The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-10-18 00:00:00

WIGAN.-MONDAY NIGHT.

FATAL ACCIDENT,—A melancholy accident happened on
Tuesday evening last to Mr. John Caldwell, of Amberwood
Common Farm, in Ince. Mr. Caldwell was proceeding from
his own home, about seven o'clock, to go to Shuttleworth's
Farm, by a private foot-pad across the fields. In his way he
had to cross a coal-pit brow, which has lately been sunk.
The night was foggy, and there was a large fire burning on
the pit brow, which must have misguided the deceased, as
the coal-pit was between him and the fire. A man near the
fire called out to deceased ; but before he could properly
apprise him of the danger he was in, deceased walked into
the pit, which is about eighty yards deep. A man was work-
ing in a tub about half way down the shaft, but the deceased
only grazed him slightly as lie fell. He was found lying on
his back, quite dead, and with one leg and an arm broken,
and his body much lacerated. It is a dangerous practice to
leave the pit shafts so unprotected, by which the lives of
numbers of individuals have been sacrificed. A trifling
expense would furnish railings that would prevent such
calamities occurring both to persons and cattle.

CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY.—The Annual Church
Missionary meeting was held on Thursday evening last, in
the National School. The chair was taken by the Rev. C.
Bisset, who opened the meeting with prayer. The attend-
ance was by no means throng, though respectable. The
Rev. Mr. Carpenter, of St. Michael's Church, Liverpool,
attended as the deputation from the Parent Society, and ad-
dressed the meeting at considerable length, enumerating the
great blessings disseminated by the society, and recounting
instances of the most Christian and zealous labours of the
agents and teachers appointed by the society to carry the
glad tidings of the gospel into those heathen hands, .some
parts of which they have, by the blessing of God, raised
from a condition of barbarity to civilization, and where they
have, as monuments of their successful labours, erected
houses devoted to His service and to His glory. The other
gentlemen who addressed the meeting and proposed the
several resolutions were—Rev. J. Lomas, Rev. M. Coombs,
Rev. Mr. Powell, and Thomas Woodcock, Esq. • The col-
lection at the door did not amount to £3.
CALIGRAPHY.—A well known learned sergeant was said
to have the facility of writing three hands—one the learned
sergeant himself could make out, but which his clerk could
not; another which his clerk could decipher, but which the
learned sergeant could not; and a third which neither clerk
nor sergeant could in the least comprehend. If the learned
gentleman had only placed himself under the tuition of Mr.
Thompson, of this town, he might have written as fair a
" Roman" hand as her Majesty herself, who is :a beautiful
penwoman ; indeed her Majesty has set quite an example to
those around her, who now consider that to write a bad hand
is to be essentially out of the fashion. If a good hand is
therefore required for those who have their livelihood to seek,
how much more necessary is for those who wish to get on in
the world to become good writers ; as one of the first questions
put to an applicant for employment is, " What sort of a
hand do you write ? " Many a deserving young man has lost
a good situation from his bad caligraphy. We recommend,
therefore, all who are desirous to excel to apply to Mr.
Thompson.
THE MARKETS.—Our markets are still abundantly sup-
plied with provisions, and the price of every article continues
low. Butcher's meat, too, is falling in price, and those
butchers who are selling at the " new price" dispose of large
quantities of an inferior quality of mutton.

TILE LAST HOURS OF MAGINN.—On the Sunday before
he died, Maginn bad been remarkrbly cheerful, eloquent, and
witty. These qualities, indeed, he possessed to the last ; but
I had often seen him in health when he was not so brilliant
as now in his setting, and within a brief space of the twilight
of death. During the day he had related innumerable stories
of all the great writers with whom he bad lived in intimacy ;
had talked about books and men with that mingled vein of
humour and philosophy which was the great ornament of his
conversation ; and had amused himself in detailing one of
those literary projects on which his mind was always running,
but which, alas! were never fated to be fulfilled. Death had
not at any time entered into his discourse ; apparently he
sought to keep it altogether out of his thoughts. Though so
weak as to require to be lifted in my arus across the room,
he seemed to think dissolution by no means near ; or, if he
knew that he was dying, he certaiwly bore it with a philosophy
that would have immortalised his name in the days of Socrates
or Cato. About four o'clock I left for an hour or two, when
he slept, and returned to him in the evening. He was then
up, propped by pillows in an arm-chair, and as gay and in-
telligent as if he had never been ill. After we had talked a
short while, " said he, " shall I take some work
out of you ?" I, of course, assented ; and having got some~
paper and ink, I sat down opposite to him. He then took
Homer in his hand ; and after a brief interval of thought,
dictated the latter part of the following ballad (Nestor's First
Essay in Arms), evidently with no mental labour, but with
an ease that could have resulted only from his intimacy with
the Greek, and his extraordinary power of versification.
When he bad finished, I read for him the entire translation,
and marked out the Greek for the printer. He desired me
to correct the proofs. I have done so, but I scarcely antici-
pated when we sat together that it was to be the last of his
compositions,—Fraser' Magazine.