The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-04-05 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD

SIR.—If, in your next publication, you should have space which
could be devoted to this subject without excluding more important
matter, I shall feel obliged by the insertion of a few remarks.
It appears to me that nothing which stands in connection with mes-
merism or the magnetizers is more obvious than the fact that one
of the leading features of the business is stage display and effect;
and that the travelling professors who favour us with their visits
would seem to think that they cannot in any other way so com-
pletely convince their auditors of any assertion they may please to
make as by producing some extraordinary or shocking exhibition
in connection with it, apparently thinking that the truth of their
systems can only be demonstrated by the miracles they themselves
are able to work.
Opinions have been offered respecting the moral or non-moral
tendency of animal magnetism. On this subject, however, I would
rather be silent, having seen but few of such exhibitions. Those I
have witnessed would not induce me to think that the mesmeric
stage was better than any other.
Mesmerism appears to have met with much ill in Liverpool
of late, which may, perhaps, be partly attributed to want of power
iw the miracle workers who now introduce it,—they do not seem
to go sufficiently far; for those who have attended to the literature
of the subject, even as far as its teaching in Liverpool is concerned,
must be aware that they are little better than the shadows of their
predecessors in the last century. As a proof of the great difference
between that which is done now and the things done before, we
may introduce the following extract, which is the title-page of a
book, printed for the author, and entered in Stationer's Hall in
1792:
"---

"THE
GENERAL AND PARTICULAR PRINCIPLES

ANIMAL ELECTRICITY
AND
• MAGNETISM, &c.,

in which are found Dr. Bell's Secrets and Practice, as delivered to
his pupils, in Paris, London, Dublin, Bristol, Gloucester, Worcester,
Birmingham, 'Wolverhampton, Shrewsbury, Chester, Liverpool,
Manchester, &c. &c.
Showing how to magnetize and cure different diseases, to pro-
duce crises, as well as somnambulism, or sleep-walking; and in
that state of sleep to make a person eat, drink, walk, sing, and play
any instruments they are used to, &c. ; to make apparatus, and
other accessaries to produce magnetical facts ; also to magnetize
rivers, rooms, trees, and other bodies, animate and inanimate; to
raise the arms •or legs of a person awake, and to make him rise
from his chair ; to raise the arm of a person absent from one room
to another; also to treat him at a distance. All the new experi-
ments and phenomena are explained

