The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-09-09 00:00:00

VARIETIES.

Lively, good-humoured old women, compared with young
ones, are what raisins are to fresh grapes. They are withered,
but they are also preserved, and appear to advantage in the
freshest company.
BRUTES AND TOBACCO.—So sensible is every brute crea
ture of the poisonous and deleterious quality of this plant,
that not one of all the various tribes of beasts, birds, or
reptiles, has ever been known to taste of it. It has been
reserved to man alone to make of this poisonous plant an
article of daily necessity for the gratification of his depraved
appetite.
A LUCKY HlT.—The Heraldo, a Madrid journal, gravely
gives the following :—" An old female mendicant of Vivoro,
in Gallicia, who had been blind for several years, lately re-
ceived a blow on one eye from a stone. Her first movement
was to put her hand to the eye, and when she withdrew it, she
found that the sight of it had been perfectly restored !"
Poetry has invariably one of two tendencies. Disgusted
with the present, in which its ideal is degraded, it either
flies to the past or the future. It sighs over the golden age,
over the primitive simplicity and energetic virtues of the
past, or it looks with eager eyes into the dim future, when
progression will have brought perfection, and it shapes this
plastic future into the harmonious proportions of its imagi-
nation.

NIGHTCAP PATENT OF PRIVILEGE.—The Kinsale pri-
vilege of wearing the hat in the royal presence was thrown
into the shade by the following grant of Queen Mary :
" The Queen's gratitude took a very odd form in the case of
the Earl of Sussex. He was a valetudinarian, who had a great
fear of uncovering his head ; and considering that the colds
be dreaded respected no person, he petitioned Queen Mary
for leave to wear his nightcap in her royal presence. The
Queen, in her abundant grace, not only gave him leave to
wear one, but two nightcaps, if he pleased. His patent for
this peivilege is, perhaps, unique in royal annals :—' Know
ye, that we do give to our well-beloved and trusty cousin
and councillor, Henry, Earl of Sussex, Viscount Fitzwater,
and Lord of Egremond and Burnell, license and pardon to
wear his cap, coif, or nightcap, or any two of them, at his
pleasure, as well in our presence as in the presence of any
other person or persons within this our realm, or any other
place in our dominions whatsoever, during his life; and these
our letters shall be his sufficient warrant in this behalf.' The
Queen's seal, with the garter about it, is affixed to this
singular grant."—Miss Stricldand's " Lives of the Queens
of England."
FREDERICK THE GREAT'S WlT.—This monarch aimed
at being thought a wit, and was not unsparing of his caustic
remarks upon his best friends. The following is not a bad
specimen of his talent for smart, though somewhat irreverent
punning:—" The uniform of the Hulans consisted of white
Turkish mantles, and light blue clothing underneath : this
was changed, but in memory of it the new hussars had white
sheepskins and light blue dollmans. The Austrians sought
to throw ridicule upon this regiment by calling the hussars
sheep. This contemptuous appellation enkindled an ardent
desire of revenge, and an opportunity was soon afforded to
the Prussians of gratifying that sentiment, when, in 1789,
an Austrian regiment who had thus jeered them were almost
cut to pieces by the Prussians, and the colonel and the few
officers of the Austrians were saved by great exertion of the
commander of the Prussians. The prisoners, on being
brought before Frederick, complained of the savage barbarity
of his troops, and that no quarter had been given. Frederick,
who knew the cause of this proceeding, asked, " Did you
ever in your life read such a book as the Bible?" " Oh,
yes ! your Majesty," replied the Austrian officer, with some
surprise. " Well, then, said the kine, " that will explain
the matter to you, for there it is said, " Beware of those
who come to you in sheep's clothing, for inwardly they are
ravenous wolves."
The following description of an Affghan execution will serve
to illustrate the barbarous character of the people into whose
power.co many of our countrymen, and some of our country-
women, have unhappily fallen :—" At a little before sunset
three of the horse artillery guns were drawn out, and pre-
sently the three ,criminals were brought to the ground, led
by an old man with a long beard, stained of an orange colour,
and wearing a long ,eouieeel red cap, garnished with four per-
pendiculars rows of black horns, pointing out horizontally.
After they had stood a while, another functionary came in a
different shaped cap, also red, the form of a crab's claw,
with a black horn stretching out on each side, and asked if
all was ready, ' All ready,' was the reply, whereupon the
said functionary went to make his report to the Schab,
whose sera purda, or pavilion tent, was not above 100 yards
from the place. In ten minutes he returned, and repeated
the order to proceed to execution. The three men were
then tied with ropes to the guns, their backs against the
muzzle. The rope, fastened to one of the spokes of the
wheel, passed with a knot round the arms, ,over the muzzle
of the gun, round the other arm, and then to the spoke of the
opikosite wheel, which kept the body fixed. The prisoners,
with their wrists tied together, kept crying incessantly,
GTodheir,e is nogod h God, and ahomet is the prophet of
middle Wlalst
the noise made
the priming wa
could only see the hod
smoke. One ar
perpen-
dicularly upwards, at
as everyat thing was ready the prisoner in the
let l4ohoesen,thhaving been pardoned by the Schuh, and
03 a
li shoulderet
awroe sttutron their heads. At that in-
stants fired,n and the explosion took place. I
bladera efo
' w.
least )00 feet • the tahse
driven thickclouds of
, other arm and part
of the body were found right forward,
the hand torn away. The exptso thirty yards off, with
G,
o
4 n
mproduced a shower of
flesh. blood, and small particles of going to the gun I
found the head separate, as if it had b
from the body, and lying between tl.:11 Perposely severed
wi eis
e the lower limbs, trunkless, upturnedn the ground,
with part of the intestines twisted otoundnonc ; close to it
Wee
crimiaal ;vas a man of muscular form Viand about 215gy.earlsnhoef
age. The other, with felon marked on his countenange •
could not have been more than 19. His head and legs also
'
fell under the syn. Neither of the miserable wretches be-
trayed any emotion, or spoke a word, more than declaring
that they were innocent, and repeating, the ejaculation, ' Lel
Illah Maas Mahomed Busfool Illah .'till they were blown
to atoms."