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

erico of t

e two or three years back,

aft

skirmishes iu various parts of the ki

This colloqu.

it appears, was attended by the same result as that on the
former occasion : the vindicator of the " theory of surfaces"
having made several mistakes, and received innumerable hard
bumps, left the field in possession of his talented and victo-
7oreesler Journal.

rious opponent

CAREENING A SHIP 'WITH POFISH INDULGENCES.—
In the year 1709, the privateers of Bristol captured a Spanish
galleon, on board of which were found five hundred bales
of indulgences, which, containing 16 reams to a bale, were
computed to amount to 3,840,000 indulgences. These were
to be imposed upon the people, and were to be sold, the
lowest at 3 raeLq, (a little more than:2o pence,) but others at
50 pieces of eight, (about £8 sterling); and Captain Dampier
informed Bishop Burnet, who has recorded the fast, that
there was such a vast quantity of these indulgences that the
seamen careened their ships with them.—Church of England
Quarterly. .

THE RECENT MURDER NEAR CHIRK.—On the evening
the murder, Emma Evans (who was to have been married on
Christmas Day) shut her shop door, as she usually did at
nightfall, but left the house door open, as she expected a visit
from her intended husband. She had been smoking a pipe
of tobacco, but a short time before an entrance had been
effected by the murderers she had laid the pipe aside. It
appears that one of the murderers, on secretly entering the
house, had struck the deceased a violent blow on the back of
the head, which felled her to the earth, and two other blows
were then inflicted on the fore part of her hew:. The unfor-
tunate woman still struggled, and one of the murderers, hav-
ing paced his knee upon her face, a knife was drawn across
iler throat, which terminated her existence. A kick from one
of the assassins dislodged some of the deceased's teeth, one
of which was driven through her upper lip, and left the mark
which was supposed to have been made by the tobacco pipe,
and induced the belief that she had been murdered while do-
zing quietly in her chair. The public will have satisfaction
in knowing that both the unhappy prisoners are truly peni-
tent, and await with the greatest contrition the decision of
their fate at the coming assizes.--:Shropshire paper.

THE CONVICT DELAHUNT.—This murder of the boy Ma-
guire, received the last sentence of the law on Saturday last.
He is to be hung on the sth of February. In the course of
Saturday evening. on the governor taking his customary
round of inspection, and visiting Delahunt's cell, the con-
vict, on Mr. Allison making some casual remarks on his
situation, entered freely into conversation with him. The
following is substantially what took place. As to the truth
of the prisoner's allegations the reader will readily judge.
He admitted that he had talienhe knife produced on his
trial out of his sister-in-law's base, but he denied having
himself perpetrated the murder. It was, he said, committed
by a man named Doyle and a prostitute, in whose company
he (Delahunt) met him the same day. He had some know-
ledge of Doyle previously, but he had never seen the female
before. To a question as to how he came to know roe mur-
dered child, he answered, " 0, I did not take away the child
at all." The governor remarked to him that it appeared
strange how he should have been seen with the child in so
many different parts of the city just before the murder, and
no other person in their company. Delahunt admitted that
the circumstance did appear rather strange, but that it hap-
pened in consequence of his companions being too cunning
for him, and therefore they kept at a distance of fifty or one
hundred yards behind him while he was taking the child
about the town. He was then asked what could be the mo-
tive to commit the shocking crime ? He replied that it was
for the purpose of being taken care of in the Lower Castle.
yard, and maintained there until admitted to prosecute some
person to be charged with the commission of the offence.
He denied that it was by his hand the murder was committed
—it was by the man and woman ; the latter having cut the
boy's throat. Being questioned as to how long he had been
making up the horrible business with these people, he said
he had merely met with them by accident in the neighbour-
hood where the child was playing o i the evening he was mur-
dered, and but a short time before lie was taken away. They
told him what they were going to do; asked him would he
join them, and he consented to do so; until that he knew
nothing whatever about the matter, and he only took the
child on before them, and into the lane where they murdered
him. The governor asked him why, if he had ;no previous
knowledge of what was about to be done, did he take away
the knife so long before from his mother's house ? The pri-
soner admitted he had taken the knife, but he could not ac-
count for his doing so.—Dublin Evening Packet.
" BENEFIT" SOCIETIES AGAIN.—On Wednesday last,
Francis Forbes, John Meek, and William Jefferies, were
committed by the Stourbridge magistrates, to take their trial
at our next assizes, for being jointly concernel in uttering a
cheque of £2OO upon the Stourbridge and Kidderminster
bank, with the view of defrauding the " Traveller's Rest"
Lodge of Oddfellows, on the 27th ultimo. Jefferies was ad-
mitted to bail on finding two sureties in £l5O each, and en-
tering into his own recognizances of £3OO ; Meek and Forbes
not being able to find sureties, have been brought to Wor-
cester gaol. It seems, from the evidence, that the prisoner
Meek having got possession of the common seal of the lodge,
together with Forbes and Jefferies, proceeded to the bank,
Jefferies forging the name of William Smith to the cheque,
and Meek and Forbes falsely pretending that they were office
bearers of the lodge. No suspicion of the fraud was enter-
tained till Thursday last, when it was discovered that the
money had been withdrawn, and that Meek and Forbes had
fled. They were traced to Liverpool, apprehended there,
and a trifle more than the amount stolen was found on the
person of Meek's wife, who with her two children had ac-
companied them. The facts were proved by the cashier of
the hank ; Edward Nash, secretary of the lodge ; Davies
and Williams, stewards; and Bowles, the publican at whose
house it meets. The defence was the flagitious one used by
the miscalled benefit club meeting at the Dolphin, in Copen-
hagen-street, of this city, in poor Wixon's case—" That as
the society was not enrolled, it could not be made out; and
that Meek, being a member, had as much right as any other
to draw the money; that he could appoint, and in fact did
appoint, Forbes to assist him in receiving it As the lodge
,was no more than a corporation self-constituted, they could
not indict any person for felony, so no. fraud could on their
part be proved against the prisoners.' This case strongly
illustrates the caution we lately held out to provident per-
sons, about to join benefit societies, to inquire whether they
were duly enrolled under the new act; for it is clear, by the
circumstances above recited, that unless these societies take
shelter under the act, their members, individually and col-
lectively, will be subject to egregious villany and fraud..
SHIPWRECK OF A BELFAST VESSEL, AND LOSS OF ALL
ON BOARD.—We are sorry to announce the loss of the
schooner Montagnaise, Wilson, master, at Tory Island, on
the night of the 7th instant, on which occasion all on board
perished. The Montagnaise was the property of Mr. Hugh
Casement, of this town, and was 49 tons register. The fol-
lowing letter has been forwarded to the Collector and Comp-
troller of Customs, Derry
Innisboiitz, Coast Guard Station,pth January, 1842,
two o'clock, p.m.
" GENTLEMEN,—I have this moment received a letter
from the light-keeper of Tory Island 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 southwest point of that island, and, melan-
choly to relate, all hands 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,
our
Wobedient servant,
GLADERY, Lieut., R N "
—Ulster Times.

SHIRTS MADE FOR THREE FARTHINGS A PIECE.—TIe
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„—Chellen-
ham Journal.

SALE OF INDULGENCES FOR TREASONABLE PURPOSES.
—That indulgences have been 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, trom 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 to 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 Quarterly.
BIRMINGHAM, JAN. iriiteder+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 week, the 7th instant, but in sech 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 altogetber 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 in 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
chest, 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's 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 Steepen-
hill." The prisoner, on hearing the sentence, seemed
greatly distressed, and covered his faze with his hands'