The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-06-07 00:00:00

a fine view of Buckingham gardens.
A further trial of the Atmospheric Railway took place
on Friday at Wormwood Scrubbs, near London. The ex-
periments were highly satisfactory. The speed attained was
considerably above 40 miles per hour, and the vacuum vary-
ing from 24 to 25 inches of mercury.
THE RAILROAD CALAMITY AT SONNINGHILL.—The
verdict of the Coroner's jury, exacting a deodand from the
Great Western Railway Company in this case, was set aside
in the Court of Queen's Bench on Saturday, on the ground
that the accident causing death having occurred at Sonning,
the inquisition before the Coroner of Reading, where the
death occurred, was invalid.
On Monday afternoon, whilst a man named Abraham
Simpson sat on a plank, employed in repairing the shaft of
the engine-pit at Dudley Hill, Bradford, an explosion of fire
damp took place, by which he was blown to near the pit
mouth, and then fell back again to the bottom of the shaft,
a depth of from sixty to seventy yards, by which he was
literally smashed to pieces.

Whole villages, including the rich as well as the poor, are
emigrating from Germany to North America. Three of
those in Upper Hesse have, within these few months, been
entirely abandoned, and several in Rhenish Prussia are pre-
paring to follow the example. A short time ago the whole
population of one of these villages passed through Mentz on
its way to America, accompanied by its pastor and school-
master.

The registrar-general of births, marriages, and deaths, has
ascertained from the returns of the late census that the mean
duration of life in the two districts, towns and rural places,
differs by nearly 17 years ; the average of life being 55 years
in the country, and only 38 in the towhs. The density of
the population in the country districts referred to compared
with that in the towns is as 10 to 242 ; the mortality as 100
to 144.

Captain Fisher, R.N., the principal harbour master, has
been instructed to clear the Thames, near Gravesend, of the
obstruction made by the sinking of the collier Vesper, about
eighteen months ago, near the town of Gravesend. The
means he intends to try consist of certain experiments by
the galvanic process, and the operations will, it is expected,
commence in the ensuing week.

SINGULAR CIRCUMSTANCE.—A circumstance of a very
extraordinary nature occurred at Dam Head, in Quermore,
on Friday last. Mr. W. Fox, who resides at Dam Head,
discovered a nest of young rabbits in one of his fields, and
brought them home to his sons. Next morning, the lads
went to visit their rabbits, when, to their astonishment, they
found their cat, an animal of the short-tail species, lying
amongst the brood. and acting towards them the part of a
mother. What renders the circumstance yet more singular
is, that the old cat has a brood of kittens of her own, which
she has actually forsaken, and regularly suckles the rabbits,
and has fairly transferred her affections to them.
IMPORTANT TO TIMBER MERCHANTS.—The Commis-
sioners of the Customs have, with reference to the contem-
plated alteration in the timber duties, issued an order to their
collectors and comptrollers, at ports where regular bonding
timber yards and ponds have not already been provided, di-
recting them to acquaint the merchants engaged in that
trade, that they are ready to receive applications as to tem-
porary arrangements for bonding colonial timber and other
wood goods imported to the 10th Oct. next. This will ena-
ble the timber merchants to import cargoes previously, and
hold them in bond, subject to the low rate of duty, if not
taken out for home use before the proposed tariff becomes
law.