MONSIEUR LE DOCTEUR BELL,
PROFESSOR OF THAT SCIENCE,
and member of the Philosophical Harmonic Society in Paris, Fellow
Correspondent of M. le Court de Geblin's Museum ; and the only
person authorised by patent from the first noblemen in France to
teach and practise that science in England, Ireiand, arc."
On the next page is found the " certificate" granted to Dr. Bell,
in Paris, in 1785, showing how he was admitted as a corresponding
member, and authorised to established " corresponding societies"
in Great Britain.
After looking carefully over the pamphlet of Dr. Bell, I think it
not improbable that Monsieurile Docteur, as he is pleased to call
himself on the title-page, had more important, and, perhaps, more
profitable business than magnetizing groves, or astonishing fish-
ponds, for, on the last page of the book we find the following :
" From these few experiments it is easy to conceive that any ani-
mate or inanimate body may be electrified or magnetized, which
you may please to call it ; that is to say, to increase an action
which it had not before. All these are upon the principles of the
learnel Dr. Mesmer, the first inventor as to the theory; any Inge.
nious mind may make one of his own (vide my new system of the
world) as to the effects which were known ten years ago. Never-
theless the pretended improvements made in this kingdom by some
modern practitioners are very wonderful, such -as, by fixing your
eyes (with attention, abstraction, intention, &c.) upon the heart of
a man, a horse, or a dog, you may kiil them instantly by stopping
the circulation of the blood according to Van Helmont ; and to sink
a ship at sea ; this would be an excellent thing for an admiral, and
to magnetize a sword which would kill his enemies a mile off, or
through a wall six feet thick, If I knew these improvements, I
would carry a magnetized sword lo Mons. de la Fayette, as a mem.
her of the Harmonic Society, but that lie may do more execution
with his own is my sincerest wish."
Whether Dr. Bell played any tragical, magnetical, or concealed
part in the French revolution or not is probably known to diplo-
matists, but he appears to have had very great undertakings.
He dedicates his book "To the ladies and gentlemen pupils of
my different classes," and afterwards remarks very wisely, "You
daily hear ignorance condemn what it cannot comprehend; and
those half-learned beings, who laugh at you and ine, and call them
impositions, because they do not strike their ideas ; neither will
they take the trouble of informing themselves of the truth. A
liberal-minded man—superior to prejudice—should investigate
matters before he passes condemnation ; but you, ladies and gen-
tlemen, who walk in a more enlightened path of life, and whose
education and birth place you high above vulyar prejudices, doubts,
and suspicions despise them, I hope, as you are convinced of their
fntility and uncharitable attempts." In short, the whole tenor of
the production is such as to render it a very valuable text-book for
any " compagnie ambulante" of magnetizers.
Dr. Bell appears to have thought that the art of cuing diseases
by animal magnetism was known in very early times, and deplores
the fact of its having been lost during so long a period. He says,
" I have myself been looked upon by many ignorant people in
France, England, and Ireland, as a magician, by putting several
ladies and gentlemen into somnambulism, or sleep-walking, and in
that state, having made them eat and drink, sing, and play upon
the harpsichord, or any other instrument they were used to, by
telling an unknown person their diseases, and prescribing for
them, &c." He adds, —lt would be too long to recite the names of
the ancients who have written on this subject ; I shall only mention
Flud, the Mosaical Philosophy, Tentagelinus ' • the art of curing by
sympathy; Paracelsus, so much known by his alkahestical tinc-
ture, &c., Digby, Friend, Maxwell, Musgrave, Lord Bacon, and
many more who have treated on that subject. Among the many
who are supposed to have performed cures by -touching was
Pyrrhus. King of Macedon, and Epirus, who used to touch his pa-
tients with his toe; the Emperor Vespasian, who performed many
cures by touching ; Edward the Confessor and Queen Anne used to
touch fcr the !scrofula, since their time called the King's evil.
Several kings in Europe have had that gift. Louis XVI., when
crowned, touched several patients, saying, the king tonclieth thee,
God may cure thee. It is since Philip the First, king of France,
that his successors have practised it. Valentine Greatrak, from
the county of Waterford, so much known, and called by Boyle the
" Stroker," cured many by touching, particularly the Duke of
Buckingham, and several of the first people in England. Dr.
Gasner, at Ratisbone, in 1774 made several cures."
This doctor did well to guard his pupils against credulity, while
he was engaged as their teacher, still better when he endeavoured
to show how easy it is for men to do supernatural things.
The pamphlet in question contains many other indications of
want of development in the animal magnetism of the present day ;
and as one item in the history of medicine, like many others, it
shows how great is the analogy found to have prevailed—and the
varying medical fashions of all time—for, amongst professors of
the art of healing, as in theology, nothing, it would seem, appears
to have been, now and then, too monstrous to assert ; experience
has been despised, and learning, at times, regarded as contempti-
ble, and vagaries as remarkable as those we now see existed in
Rome with the sectarians of Celsus. and in England were known
when our forefathers admired the practical acumen of Sydenham,
history
acquirements;
s,presents
euNs vrei tn inh t
s the
the
to most
flittingourn acute
oti
cv ea,roi be
we
eieenrsv may
-f
and could boast the erudition of Mead. As far as the chronological
edical
view of the matter is concerned, the greatest prejudiCe, supersti-
ttsiicooeonn,
scene which
and
ddi
eicxhtcredulityetohsi extensive
onwardr;
always find some trace of the features of one class of men, whether
in ancient times they were called followers of YEsculapitia,
or sons of Podalirius, and Madson, whether adherents of
Empedocles, or Democritus,— if to pass over in any like Greatraks,
they cure by touching, or if as on the magnetism of our days,
the hands and eyes were together employed, whether they have'
been called magnetists,allopathists, homeopathists, hydrophathists,
it matters not, they have been, and they are, those who while they
promise to cure the diseases of melts bodies, only treat the weakness
of their minds, for no sooner as any one of these systems of folly,
e"tgails this commuuication more
on the subject of Dr.
tedious
destroyed, than Phoenix-like a something more glaring arises from
the ashes of its destruction.
Had
useful,
—fra feaid, Inureovf renderdi
Bell's Pamphlet might have been given, for it is equally curious
Ithnaont
and amusing ; they may however be reserved for another occasion,
when I may also have an opportunity to state the result of my
own observations on individuals magnetized "in public as wel
as on those not previously prepared for exhibition.
Whether mesmerism be true, or whether it be not,—whether the;
peculiar nervous excitement of delicate and hysterical patients,
supplying pinenomena, said to be the result of the operation of a
general " law of the animal economy," is not taking the exception
for the rule,—and regarding indications of disease, as one set of
the features of health,—presenting to the notice of the credulous,
the wondering, and the curious—an assemblage of the human
frailties,—calling them by the mistaken name of powers; which-
everbe correct, I have no hesitation in affirming that—the
may
subject is ill fitted for public —f for stage exhibition, and is of all
others the last one could fairly have supposed would have been
introduced to the indiscriminate notice of men women and children ;
t I am disposed think we need nOst
_feear that the tbing will
ye
make much progress in this way, a th cost of admission will
presently tend to blunt the general curiosity, and make speculators

