The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-02-22 00:00:00

HOUSES IN A MOORISH Tows.—The houses of Yahndi
were most of them extremely well built, and consisted of
various apartments round a series of courts, the principal
entrance to which, being the usual open reception-room,
faced the street. The lower and outer portions of these
rooms were constantly washed with red ochre ; the upper
were covered with the most elaborate patterns, formed in
relief with pliant wood, and washed over with white clay.
The roofs, supported by square pillars, were sloping,
made of palm leaves, and having rafters of bamboo inside,
which were blackened and polished. The street-rooms
were halls of audience for men of consequence; the doors
within were richly carved, and coloured with various pig-
ments, procured chiefly from vegetable substances.—Mrs.
Lee's "African Wanderers."

EQUANIMITY OF TEMPER OF THE LATE ARCHBISHOP
OF CANTERBURY.—Sydney Smith—not the Admiral, but
the late Canon of St. Paul's—was accustomed to say that
he had known the Archbishop from his childhood, and
had never seen him, save once, betray the slightest mani-
festation of anger. It is perhaps the only case upon re-
cord of any mortal man being able permanently to endure
the banter of Sydney Smith. The single instance referred
to occurred when the canon and prelate wer schoolfellows
at Winchester ; the former had won from the latter several
games at chess, and, exulting in his success, was by no

means sparing of "his quips and cranks and merry gibes,"
until at length the future Primate, losing all self-control,
seized the chess-board, and dealt out such a blow as ut-
terly floored his adversary. From that time forward Mr.
Smitn allowed him to win more games than he lost.

GYPTIAN

DIICATION

system of education pursue

damental one, which cannot

by Muhammed Ali, is a fun-
however, be expected to be

remedied by a Muhamtnedan ruler. It is the exclusion
from the seminaries of that Christian instruction which
alone produces that righteousness which " exalteth a na-
tion." "It has been well observed," says Col. Howard
Vyse, " that the

mcient system of Egyptian superstition
survived the repeated conquests to which the country was
subject, and at last yielded only to the Christian dispen-
sation ; and it may be doubted whether the present de-
graded and miserable condition of these people can ever

be effectually improvecfrexcept by the same beneficial in-
fluence." The knowledge and belief of Christianity is

higher object than that of national reform and advance-
ment. "I am the way, and the truth, and the life," said
Christ ; "no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."
—Dr. Wilson's " Lands of the Bible."

INACTIVITY OF THE NEGRO.—The negro is perhaps
more fully alive than any other class of mankind to the
luxury of undisturbed idleness. He has few wants, and
those few are easily supplied in such a splendid island as
Jamaica, where his provision ground, with the smallest
possible amount of cultivation, will afford him every ne-
cessary, and some of the luxuries of life. What he cannot
raise for himself must, of course, be obtained by labour;
but a very slight portion indeed of the primal curse now
lights upon the emancipated negro, who has no ambition,
and consequently no motive to persevere. Nor, indeed,
can we wonder at this, if we only reflect seriously on the
scenes which are visible at home. Do we not all know
how difficult it is to rouse the western Highlander to any

tmng nke active exertion How many thousands of the
Irish are there at this moment who will not work, prefer-
ring to depend for life itself upon the precarious existence
of a miserable root, which, of all articles of human food,

while such things happen among Christians, in a land
where the severity of the climate ought to be of itself a
sufficient inducement to exertion, wonder that the negroes,
who have neither the same advantages, nor the same cogent
motives for labour, should abandon themselves to a life of
lazy sensuality, and look upon the naked cane-fields, and
choked coffee-plantations with an eye of utter indifference ?
—Blackwood.

A LAUGHABLE TRICE.—A few days ago an old farmer
entered a town not twenty miles from Stourbridge, and
put up at the Blue Pig Inn. After taking some refresh-
ment, he entered into conversation with some gay young
sparks, who had been cracking their jokes at the old
old farmer's unsophisticated and country manners, and
who now equally enjoyed his numerous platitudes and
simple observations. Having ascertained that it was his
intention to walk through the town, to which he was a
stranger, they expressed their fears lest he should be un-
able to regain his inn, and while so engaged one of them
affixed a placard to the farmer's back, which he had on
the instant printed and pasted, bearing this inscription—
" I put up at the Blue Pig Inn." The old gentleman,
perfectly unsuspecting the trick that had been played him,
immediately took a stroll through the town, and as he
passed along the streets became " the observed of all ob-
servers." A gentleman stopped and read the inscription
aloud, " I put up at the Blue Pig Inn ;" to which the
farmer replied, "Do you ? so do I." A second gentle-
man met him, and read, " I put up at the Blue Pig Inn."
" Doyou:though, really ?" said the farmer, rather surprised
at the coincidence, "so do I." A third came up, and
seeing the placard, read out, " I put up at the Blue Pig
Inn." "Is it possible ?" exclaimed the farmer, now quite
bewildered ; "so do I." A fourth, a fifth, a sixth, a
seventh, and at last a whole crowd of persons stopped to
read the inscription, and simultaneously shouted, " I put
up at the Blue Pig Inn." " The d—l you do !" cried the
old farmer, now completely obfuscated, " then the whole
town lodges there, and if I don't make haste back, I shan't
get a bed." Saying which, the old fellow scampered off
towards his hostelry, pursued by a multitude of voices.
crying at their utmost pitch, " I put up at the Blue Pig
Inn ;" to which from time to time, the old farmer, per-
fectly unconscious of the meaning of the iteration of the
fact, replied, " Very well, I tell you, so do I. Do you
think I'm deaf, you confounded simpletons ? What are
you grinning at, hey ?"—Ten Towns Messenger.