WHEAT FROM ABROAD.—It appears by an authentic pub-
lished statement, which we have seen, that between the 9th
of January and the 30th of March, no less than forty-three
vessels cleared from Odessa for various ports in the United
Kingdom laden with Wheat, amounting to about 75,000
quarters. Since the end of March, a number of other ves-
sels have left the same port with similar cargoes, so that it
may be calculated that upwards of a hundred thousand quar-
ters of W beat are in course of deposit in this country from
Odessa alone. The arrivals from the Baltic and other places
will, no doubt, be correspondingly large, and when the duty
is reduced from the present rate of 12s. to a somewhat lower
figure, it is probable that a very large quantity of Wheat will
be taken out of bond for home consumption.
THE PRINCESS ROYAL.—We feel much indebted to the
agent of this splendid steamer for putting us in possession of
the Morning Chronicle of yesterday morning, three hours
before the arrival of the London mail, containing the details
of the attempted assassination of her Majesty. Copies of
the Chronicle, Times, and other London journals were, the
moment the train arrived from Greenock, forwarded to the
different public reading rooms in town ; and altogether the
public are much indebted to the proprietors and the agents
of the vessel, at Liverpool and Glasgow, for their public
spirit and enterprise. The passage from Liverpool to Green-
ock was made in the astonishing shorts pace of sixteen hours
and five minutes.—Glasgow Chronicic, of Ist June.
AWFUL OCCURRENCE.—At a wedding which took place in
the vicinity of Youghal some time since, a teetotaller got in-
toxicated with " cordial." Maddened by the " drug,"
the wretched being imprecated that—" if the devil choked
him, he would drink enough I "—and, shocking to relate, he
kept his fearful pledge—he drank until he dropped a hideous
corpse. Shocked at this awful interruption to the bridal fes-
tivities, and wishing, if possible to remove the responsibility
of the madman's death from their own doors, some of the
party removed the body to a neighbouring churchyard, where
it was discovered on the following morning, and an inquest
held upon it. This calamitous and horrifying event has pro-
duced a deep sensation in the vicinity where it occurred.—
Waterford Chronicle.
RAILWAYS IN FRANCE.—The Chamber of Deputies re-
jected on Tuesday the three Bills relative to the railways of
Straaburgh to Basle, Bordeaux to La Teste,. and Paris to
Versailles, along the left bank of the Seine. The Ministry
had proposed to authorise the former to borrow 6,000,000 f.
for the completion of the works, but the Chamber on being
assured that the Company possessed ample means to complete
them, and that one of the proprietors still held 34,000 shares
unsold, thought proper to withhold the authorisation. By
the second Bill, the Minister of Public Works asked to be
empowered to lend 2,000,0001. to the Bordeaux and Teste
Railway Company, and to dispense the Paris and Versailles
Company with paying the interest of a sum of 5,000,000 f.,
loaned to it last year, until the Ist of January, 1859. This
demand was likewise negatived by the Chamber, and the
ballot on the three Bills produced only 63 votes in their fa-
vour, and 206 against their adoption.
Cannon RATES.—The Rev. W. Bruce Knight, Chancellor
of the Diocese of Llandaff, at his late Vernal Visitation,lmade
some reference to the recent surprising decision of Dr. Lush-
ington alone on the Braintree. case, and quoted with most
reasonable effect the following judgment of all the judges in
the Court of Exchequer, delivered by Sir Nicholas Tindal.
"The repair of the fabric of the church is a duty which the
parishioners are compellable to perform, not a mere voluntary
act, which they may perform or decline at their own discre-
tion ; the law is imperative on them, absolutely, that they do
repair the parish church, not binding on them in a qualified
manner only, that they may repair or not as they think fit ;
and where it so happens that the fabric of the church stands
in need of repair, the only question upon which the parish-
ioners, when convened together to make a rate, can by law
deliberate and determine is, not whether they will repair the
church or not, (for on that point they are concluded by law,)
but how and in what manner the common law obligation may
be best, and, at the same time, most conveniently performed
and carried into effect. The parishioners have no more
power to throw off the burthen of the repair of the church,
than that of the repair of bridges and highways."
THE MOORS.—As the shooting season approaches, in-
quiries from sportsmen in the south, who wish to take moors,
as numerous as in former years ; and Inverness bids fair to
keep up its title of the sportsman's toll bar for the Northern
Highlands. From the continued rains in the end of last
season, the grouse became as wild as hawks, so that plenty
