The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-09-02 00:00:00

STRIKE AT DIJMEERMLINE.

The whole trades in Dumfermline have now struck work.
The chartists' committee have waited on the majority of the
shopkeepers, soliciting subscriptions, and deputations have
gone to country places on the same errand. On Thursday a
public meeting was held at Crossgates, about 10,000 or 12,000
are said to have assembled ; and in the forenoon a great band
of colliers marched through Dumfermline to the place of
meeting. They had music and a flag with a figure of Justice,
with scales in equilibrie. The meeting unanimously agreed
to the suspension of labour for eight days, also to the other
resolutions adopted by a previous meeting held in the Abbey
Vends. Some masons who were engaged at a work that
could not be delayed, would not resume work till they
obtained a line from a person named Morrison, a shoemaker
(secretary to the chartist committee), that they would not be
obstructed. After getting this, they resumed work.
COLLIERS' STRIKE.

AIRDRIE, COATBRIDGE, AND HOLYTOWN.—Matters in
this district remain without alteration since our last notice.
The few works which commenced about the middle of last
week are still going on, but the great mass of the colliers and
iron-stone miners are still out. The plundering of the pe-
tatoe-fields has, as stated in our last, in a great measure
ceased, and the people are understood to be supported by
subscriptions and by aid rendered them in some instances by
coal masters. All fears of any breach of the peace are al-
most entirely dissipated.
REIsZFREWSHIRE.—We have much pleasure in stating that
the colliers at Hurlet peaceably resumed work yesterday, after
a strike of fifteen days. We understand the colliers at Salt-
coats and neighbourhood are putting out a few coals, by waY
of working up their warning, hut they are in hopes that some
arrangement will meanwhile take place. No supply has beer;
received from the Kilbirnie pits this week. No supply from
Quarrelton since Wednesday, but hopes are entertained of
speedy settlement. Mr. Houstoun has reduced his prices
from 9s. 3d. to Ss. 9d. per waggon.—Paisley Advertiser of
Saturday.
A large meeting was attempted to be held on Saturday ;
the Sheriff along with the military interfered, and ordered
them to disperse. Instead of obeying, they walked across
the boundary into Perthshire, where the Sheriff's authority
did not extend. A requisition was in the course of signature
yesterday (Monday) forenoon to the Provost, requesting his
sanction to their holding a meeting, and, we believe, after
consultation with the other authorities he refused. The strike
would expire on Monday night, and it will depend on the
frame of mind the parties are in to-day, whether it will con-
tinue for another week or if they will go to work. Morrison
was apprehended late on Saturday night, or early on Sunday
morning. A rumour was spread on Sunday forenoon that an
attempt would be made by the colliers on Monday to release
him ; but whether from fear or the intervention of influential
parties in the town, we know not, but no attempt of the kind
had been made up to Monday afternoon. The reduction of
wages is not, we hear, the cause of the strike, as the manu-
facturers resolved last week, to continue at the old rates•
Almost all the people are idle, hundreds of them not because
they wish to be so, but because they are afraid to-offend the
violent leaders who vow to take revenge on all deserters.

A letter from Christiana, in Norway, quoted by the Han:*
burgh Gazette, says—" Oldelsthing have come to the ex
traordinary resolution of prohibiting, at the expiration of ten
years, all distillation of brandy."
The Russian papers say, that for the purpose of completing
the army and the navy a levy of five men out of every 1,000
inhabitants is ordered to be carried into effect throughout the
western half of the empire.
BRITISH ASSOCIATION.—Among the interesting novelties
in the exhibition of machines at Manchester, was an auto-
maton blacksmith, who seemed to be the neatest-handed and
best workman who ever operated on malleable iron. Idis
blows, though made at the rate of 650 per minute, were
quite noiseless. He converted a rough bar of iron into $
cotton-mill roller, with all its required variations in diameter
and form, in 50 seconds; and did this so correctly as to
leave little surplus metal to be removed by the turner or filer-
A round bar of 1* diameter was reduced at one heat to $
square rod of 2- guage 29 inches long. The parent of this
automaton is a gentleman at Bolton. Another remarkable
machine was a table-clock without an escapement, the,
fingers of which, instead of progressing by steps, went
their rounds with an uniform continuous motion. This ws9
effected by substituting for the scope- wheel and pallets
an upright axis, which protruded from the top of the
clock-case. This axis being acted on by the mainspring
(through the train), would revolve with great rapiditYt
and soon run down were it not prevented as fol-
lows :—Over the top of the case is placed (concentrically)
a glass bell of about ten inches high; from the apex of this
hangs, by a silk thread, a wire pendulum-rod, with a bullet
at its lower-end. The axis of the clock, in turning round:
has to push this pendulum before it; and as a pendulum-ron
of determinate length requires a determinate time for it 6
swing, the axis cannot turn round any faster than the Pen;
dulum consents to circulate by its centrifugal force ; and, ,f
the length of the latter be adjusted so as to perform its gyra-
tion in a second, it becomes the governer of the rate of the
clock, in the same way that the long pendulum does in ordi-
nary timepieces. It is probable that this construction may
present some drawbacks to counterbalance the advantage
gained by the absence of the escapement and its friction, nea
that it may not be available for the higher purposes of he"
rology ; but it may, nevertheless, be a good one for other!.
and is certainly an elegant one for chimney-piece and table
clocks.—The office-bearers for 1843 are—Earl Rosse, P.fre.
sident ; Earl of Listowel Lord Adair, Sir William na-
milton, and Professor Rpbinson, (Armagh,) Vice-Presidents;
James Roche, Esq., Local Treasurer ' • Professor Stevelly:
Rev. Joseph Carson, F.T.C.D.. Dr. W. C. Taylor, an
°
William Keleher, Esq., Local Secretaries.