The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-01-21 00:00:00

two o'clock. p.m

" GENTLEMEN,-11;;e—this Moment received a letter
from the light-keeper of Tory Wand lighthouse, which states
that some time in the night of Friday last, the 7th instant, a
schooner, called the Montagnaise, of Belfast, Major Wil-
son, mastor, loaded with barley, hides, and tallow, was
wrecked on the south. west point of that island, and, melan.
choly to relate, all bands drowned. She lies bottom up, and
a great deal of the cargo has been secured by the islanders,
and part has been taken up to the light-keeper. There has
not been any communication with Tory Island for some time
past. The sea was so much agitated, and a heavy surf on
the coast that the man who brought out the letter was
obliged to land in a curragh, or skin-boat. I shall go into
island the very moment it can be done with any degree of
safety.—l am, gentlemen, your obedient servant,
16 J. WGLADERY, Lieut., R.N."
—Ulster Times.

SHIRTS MADE FOR THREE FARTHINGS A PIECE.—The
competition in the slop business is almost as ruinous to a nu-
merous and industrous class of females at the east end of the
metropolis, who managed to support themselves decently by
their needle. A few years ago, when shirt making was redu-
ced to three shillings a dozen, it was considered so low a
price, that it was impossible to make a bare existence at it.
Yet, from that price it became gradually reduced, and many
of the large Jew slopsellers at present pay but ninepence a
dozen, or three fathings each shirt. for them. If three shil-
lings was a price at which these poor women could make a
mere existence, what must be the effect of the present allow-
ance ? and yet thousands are to be found even glad to get
such work ; but it is only those who can get a number of
girls, who have some other means of support, to work for
them at shirt-making, that can earn bread at it.—Chelten-
ham Journal.

SALE OF INDULGENCES FOR TREASONABLE PURPOSES.
—That indulgences have beer: sold in Ireland, and the pro-
ceeds thereof applied in AID or REBELLION against the law-
ful sovereign of Great Britain and Ireland, the following
anecdote' from the history of the sister island, will sufficiently
attest :—From the evidence communicated before a commit-
tee of the Irish parliament, by Father John Hennesey, it
appears that his Holiness, Pope Benedict XIII., in compli-
ance with the request of the Romish archbishops and bishops
in Ireland (who had conspired, with others of the Romish
communion, to exterminate King George 11. and the royal
family, and to place a Popish pretender on the throne), issued
his bull to facilitate their pious intention, and sent them an
indulgence for ten years, in order to raise a sum of money,
to be speedily applied to restore the person calling himself
James 111. to his pretended right. This bull further enjoined
" that every communicant, confessing and receiving upon
the patron days of every respective parish, and on any Sunday
from the first of May to September, having repeated the
Lord's Prayer five times, and once the Apostles' Creed, upon
paying twopence each time, was to have a PLENARY INDUL-
GENCE FOR HIS SINS." Under this holy bull, it appears that
the sum of fifteen hundred pounds sterling was ready for be
remitted to the pretender's agents in Flanders, at the time
the treasonable conspiracy was detected by the vigilance of
the Irish government.—(See the Journals of the House of
Commons of Ireland, vol. iv., part ii., Appendix, pp. xlvi.,
xlvii. Proceedings on 19th Dec.: 1733, fol.)—From the
Church of England Quarterlii.

BIRMINGHAM, JAN. 18.—A murder of an atrocious cha-
racter has been perpetrated in Birmingham within the last
week or ten days, which has created great excitement there.
The unfortunate victim of this tragical occurrence was the
wife of a man named Ezra Steapenhill, a house-painter, who
lived in Heneage-street, and who enjoyed the reputation of
being a steady, and even " serious" character, on which ac-
count, as well as the respectability of his connections, he had
been appointed to the office of beadle of St. Matthew's
Church, at Ashted, in the neighbourhood of which he re.
sided. It appears, however, that Steapenhill had treated
his wife (a young and interesting looking woman, to whom
he. had been married only two years) with systematic unkind-
ness and brutality, having, on more than one occasion,
threatened to shoot her. This threat he put into execution
on the night of Friday wed(' the 7th instant, but in st,ch a
manner as to lead to the impression at the time that the
death of his unfortunate wife was the result of accident. On
the above evening, while engaged cleaning a gun, on a table
at which his wife was working, the piece was discharged, and
the contents lodged in the breast of the unhappy woman,
who fell dead at his feet. The only person Present at the
time of this dreadful occurrence was Steapenhill's appren-
tice, a lad about 14 years of age, who gave two different
accounts of the transaction ; but no suspicion existed at the
time that the unfortunate woman had come unfairly by her
death. On the occurrence, however, becoming generally
known, a variety of circumstances were brought to light
which led to a different conclusion, and Steapenhill was taken
into custody to await the coroner's inquest. The inquiry
occupied altogether thirty-nine hours, and twenty-four wit-
nesses were examined. In the course of the inquiry the
confidence of the prisoner seemed to have forsaken him.
He became painfully depressed, and generally sat with his
face buried in his hands, with his elbows leaning on the table,
evincing but little consciousness of what was going forward.
He was respectably dressed in black, with black kid gloves,
and generally kept his face hid iu his pocket handkerchief.
The evidence of the surgeon was very unfavourable to the
prisoner's account of the affair. The prisoner said he was
cleaning a gun, which lay on a round table, by the side of
which the deceased sat sewing. The discharge entered her
eaest, making a wound of an inch and a half in diameter,
internally wounding and lodging a splinter of bone in the
coats of the heart, and fracturing the ,third, fourth, fifth,
sixth, seventh, and eighth ribs. Dr. Daemt, surgeon of the
Sixth Enniskillen Dragoons, said it was a literal impossibility
for such a wound and its consequences to be produced by a
gun if held in the position described by, the prisoner 'a ap-
prentice, when that person was cleaning the gun. The
supposition therefore is, that the prisoner must have altered
its position for some reason. The coroner summed up at
great length, and the jury, at half-past nine o'clock, re-
turned a verdict of " Wilful murder against Ezra Steapen-
hill." The prisoner, on hearing the sentence, seemed
greatly distressed, and covered his face with his hands.