which crushed ourselves, of having always at sunset
to go homewards, would have been thrown on the enemy,
and with as much more of ruinous effect as the distance
was greater. As it never was alleged that the canton-
ments were meant for the overawing of Cabool, and in
effect they were totally inefficient as regarded that city—
it is clear that the one great advantage by which the Aff-
ghans accomplished our destruction, was coolly prepared
for them by ourselves, without the shadow of any momen-
tary benefit for our own interests. Even for provisions,
the event showed that we had never looked to Cabool.
And there reveals itself the last feature of our perfect
madness.—Blackwood's Magazine.
IRISH PRIESTS OF THE LAST CENTURY.—The Ro-
man Catholic ecclesiastics who influenced the destinies of
Ireland during the last century, have not been faithfully
described. There were among them the vulgar, the rude,
the illiterate, as well as the educated and accomplished ;
but they were generally well adapted to the work assigned
to them. The coarse, the bigotted, the ignorant, had
their appropriate sphere of action ; and they were trained
to discharge with effect the duties of their especial voca-
tion. Their natural sagacity was sharpened by exercise,
and guided by precepts of what might be termed tradi-
tionary wisdom. Above all things, they were required to
be discreet; and when they had acquired the habit of
their high
naamongture their
cardinal
ren-
dered them more serviceable in the society in which they
virtues—the very verycoa jurssetnlyessseotf
were appointed to live, than great abilities and much
knowledge would have enabled men to be, whose tastes
unfitted them for the free intercourse in which multitudes
become understood and governed. But while a large
number of Roman Catholic priests was thus composed,
their body could not name many, who would not be out
of place, and who, indeed, were not out of place, in what
might be termed the best society in Europe. Scholars
and courtiers could be found amongst them ; and there
were not a few instances in which it was difficult to ima-
gine any but a generous reason, for their consenting to
hide the high qualities which adorned them, in such a mi-
nistry as was assigned them in Ireland, and to turn aside
from the successes that allured them elsewhere. Men
who had attained high distinction abroad—whose habits
and tastes bad been formed in, and for, continental socie-
ties—returned to the self-denying ministration assigned
them in their own country, and, unless hope of a revolu-
tion cheered them, with no imaginable object of personal
ambition. Here, certainly, was a marked distinction be-
tween the patronage of the actual and the would'-be sove-
reign. The invitations Of the former were such as men
usually hold to be desirable—they were invitations to ac-
cei t increase of honour and emolument, in a career which
had been already chosen: the invitations of the other
were often such as to involve loss of dignity, emolument,
ease, comfort, and to require of those who embraced them,
that they should enter into a new career, beset with dan-
gers and difficulties, such as were little likely to advance
their personal interests, and were certain to task, to the
utmost, their strength and courage. But, if there was
generosity in the spirit with which they engaged in this
career, the spirit with which some sustained themselves in
it was of a more ignoble order. Affecting loyalty to the
house of Brunswick, when, in all probability, they had
pledged allegiance to, as they accepted patronage from, the
rival house of Stuart ; entering, apparently, into all mea-
sures for ensuring peace in Ireland, whilst they secretly
abetted practices designed to keep alive disaffection and
disorder—they could keep the tenor of their tortuous way
securely, only by constant habits of dissimulation—they
could labour in the vocation assigned to them, only by
inculcating, clandestinely and treacherously, upon the
people of whom they took charge, principles which they
disavowed for themselves, and thus exposing them to dan-
gers, which they themselves carefully avoided. In short,
if it demanded a spirit of generosity to become, as they
did, conspirators against the government under which they
appeared to live—the necessities of their condition con-
strained them to practice the vices of conspirators, and
to be sullied by them.—Dublin University Magazine.