of birds must have been left for breeding; and up to the
present period, this season has been highly propitious. Over
all the moors, except the very highest, this week will be what
is called the great hatch—the most critical time for the tiny
cheepers—and, if rain falls heavily, the poor draggled birds
'are unable to crawl through the heather, where they perish.
Hence the difference in the numbers which compose the
broods. In fine dry summers, coveys will average four or five
brace, while, in wet seasons, rarely more than half that
number ever take wing. The prospects of the season for
anglers are certainly of the most cheering complexion. Our
spring salmon fishings have been unusually good. The rivers
are now teeming with fry, descending to the sea, and when
the grilse season commences, every pool will be searched by
lovers of the gentle craft. The merry month of June invites
numerous piscatorial parties, where, " in among the moun-
tains," from loch to loch, they pursue the finny tribes, and
enjoy, in detail, the beauties of the Highland landscape.
THE ROBBER BARONESS.—We learn from the Augsburg
Gazette the following particulars of a very singular robbery,
to credit which demands some exercise of the imagination.
" A letter, dated from Rome the 20th ult., states that the
admiration of a German baroness having been excited by the
magnificent altars of the isolated church of Santa Croce,
formed of some of the finest marble taken from the temples
of ancient Rome, she could not resist the desire of appro-
priating some of these ornaments for herself, and she de-
tached several marble tablets from the altars with an iron
hook." (The original phrase is we doubt not here correctly
rendered " with a hook I") On her third attempt she was
taken in the fact. A search having been made at the
baroness's residence other objects which she had purloined
were discovered. The penalty of sacrilege is that of the
gallows." It was well for Santa Croce that the German
baroness (who certainly must be a descendant of the re-
nowned Munchausen) did not take a fancy for carrying off
the pillars of the church, as well as those very portable arti-
cles, the marble slabs which form the
. altars. Samson's ex-
ploit in carrying off the gates of Gaza well known, and the
reputation of the man who run away with the monument has
survived in song : but the German baroness seems to be a
more wholesale plunderer. Passionately in love with art,
she takes a fancy to a marble altar (or some other object of
similar size and weight), and, incontinently whips it into her
reticule or her side pocket—if she wears one ;—it was a
mercy that Santa Croce was " isolated" (and therefore, per-
haps, less used for service), or she might have pocketted the
officiating priest into the bargain. How we wish the baroness
had paid a visit to London, she might then, perchance, have
taken a fancy to one of our public edifices—the National
Gallery, for instance, and have carried it off piecemeal. We,
at any rate, should not have punished her for sacrilege ; the
crime would, at most, have amounted to petty larceny.
NEW HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.—The progress of this
truly splendid pile of building has been very active, consider-
ing its immense length, since the panic caused by the late
disagreements and misunderstandings among some of the,
misled operatives. It is now arrived at the first tier of apart-
ments, and the corbels for many of the windows display al-
ready numbers of heater-shaped shields, charged with the
royal arms of England before and after the conquest, toge-
ther with those of the royal continental houses with which
the present reigning family is intimately allied. Other sec-
tions of the edifice are also enriched .with innumerable escut-
cheons bearing heraldic designs ofillustrious ancestors who
had fought in Palestine, bled on the fields of Arragon, or who
once had aided the sturdy barons who compelled John to sign
our ever-memorable charter. These exterior embellishments
will sustain painted windows, " casting a dim religious light
—a light as not of day," over the interior of a finer structure,
and one every way more convenient, considered as the two
Houses of Parliament, or one more becoming the dignity of
the nation, can scarcely be conceived. A remarkable passage
in " the minutes of evidence (952) before the select commit-
tee of the House of Commons," on the subject of members'
accommodation, runs thus :—" The near approach to the li-
brary and a convenient smoking room are now of more im-
portance than ever ; in olden times such accommodations
were less necessary. Members came and sat a few hours in
their seats, heard the debates, voted, and went away in rea-
souable time, but now, a member of parliament who attends
his duty closely, spends twelve hours a day in the house, to
say nothing of committees. It therefore becomes important
that he should have the convenience of a library ; and what
is called a smoking room."