M. GutzoT.—A fatality!, hangs over this once-honoured
statesman. Whether he is coerced by a superior influence,
or whether it is from preference that he pursues his tor-
tuous course, every act in which he exhibits himself to
the world tends to the demolition of his once high and
pure political fame. As though he had been at the head
of the strongest government in the world, he commences
by flinging down the gauntlet unnecessarily to his oppo-
nents. M. Guizot has, or affects to have, a horror of the
Reform movement in France. It is natural to a man of
his caste that he should fear a transfer of electoral power
from a manageable few to the less corrupt many. But,
more probably, his dislike of the movement arises from
its being made a anal de bataille by his political rivals.
Whether or no, he has provoked animosity in a party
who, at present, have derived their chief importance from
his hostility. By introducing the words " blind and
hostile passions," in reference to an agitation perfectly
legitimate, he has given that party at once a strong motive
and a political weight. Stormy discussions in the Cham-
ber of Deputies have sufficiently ahewn what are the feel-
ings of the Liberals, although the government, by the
force of its majority, was able to prevent an amendment
being carried. * * The Reform movement in France is
differently regarded by different persons ; but by the
ministerial party it has hitherto been treated much as the
movements of the Anti-Corn-law League were treated in
England until their organization became formidable. Not
long since, however, M. Guizot began to perceive that
there was danger in the distance from the Reform meet-
ings. More especially he grew alarmed at them when he
found them tolerated, and, in a negative sense, patronised
by M. Duchatel. A large portion of the Conservative
party begin to admit that the concession of reform may
avert a demand for revolution • and this opinion has of
late transpired in Paris. It has produced a singular re-
sult. The committee for the Reform banquet in the
immediate neighbourhood of Paris, the holding of which
was forbidden by the police, publicly intimated that the
banquet will be held notwithstanding. This was a bold
and significant step. The tone of the Opposition in the
French Chambers has grown daily more bold, and coupl-
ing their increased activity with the resolution of the
banquet committee, we are inclined to agree in the opinion
entertained by reflecting Englishmen resident in Paris,
that there is in fact no real reform party in France, though
the natural wishes of the people are made the stalking-
horse of a faction.--Eraser's Mag.

IRISH ETYMOLOGY.—The assignment of etymologies
inthe oldlrish treatises,is generally fanciful,and little to be
relied on. The old derivations of Bangor and Rathmore,
may be advanced as examples of this school of etymology.
Thus Brasil Brec, king of Leinster, returningwith a prey of
cattle, out of Scotland, landed at Bangor, "and slaughtered
a great number of cattle there, so that a great number of
the beanna, i. e., the horns of the cows, were scattered
over the plain, so that the place ever since bore the name
of Maigh Beanncoir." The tradition which assigns the
origin of the name of Rathmore is still more romantic:
" Rathmore of Moylinny was first called Rath-Rogrin,
and, until the reign of Breasal Breac, son of Brian, king
of Uladh. He went on an expedition (a submarine adven-
ture) under Loch Laidh, and remained there fifty years.
Mor, daughter of Rither, son of Geanlamb, his wife, re-
mained all that time in the rath; and at last she said, I
think Breasal's absence too long.' And a certain woman
said to her, It will be long to thee, indeed, for Breasal
will never come back to his friends until the dead come
back to theirs.' Mor then died suddenly, and her name
remained on the rath—Unde Rath Mar dieetur. Breasal
soon after returned to his house, one evening, as related
in ' Breasal's Expedition.' " We cannot refrain from ex-
tracting a passage from " Cormac's Glossary," in ex-
planation of the word Corryvreekan, which, our readers
will probably remember, is the name of a great whirlpool
off the western coast of Scotland. The name really ap-
pears to have the signification assigned to it, and the force
of Cormac's description is nothing lessenad by the inabi-
lity of our best Irish scholars to translate some of his si-
milies :—" Coire Brecain, i. e. a great vortex between
Ere and Alba to the north, i. e. the conflux of the dif-
ferent seas, viz. the sea which encompasses Ere at the
north-west, the sea which encompasses Alba at the north-
east, and the sea to the south between Ere and Alba.
They rush at each other after the likeness of a luaith-
rinde, and each is buried into the other like the oircel
taireelda, and they are sucked down into the gulp so as to
form a gaping cauldron, which would receive all Ere into
its wide mouth. The waters are again thrown up, so that
their belching, roaring, and thundering, are heard amid
the clouds ; and they boil like a cauldron upon a fire.
Brecon, a certain merchant, the son of Maine, son of
Niall of the Nine Hostages, had fifty curraghs trading be-
tween Ere and Alba, until they all fell together into this
cauldron, and were swallowed up, so that not one sur-
vived to hear the tidings of their fate : and their fate was
unknown until Lughaidh Dall [` the blind'], the poet,
came to Benchair, when his people going to the strand of
Inver Bece found the bare skull of Bece, and having
brought it to Lughaidh, et interrogaverunt earn mita
esset ; et ille eis dixit ; place ye the head of the poet's
wand upon it. They did so, et dizit Lughaidh Eigeas :
" 'The waters of the great sea,
The waters of the vortex,
Drowned Brecan.
This is the head of Brecan's dog,
And little here remains of greatness,
For Brecan and all his people
Were in that vortex drowned..' "
—Dublin University Magazine.