ray alert ; and In conclusion, we may be alkrwesito remark that
however disinterested some Mesmerists have been or may be, to a
few )ust now famous, the words of St. Paul would apply
Quite oportet ieclarqui, qui universos durrioaa—subvertuut,
docentes qua non oportet turps lucri grati3.

MEDICUS

Since the above letter, which: lathe production of a gentleman of
eminence in his profession, was in type, we have been favoured
by Mr. Hugh Neill (who, however, we may observe, is not our
correspondent " Medicos ") with a sight of the work alluded to.
—En. L. S.]

QUALIFICATION OF SHIPMASTERS AND MATES

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD,

SIR,—Two letters inserted in the Albion, signed " J.,''
have excited much attention ; permit me to offer one or two
remarks on them. The real opinions of." J." I cannot
make out, further than that he is decidedly against the for-
mation of, the proposed board; but whether he is against all
exertions for improving the situations and elevating the mo-
ral tone of our mercantile marine, I am unable to make out.
From his second letter I should say not; and if I am right
in so thinking, why does not " J." point out the defects of
the proposed bill, and suggest those improvements that he
may think it requires? Gentlemen who step forward with
pure motives, to render what they deem will be an essential
service to the country, should be met in the same honoura-
ble spirit, and not with vituperation.
The following extract from " J.'s " first letter, I think
every candid reader will allow, conveys a slur, which, though
it may be beneath the high-minded gentlemen it affects, to
notice, may not be out of the way for a humble individual
like myself to comment on :

" Let us see whether the proposed enactment is founded
on any thing like common sense, or where the argument lies
for special surveillance. In the first place, I can say from
experience, and I am certain I speak the experience of the
larger portion of respectable shipowners, that proper pay-
ments, proper inquiry, and the ordinary thinking that any
man ought bring to a business in which he has a right to ex-
pect he will succeed, leave shipowners using such means in no
difficulty about securing masters and mates competent in
every way. lf, however, a class of shipowners should not
bring such appliances to bear, what other result than failure
can be expected ? And the cause of failure in this is now
wished to be made different from the cause of failure in other
matters of business, namely to be transferred from the prin-
cipals to the servants, in oilier words, the masters and mates
to he punished in the place of the shipowners."
Now, sir, I, for one, require something more than assertion
before I can even entertain a suspicion of the honouroble dis-
interestedness of the
public-spirited gentlemen who have
stepped forward to carry out this noble measure; and when.
I seen attempt to think of the desire here imputed to them,
by J., of wishing to shift their responsibility to the shoulders
of their servants, it seems so ridiculous, that to give it seri-
ous attention is out of the question.
As for J.'s monthly or periodical examination into charac-
ter, I have read the printed rough•draft of the bill with much
attention, and have been unable to find it out.- I find a
clause, indeed, for depriving them of their certificates in case
of gross misconduct; but that could only come under the
cognizance of the board!(except in special cases of public no-
toriety) by the special complaint of their employers, Whose
servants the board will really be. They are to 'be erected by
them, and the same power can eject them. How, then, the
board can ever become the dictators of the shipowners, as J.
seems to imagine, I am at a lose to conjecture, unless, indeed,
the board should discover the longitude; and even then I
doubt the shipowners' gratitude will fall considerably short
of the surrender of their rights.
In J.'s second letter he asks this question—" What would
be said to a board being appointed to examine engineers, en-
gines, or axles on railroads, each time they start, to prevent,
as far as possible, the risk of accident, and loss of life ?" In
reply, I have to observe that this principle is acted on in the
navy, and the result has been most beneficial ' • and that so far
from the proposed examination reducing shipmasters and
mates to the level of ticket porters, as he assumes, its ten-
tency will be to elevate them in the scale of society with the
liberal professions; and I doubt not, in a few years, if this
great national measure is carried, f finding the honorary
distinctions of our scientific " societies" as prevalent among
the shipmasters as other denominations of gentlemen.
The fact is, Mr. Editor,_ that it is requisite for our mer-
cantile welfare, and national honour, (as I will endeavour to
shew in a future letter,) that our mercantile marine should
never in anything fall short of our rivals, who are striving
hard to outvie us. This measure will go a great way to pre-
vent such a catastrophe. Let, then, every patriotic heart
rally in remembrance of " by-gone days" of England's
fame, sound the supporters of this great and good measure
with their counsel and their influence, till it is firmly estab-
lished a monument that our enemies may fear and our country
for ever venerate.

