The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1851-12-02 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

GENERAL NEWS.  MISCELLANEOUS NEWS.  A large Protectionist meeting is announced to be held in London on the 12th December.  The French papers ;ttY;7l;;i'Lord Brougham, in his retreat at Cannes, is preparing for publication a work entitled " France and England before Europe in 1851." The steam-ship Demerara was safely removed, on Saturday, into Cumberland Basin, at Bristol, preparatory to being placed in the dry dock for the necessary repairs. On Tuesday, at one of the metropolitan police-courts, a girl, twelve years of age, was committed for working an illicit still.  A supplementary charter has been granted to the royal commissioners of the exhibition of 1851, authorising them to dispose of the surplus in their hands. The Duke of Northumberland has given orders for the construction of no less than a thousand new and comfortable dwellings for the labourers on his grace's estates in Northumberland. At the rent-day of the Duke of Portland for his extensive estates, held at Morpeth, on Thursday last, his grace's agents were directed to return 32 per cent. of the rentals of the tenantry.  Alfred Walker, a student at Cambridge, was in the Insolvent Court last week. His debts were £4,100, of which £3,500 arise from bets on horse-racing, billiards, and from bills.  A middle-aged woman, of ladylike appearance, whose husband is said to be one of the chief clerks in the Bank of England, has been committed for trial for stealing five squares of soap from a shop at Hoxton. Nearly three quarters of a million sterling appear, according to the advertisements in the London journals, about to be raised for Californian and Australian Quartz Rock-Crushing Companies. A new dock, having an area of about ten acres, is to be opened for general business at Southampton this week, the preliminary step of gradually letting in the water having commenced on Tuesday. On Thursday evening the Earl of Shaftesbury addressed a meeting of delegates from the factories of Ashton-underLyne, Staleybridge, and the neighbourhood, in the townhall of Ashton-under-Lyne. The room was crowded.  One of the signs of a hard winter are the incendiary fires, which are becoming very frequent in the country. Three weeks have presented lists respectively of twenty, fourteen, and eleven, or a total of forty-five recorded within that short period. The Duke of Newcastle has ordered his tenants on the Clumber estates to kill the hares, and he only intends to preserve the birds for his own use. Besides this boon, the whole of the Clumber estates are being revalued, and sundry repairs are progressing upon various farms. The papers announce large flights of woodcocks and other unusual signs, indicating a hard winter ; but a more fatal one occurred in Norfolk last week, where a travelling tea-dealer perished from cold on his way from Dorking to Creake.  Notice was issued on Saturday, at St. Paul's Cathedral, that the public will only be admitted on Sundays during the morning and afternoon services, and on other days from eight a.m. till four p.m. (gratis), the same as Westminster Abbey.  Three grocers of Northampton have been fined for having spurious tea in their possession ; the fines in one case amount to hundreds of pounds, with the alternative of a twelvemonth's imprisonment in default ; in the other two cases the tradesmen will be sent to prison for six months if they do not pay their fines. On Saturday, an inquest was held at Leicester on the body of Mrs. Caroline Vesey Gillden (daughter of Major Dawson), who committed suicide by swallowing a large quantity of essential oil of almonds.. She had formerly held a high position in society, but was unable to face destitution, to which she was reduced.