The Liverpool Standard, and General Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-08-29 00:00:00

GENERAL INTELLIGENCE.

NEW STEAMERS.;—TWO new first-rate screw steamers
have been ordered to be built, which, a naval contemporary
will be the finest and most powerful that the world

hal Yet produced." One will be d 3,950 tons, 215 feet in
length by 61 feet in breadth ; and one of 4,116 tons, 260
feet in length and 60 feet wide.
AN ECCENTRIC M.P.—Mr. Divett, M.P. for Exeter,
went to the House of Commons, a few nights.before the
close of the session, clothed from head to foot, from toe to
crown, in bright nankeen, which clung to him like a
second skin, something after the fashion of one of Astley's
acrobats.

TILE GREAT "Sims QUESTION" in India has been
decided. Natives are required to take off their slippers
when they enter the presence of the Governor-General ;
but many adopt European dress—are they to pull off their
boots ? This is the last regulation—Natives wearing boots,
pantaloons, and straps, will not be required to appear
barefooted.

SCOTCH LOYALTY.—On the Bth instant, the Earl of
Meath presided at an agricultural dinner at Edinburgh.
For some reason no toast whatever was proposed. Cries
of " The Queen ! the Queen !" were unnoticed, and then a
" round robin" was sent to the chairman, stating that
unless the toast was given, the company would leave the
table. Upon this the chairman made matters worse by
rising and giving the Queen's health as an eminent agri-
culturist, and then sitting down.
CAREIER SwinLows.—An experiment has just been
successfully made of employing swallows to carry letters.
Six swallows taken in their nests at Paris were conveyed
by railway to Vienna, and there let go, with a small roll of
paper, containing 1,510 words, under the wing of each.
They were let go at a quarter after seven in the morning;
two arrived at Paris a few minutes before one; one at a
quarter past two, and the other two did not make their
appearance at all.
MunnEn.—On Tuesday morning, a wife was murdered
by her husband at Rochester. Mr. G. IL Smith, post-
master at Jersey, was lodging in a house in the town with
his wife; about eight o'clock on Tuesday morning he came
down and told the mistress of the house that he had shot
his wife, and desired her to send for a policeman and a
doctor. The unfortunate lady was found in bed, shot
through the back of the neck, and by direction of the
husband, pistols were found under the mattress. The
wretched man was in a lunatic asylum six months ago.

GRAIN CROPS IN Amsnice..—The harvest in the
United States is expected to be one-fourth in yield above
that of last year. We learn from a gentleman who has
traversed Canada from London to Montreal, and visited
much of the interior, that the wheat crop of Upper Canada
will far exceed that of any other year in its amount. It is
estimated that a third more was sown last year than the
year before, and it all looks flourishing. The surplus last
year is estimated at 7,000,000 bushels. This year it is
calculated the surplus will reach 12,000,000 bushels.
Estimating the price at only $1 50c per bushel, it gives
the farmers $18,000,000 for wheat alone for a foreign
market.—Aberdeen Journal.

MATERIALS FOE PAPER.—A correspondence has passed
between the Board of Trade, the Lords of the Treasury, and
the India Board, relative to the possibility of discovering
some new material for making paper, and thus to meet the
present scarcity. The India Board have communicated a
report by Dr. J. Forbes Boyle, their officer in charge of
the scientific correspondence relating to the vegetable
productions of•lndia, in which he points at several sources
in that country from which he thinks material for paper
might be derived :—" The fibrous part of many lily and
aloe-leaved plants have been converted into excellent paper
in India, where the fibres of tiliaceous, malvaceous, and
leguminous plants are employed for the same purpose. As
in the Himalayas, one of the lace-bark tribe is similarly
employed, and in• China one of the mulberry tribe, and
the nettle in Holland. I mention these various sources,
because plants belonging to the same families as the above
abound in India and other, warm countries, and are capable
of yielding a very abundant and never-failing supply of
sufficiently cheap and very excellent materials for paper
making of all kinds. Some may be used without any
further process of bleaching, but all are capable of having
any colour they may possess destroyed by chemical means,
as I would not except the jute canvas or gummy bagging,
because I have seen specimens of jute of a beautiful silky
white, both plain and manufactured into fabrics for furni-
ture, &c., as shown by the late Colonel Calvert at the
East India-house. As the Chinese make paper of rice,
straw, and of the young shoots of the bamboo, while the
Hindoos make ropes of different grasses (such as Saccharum
Munja and Saccharum Sara,) strong enough for their
Persian wheels as well as for towing-lines, it is evident
that these, and probably many others, contain a sufficiency
of fibrous material for paper making." Mr. Boyle goes on
to mention the plantain, which is so extensively cultivated
for its fruit in all tropical countries, and the fibre of which,
he thinks, might be separated at a price of £9 13s. 4d. per
ton ; the flax-plant of that class which is cultivated for its
seed, the Indian ram-turai, several species of hibiteus, &c.,
&c. On the same subject an American paper, the Long
Island Vindicator, says :--"Dr. Antisel has invented a
pulp, which, in its raw state, will not cost more than about
one sixth of a cent per pound, and, by the aid of a machine,
invented by Mr. Nolan, can be brought into file market, and
made into paper, at a cost of about four cents per pound.
Paper at present costs about sixteen cents, so that the
value of the invention can at once be seen. The material
from which the pulp is manufactured will flourish and
grow abundantly in ground that is at present useless to
the farmer. We have seen and examined specimens of ,

the pulp, and have no hesitation in pronowie

g it ju: