The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-08-30 00:00:00

As tottignam—tobic at that gray.headed risani.of thfoa
nom and upwards, sitting by the way.aldo, Ha was once
en elder of the kirk ; and a pious man he was, if ever piety
adorned the temples—" the lyart "'Mists, wearing thin and
bare"—of a Scottish peasant. What eye beheld the many
hundred steps that, one by one, with imperceptible
,grada-
tion, led him down—down—down to the lowest, depth of
shame, suffering, and ruin ? For many years before it was
bruited about that Gabriel Mason was addicted to drink, his
wife used to sit weeping in the spence when her sons and
daughters were out at their work in the fields ; and the infa-
tuated man, fierce in the excitement of raw ardent spirits,
kept causelessly raging and storming through every nook of
that once so peaceful tenement, which for many happy years
bad never been disturbed by the loud voice of anger or re-
proach. His eyes were seldom turned on his unhappy wife,
except with a sullen scowl or fiery wrath; but, when they
did look on lier with kindness, there was also a self-upbraid-
ing in their expression, on account of his cruelty : and at the
sight of such transitory tenderness, her heart would over-
flow with forgiving affection, and her eyes with tears. But
neither domestic sin nor domestic sorrow will conceal from
the eyes and ears of men ; and at last Gabriel Mason's name
was a bye-word in the mouth of the scoffer. One Sabbath
he entered the kirk in a state of miserable abandonment,
and from that day be was no longer an elder. To regain hit
character seemed to him, in his desperation, beyond the
power of man, and against the decree of God. So he deli-
vered himself up, like a slave, to that one appetite; and in a
few years bis whole household had gone to destruction. His
wife was a matron almost in the prime of life when she died ;
but, as she kept wearing away to the other world, her face
told that she felt her years had been too many in this. Her
eldest son, unable in pride or shame to lift up his eyes at
kirk or market, went away to the city, and enlisted into a
regiment about to embark on foreign service. His two Sis-
ters went to take farewell of him, but never returned ; one,
it is said, having died of a fever in the infirmary, just as she
had been made a pauper ; and the other—for the sight of
sin, and sorrow, and shame, and suffering, is ruinous to the
soul—gave herself up in her beauty, an easy prey to a de-
stroyer, and doubtless has run her course of agonies, and is
now at peace. The rest of the family dropped down, one by
one, out of sight into inferior siruations in far-off places;
but there was a curse, it was thought, hanging over the
family, and of none of them did a favourable report ever
come to their native parish ; while he, the infatuated sinner,
whose vice seemed to have worked all the woe, remained in
the chains of his tyrannical passion, nor seemed ever, for
more than the short term of a day, to cease hugging them to
his breast.—Christopher North in his Sporting Jacket.
NAUTICAL ANECDOTE OF HER MAJESTY WHEN PRIN-
CESS VICTORIA.—It is not generally known that her Ma-
jesty is so conversant with matters of seamanship as she
really is. Before her accession to the throne of these realms,
no amusement afforded her more delight than marine ex-
cursions • and, during the summer season, her beautiful
yacht, the Emerald, was in frequent requisition. Nor were
her Majesty's trips at all times unattended with danger, and
the following instance will show that a very narrow escape
from one of the many "perils of the deep" occurred during
one of her voyages. *At a time when her Majesty was round
a portion of the Isle of Wight, her favourite cruising ground,
on account of the beautiful scenery to be found there, a
breeze sprung up, and before the Emerald could get into
Cowes Roads, for which she was beating up, it freshened into
a gale. In squally weather, there is a very ugly short sea
that runs in the channel, which now washed the yacht's
deck " fore and aft." Her Majesty, however, with a degree
of nerve seldom to be found in her sex, and oftimes wanting
in a man, stayed on deck, and quietly, though carefully
attended to the efforts of the men. The pilot on board, Mr.
Saunders, was giving directions, and doing everything that a
seaman could do to bring his onerous charge safe into port,
when a sharp squall came and took the Emerald " aback,"
and crack went the topmast immediately above the " cap."
Seeing the danger, Saunders sprang to where the Queen was,
standing, seized her round the waist, and had scarcely time
to deposit her farther aft, where less chance of harm existed,
when crash came the topmast down upon the deck, directly
on the spot where the Queen had stationed herself, scarcely
an instant intervening between her removal and its fall; had
it fallen on her, it must inevitably have crushed her. In
gratitude to her preserver, the Queen (then Princess) got
him appointed as a master of the navy, and after her ac-
cession to the throne she ordered him to be brought to court.
He was for some time master of the Firebrand and Royal
Yacyt steamer, (now called the Black Eagle, in honour of
the King of Prussia,) but, it is to be regretted, he is recently
dead. An ample provision has, however, been considerately
made by the Queen for his wife and family.

