The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-05-02 00:00:00

Nay 2,184!•

estimate of its contents. Mr. Newman's propositions
may be briefly represented as follow :—That we are suf.:
fering under a mortal malady in our enormous debt; that
our taxation for the discharge of our liabilities is radical/
unjust ; that our Government is so fettered by routine
and precedent that the best disposed Administration eiel
never hope to break through the trammels till the national
representation has been organically reformed; and that
unless the middle classes take this matter into their owe
hands by a "league of the franchised," some desperate •
convulsion must be inevitably in store. It is with a de-
sire to uphold " reverence to the Throne, honour to the
Peerage, and at all events and at any price to secure su-
premacy for order, wisdom, and equity," that the writer
has communicated to the public his suggestions for trans-
ferring a disagreeable but unavoidable task of reform into'
safer hands than those threatening to assume it. Mr.
Newman classes his projected reforms under two 14ads,
financial and organic. His chief argument in the former
question is based upon the apportionment to be legiti-
mately made of the liabilities contracted by the last wen
He conceives that it was not rightly competent to the•
Ministers of the day to charge any but the then existing
property of Britain with the charges incurred by the then
existing generation. Hereditary property, therefore,
ought to be charged with the dead weight of 27 millions,
whereas, with reference to this particular obligation, it
has scarcely been charged with anything at all.

RAILWAY AFFAIRS.
-.-
The express train on the Great Western Railway per-
formed the distance from London to Bristol, 1181- miles,
on Wednesday, in two hours 25 minutes.
A locomotive boiler exploded on Tuesday at the Nor-
manton station, by which the engine driver was severely
scalded, and four other persons more or less injured.
A grand dinner is to be given to Mr. Robert Stephen-
son, by the inhabitants of Conway, on the 17th, to cele- .
brate the triumphant completion of his master-piece of
engineering—the Conway tube.
On Tuesday morning, as the mail train from York ar-
rived at the Normanton station, and the engine had just
been detached, an explosion took place in the fire-box
attached to the boiler. Fortunately no lives were lost.
The railway between Limerick and Tipperary Wes
opened for passengers and traffic on the Ist inst. When
the line to Dandrum is finished, it will complete the en-
tire communication between Limerick and Dublin by
steam, excepting nine miles.
At the special meeting of the Scottish Central, the bill
for leasing the line to the London and North-Western,
Lancaster and Carlisle, and Caledonian Companies, has at
last been approved of. The new chairman (Lord Duncan)
announced that he had traversed the line, and, from the
satisfactory condition of the works, the government in-
spector would be forthwith called upon for his report.
A few days since, in the Sheffield Bankruptcy Court, •
Dr. Holland applied for his certificate, but the application
was opposed on behalf of the directors of the late Sheffield
and Retford Bank, whose property he had used in railway
speculations ; and in the course of the proceedings it ap-
peared that Dr. Holland had bought and sold railway
shares to such an extent that nearly half a million sterling
had been turned over on a capital•of £4,000.
From official returns, it appears that the amount of traffic
for the last week, on 3,663 miles of railway, was £171,610,
thus accounted for:—£Bl,66o for the conveyance'of pas-
sengeis only, £46,842 for the carriage of goods, and 11-
remainder of £43,108 for passengers and goods together,
not respectively apportioned ; being an increase of £2,185
over the corresponding week of last year, when the mileage •
was 2,845. The average earnings per mile last week were
£47, whilst in 1847 they were £5B.
FATAL RAILWAY ACCIDENT.—On Saturday, as Wm.
Yoxall, employed at the Crewe Railway Station in sepa-
rating the carriages which form various railway trains to'
and from that junction, was attending to his duty, he was
accidentally struck by the buffers of one of the carriages
which he was detaching, and received so severe an injury
that he died in half an hour after the occurrence. In re-
turning from the inquest, Mr. Stanton, engineer of the
Chester and Crewe branch, fell on to the line while alight-
ing from the train, when in motion, near Waverton sta-
tion. He received such injuries that it was found neces-
sary to amputate the right leg just below the knee.
RACE ON A RAILWAY.—DARING EXPLOIT.—The fol-
lowing extraordinary circumstance occurred recently on
the Manchester and Huddersfield Railway. The porters
bad been removing some luggage waggons, and carelessly
neglected to put on the brakes after unhooking the horse-
The consequence was, that two trucks set off down the
incline, scion attaining a speed of nearly twenty miles an
hour. The station master, on being informed of this,
instantly mounted an engine, and, accompanied by the
head porter and driver and stoker, set off at full speed
after the runaways. Upon coming up with them the
porter most daringly got upon the buffers of the engine,
and succeeded in hooking the waggons. The engine was
then reversed, and the trucks were brought back without
any injury being sustained. Had the waggons gone dorm
to the junction, and on to the Manchester and Leeds line,
a collision would most likely have taken place, as the ex-
press train, leaving Leeds at forty-five minutes past one,
was just about due at the time.

LAW INTELLIGENCE.
At the Court of Arches, on Tuesday, Sir H. J. Fust'
delidered judgment in the case Geils v. Geils, pro-
nouncing for a separation, on the ground that the hus-
band had been guilty of adultery, with full costs against
the husband.