In conclusion, Sir, I would with due humility suggest to
the framers of the proposed bill, the advantages likely to
accrue by giving the Board the power of investigating into all
cases of shipwreck.
1 remain, Sir, your obedient Servant,
B. W. TRACEY, Lieut. R.N.
Mates' Association, 11, Duke-street,
March 31st, 1812.
[We insert Lieut. Tracey's letter, without committing
ourselves as the advocates of either side of the question.

JUDICIAL DISCRIMINATION,

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL ST

SlR.—There are few exhibitions in life more imposing,
both in their aspect and their consequences, than the crim-
inal trials in our courts of justice ; and there are few positions
more honourable, and at the same time more responsible,
than the office of judge. The administration of justice in
England, civil and criminal,has for a long series of years been
so impartial, that men have a decided objection to question-
ing its decrees. It is, on the whole unexceptionable, and an
example fit to be imitated by all the other nations of the

world.
But uprightness of intention, profound learning, and years
of experience can never overcome the infirmities of nature;
and therefore it is no reflection upon the purity of the ermine
to say, that individual and isolate decisions or sentences are
either above or beneath the merits of the particular case. It
is with these feeling that, using the undoubted privilege of a
subject of England, I take leave to examine two sentences
passed upon two convicted prisoners at the present assizes,
by Mr. Baron Rolfe.
The cases came before the learned Baron in the Nisi Prius
court on Thursday last. In the first of them, a young per-
son, whose name I do not recollect, was indicted for having
wilfully and maliciously wounded (by stabbing) a horse, the
property of Mr. Entwistle)
hda .algogistiThe ate of the county, resid-
ing at Foxholes
aa' near Roc prisoner was commit-
d after he had been in prison nearly a month
e.
ted for trial,
he was admitted to bail by Mr. Justice Pattison. Mr. Baron
Rolfe after his conviction, sentenced the prisoner to one
month's imprisonment in Lancaster castle—a prison in which
the discipline is considered to be, at least, much severer than
Kirkdale, or any other house of correction in the county.
The horse which ~vas,stabbed by the prisoner was not mate-
rially injured, and at the time the offence was committed, tMr.
Entwistle was with his hounds trespassing, in violation of a
notice to the contrary, upon the farm lands of the prisoner's
father.
The second case was one of manslaughter—a very grave
crime in the eye of our law, for our law is more jealous of hu-
man life than the law of any country in Europe. I know well
that manslaughter is a crime the absolute degree of which is
to be estimated by circtimstances ; but still it is a branch of
our criminal proceedings that receives thegreatest investiga-
tion. The prisoner in this case was an ex-pugilist, a reformed
boxer, named Sampson, and lie was accused of having killed
a man named Ireland, by throwing him twice down upon the
flags of the causeway, opposite the door of his own (Samp-
son's) public-house. It was alleged, in extenuation, that the
deceased had used language of a disgusting nature towards
the wife and daughter of the prisoner; but whatever the lan-
guage was, it was not proved, and Mr. Baron Rolfe justly
remarked—that it would have been infinitely more satisfac-
tory if some evidence had been adduced in support of the
allegation. It was not, however ; nevertheless, the learned
judge gave the prisoner the benefit of it. The deceased died
in less than twenty-four hours after the violence had been in-
flicted upon him. The sentence on the prisoner was that he
should pay a fine of five pounds to the Queen.
These cases have suggested one or two considerations to
my mind which, without attributing any improper bias to
Mr. Baron Rolfe, I should wish to mention in your columns.
The first is the obvious disparity in the punishments directed
to be imposed for these offences. One case involved the
wounding of a brute animal, and the other the death of a
human being—a fellow-creature. The man that would stop
to make a comparison between the value of the two I shall
not allow myself to describe ; but as Mr. Baron Rolfe, in
administering the law, has apparently invited a comparison
between the two degrees of punishment, it may be worth
while to make it. _ . _