CONNEXION OF TRADE AND HARVESTS.—That there is
a strict and indissoluble connection between the state of
trade and commerce in any country, and the state of its
harvests, is plain from what has taken place in this country,
within the last ten years. Our commercial affairs have been
prosperous or adverse just in proportion as our harvests have
been abundant or otherwise. In illustration of the truth of
this assertion, we do not know whether we can do better
than note down the average price of wheat for the last eight
or ten years, opposite to the annual surplus or deficiency in
the public revenue for these years. For the years 1832,
1833, 1834, 1835, and 1836, the account would stand as
follows :

Price of Wheat Season. Annual Surplus
per qr. of national rev.
1832 38s. 8d... Above Average .... £ 5,696
1833 525. 11d. . d 0...
1834 465. 2d.
1835 395. 4d. do. 1,270,050

. .
1836 48s. 6d. do. 1,590,727
In 1837, a series of deficient harvests set in, the effects of
which were soon perceptible on the national finances; there
being thenceforward not a surplus but a deficiency in the
annual revenues. We do not happen to be in possession of
any account of the revenue for that year, but the following
statement embraces the period extending from that year to
the present time :
Price of Wheat Season. Annual Deficiency
per qr. of national rev.
1838 645. 7d. Scarcity £1,428,534
1839 70s. Bd. do 430,325
1840 665. 4d.. do 1,457,133
1841 00s. Od ... d 0.....

BARGEMEN AND BOATMEN.—The friends of this long
neglected class will learn with satisfaction that arrangements
are being made for opening an Episcopal Floating Chapel
near this city, for the instruction of the men employed on
the river Severn and the Worcester and Birmingham canal.
The venerable Society for promoting Christian Knowledge
has made a grant of £5O in aid of this benevolent design ;
and our worthy Diocesan, the Bishop of Worcester, with his
n,,nonr.pd haq snhserihed X 25. Several hand-
some donations have been added, and a few annual subscrip-
tions. We trust that commercial men and other respectable
individuals on the line of these navigations will patronize an
undertaking fraught with so many benefits to a body of men
proverbial for their demoralized character, yet very useful
in their station, and capable of improvement if placed under
more favourable circumstances, as has been proved in vari-
ous parts of the kingdom. Sunday traffic had a most injuri-
ous effect upon this class. One of the boatmen executed
at Stafford for the Rugeley murder, stated to a clergy-
man, who visited him in prison, that during the fourteen
years he had been employed on the canal he had never once
attended public worship. He was consequently in a most
awful state of ignorance. Some years ago a boatman suf-
fered for the same fearful crime of murder at Chester. That
wretched man solemnly declared he had never heard there
was a place of reward or punishment in a future world, and
had never uttered a prayer during his whole life, till he was
committed to prison. Nothing could exceed the attention
he paid to the chaplain's instructions. These things " ought
not to be" in a country professing Christianty. It would
be well if factors, tradesmen, &c., when ordering goods to
be sent by canal, would avoid infringing on the sacred rest
of the Sabbath, a practice productive of the greatest evils.
We hail, as philanthropists, the efforts being made to raise a
degraded class of our countrymen in the scale of religion and
morals. In addition to the three churches erected on the
Weaver navigation in Cheshire, three places of public wor-
ship have been recently set apart for boatmen in Staffordshire
—in other parts of the kingdom a friendly interest has been
excited on behalf of this class, which we trust will soon be-
come universally privileged with the grant of the Sabbath,
to which as British subjects they are justly entitled.— Wor-
cester Journal.