Mr. Entwisle's horse was not permanently injured; and
at the time it was injured he was in the commission of an
unlawful act, by trespassing upon another's land. Ireland's
life was sacrificed to the unrestrainable vengeance of the
moment for using offensive expressions ; for which any other
but a man of ungovernable anger would have contented him-
self with calling in the police ; and if that bad been so, Mr.
Rushton would have dealt with the offender as he deserved.

Unfortunately, the man's life was the penalty he paid for
his offence. _ _ .

Who will say, under these circumstances, that two months'

imprisonment for wounding a horse is a just punishment, if
five pounds are sufficient to wipe out the guilt of killing a
man ? The disparity is too apparent to be enlarged upon.
Another consideration which these cases have suggested, is
the effect of pecuniary punishments, so to speak, for such
weighty offences against life as manslaughter. Merely to
fine a convicted party is not to punish him, especially if he
can afford to pay ; and I apprehend that the original object
in prescribing punishments was imprisonment. I have no
objection—on the contrary T think it highly salutary, because
the tender point is reached by it, for tine and imprisonment
go together; but I do protest against nominal fines being
imposed for such offences as manslaughter.
In short, my high regard for Mr. Baron Rolfe's character
for just intentions and for impartial administration of the
law, cannot alter my opinion that in these two cases he has
not sufficiently discriminated the circumstances of each.
Sampson has, at least, escaped remarkably easy ; but Mr.
Entwistle has the enviable satisfaction of thinking that the
offender against him will have been confined nearly twice as
long as his horse was, and that although the case of the
horse was not sufficiently important to call in the aid of a
veterinary surgeon to the animal, the accused felt his liberty
sufficiently important to him to spend not far short of twenty
pounds in endeavouring to obtain it,—besides making an
abject apology.—l have the honour to be, sir, your obedient
servant, PEN SATO RE .
Great George street, April 2.

Mr, Charles Pearson, the city solicitor, is likely to be tip-
Pointed town-clerk of London. There are many candidates
for the former situation.
Several Irish families are already on the move from
England, to avoid a FoPert!, tax.
The other day, at Oxford, a man was tried for stealing a
bee-hive. The hive was produced in court, covered with a
white napkin ; in order to be identified by its marks, but on
account of its being tilled with bees, the jury did not venture
to examine it, and the man was acquitted for want of evidence.
The number of bodies thrown on the coasts of France,
from Boulogne to Dunkirk, in consequence of the storm of
the 10th inst., amounts, says the Courrier du Nord, to 150
CONVICTION' FOR MURDER, AND SUICIDE OF THE CON•
VICT.—At the Mold (Flintshire) assizes on Friday, Robert
Pierce, aged 24, was indicted for attempts to murder his wife
by the administration of arsenic. Ile was found guilty and
sentenced to death. On the following morning, when the
gaolor entered the condemned cell of the convict in the Cas-
tle of Flint, he was found suspended by the bars above the
door. The body was nearly cold when discovered, and it is
judged that he had been dead some time. It appears that
he formed a noose of his braces, and having attached them
to his neck and fastened them to the bars, he placed his
feet upon an earthenware utensil and a Bible, which he
kicked away, and thus left himself hanging. The unfortu-
nate man confessed to having committed the crime for which
he was convicted, on the night after his condemnation.
Another "delicate affair" came before one of the police-
offices, Dublin, on Saturday. Mr. F., a gentleman of pro-
perty, charged Miss M., a lady, with a conspiracy to rob his
house. The prosecutor did not appear to support the charge.
Miss M. then explained, that Mr. F. had been paying his
addresses to her,
when she found that he was already mar-
ried, and broke off the intercourse. He then proposed to
settle £l,OOO -ayear upon and to marry her after his wife's
death, should that occur within a certain period, upon con-
ditions which she indignantly repelled ; and in revenge he
instituted the present accusation. The lady was discharged
from custody.

SOUTH LANCASHIRE ASSIZES.

CROWN COURT. -rill D AY.
Mr. Justice Parke took his seat ou the beach at nine