The Press. — London, England, 1858-09-25 00:00:00

THE PRESS, SEPTEMBER 25, 1858. an investment or honourable and praiseworthy as a national undertaking, there is no fear of its meeting a most liberal support. Past years have given ex amples, usque ad nauseam, of the readiness of speculation which induces thousands to rush into ill-digested schemes of aggrandizement, and even to confide well-devised business to hands clever indeed, but not sufficiently honest to resist the temptation of no supervision. Authority sways the British public. They are always ready to follow men whom they recog nize as authority ; and it would almost seem as if bitter experience had not materially reduced their powers of gullibility in this respect. So there is no fear of the Great Eastern steamship being sold to Cherbourg. But it will require a proper amount of explanation for the public mind to realize the project proposed; and it looks well. She is not more than one fourth larger than our first-class steamers ; her capacity to carry double the proportionate tonnage at double velocity, and therefore her working expenses will be proportionably less ; and the computa tions of mechanical science, which have hitherto in successful praci ice demonstrated that increase of size has been attended with corresponding increase of speed and carrying power, leave no reason to doubt their cor rectness in this instance also. But there is another, and in our opinion a more important consideration :—This gigantic vessel is a monument of engineering and mechanical skill, which as a nation we have just reason to be proud of. With colonies and dependencies in every quarter of the habi table globe, both the rapidity and efficiency of such a vehicle as she affords for communication is really invaluable ;!and in the hope that, by this very simple and well-known expedient of calling upon a liberal public to endorse their approval of a scheme fraught with national honour as well as private profit, the object proposed will be; eventually realized, we heartily wish success to the movement. The New Yorkers have just accomplished a coup-d'Ctat in a small way, and a ft er their own peculiar fashion. They have not overturned an unpopular Government, but have burnt down some obnoxious Government buildings. On Staten Island for sixty years past had existed a Quarantine Establishment designed to protect the Empire City from the visitation of that disease which is to the Western Continent what the plague is to the Levant—yellow fever. Now, Staten Island stands towards New York n much the same position as the Isle of Wight to Portsmouth; and though considerably smaller than the Isle, is large enough to contain some pretty diversified scenery, and besides commands magnificent views of the Hudson and its adjacent shores. It has accordingly become a favourite site for the out-of-town residences of New York merchants. With the growth of the city these residences multiplied until at length they were regularly "built up" to the Quarantine Establishment, whose existence thenceforth became a nuisance to the highly-respectable inhabitants of the vicinity. Many propositions were made for its removal, but the difficulty was to find where to take it to. There was no available locality except Sandy Hook, a narrow " spit " of land running into the sea from the opposite bank, and therefore belonging to New Jersey. That State refused to cede the Hook to New York except upon exorbitant terms. For some years the States have been higgling and chaffering over the deal without result, the Federal Legislature as usual declining to interfere in the controversy. Meantime the Quarantine Establishment remained, and in spite of all precautions some taint of fever transpired through its walls into the fashionable districts around. The evil, of course, comes to its climax in the autumn, which is the fever " season." Tired of waiting for the State bargain-drivers, the New York population have this year taken the remedy into their own hands. On the first of the present month a mob attacked—not without warning—the establishment, and destroyed several sheds and out-buildings. Next day they resumed operations, the autho rities having adopted no preventive measure in the interval, and effec tually completed the work of destruction. Nothing remained on the morning of the 3rd, as the New York Herald states, but heaps of smoul dering ruins. This was not the worst. The establishment contained extensive hospitals, in which at the time were many sick patients of both sexes. These were treated with most abominable cruelty. They were ejected from their wards and placed on the bare grass beside the blazing edifice, and left all that night and during the following day with no shelter but a strip of canvas. Many are said to have died on the spot from fright and exposure. All this while the authorities never stirred a step. Some " Federal" policemen came down, but ostentatiously pro claimed that they should interfere only for the preservation of " Federal" property—of which there does not seem to have been any in the estab lishment. Here the matter remained when the last mail left. One or two per sons who had made themselves most conspicuous in the affair had bcen held to bail before the magistrates, but there was no prospect of any serious proceedings in consequence. It was, indeed, still uncertain whether the mob, being in the vein, might not attack something else. The chief anxiety felt among the general community, however, arose from a selfish fear lest the assailants of the Quarantine Establishment might have brought away the seeds of infection, and disseminated them throughout the city. Disgraceful as the incident is, it acquires still greater importance when viewed as the symptom of a disease which seems rapidly extending through the social system of the United States. Lynching appears really sporadic among the model Republicans. It is practised in California against felons and murderers • it exists in a state of chronic activity in the Slave States again s t suspected Abolitionists ; in the North it is employed to put down an un popular institution or an obnoxious establishment. An American mob is a highly genteel mob ; indeed, the present grievance was a highly genteel grievance ; but it is just as prone to " descend into the streets" as _the Paris sanseulottes in 1790, upon the slightest provocation. As a col lateralquestion, the event is likely to excite much discussion respecting the real utility o f Q uarant i ne as a s hi e ld aga i nst ep id em i c di seases. I n Eng land an opinion has become almost universal that the whole system is worse than useless. As Professor 0 WEN remarked in his inaugural address before the British Association on Wednesday:—" Quarantine exemplifies " only the first step in the progress of thought bearing on the prevention of some dreaded distemper. It is a system which might keep out contra- 925 " band goods or uncertified strangers, but is powerless against the gaseous " factors of plague, cholera, or yellow fever." " When somebody falls out somebody else gets their own," so runs the phrase. Now, we are far from applying the usual epithets to either of the parties in this case, but the lesson read by the late ruinous conflict of the powers that be is not difficult to read, nor the moral uninstructive. By gigantic strides the London and North-Western Railway has advanced over a country teeming with industrial populations abounding in wealth, and whose transactions of daily and hourly life are so complicated and immense as to stagger the belief of many a man who lives a quiet dreamy life in the nooks and corners of this small island of ours. No wonder Euston-square sways an army of 13,000 employ4s, and enjoys a princely, nay, an imperial, revenue, on which they are prepared to resist any en croachment. The traffic of Manchester is naturally a heavy item in this account, and accordingly when the Great Northern Company, by an adroit negotiation with the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Company, got a footing, they endeavoured by every means in their power to drive out such rivals from such a field. Then followed the usual train of evils— ruinous competition, carrying of passengers 400 miles for 55., endless law and Chancery proceedings, Parliamentary committees, and their infallible results, the squandering of thousands, and the low rate of dividend to the unhappy shareholders. Now we cannot entirely sympathize with these last-named gentlemen. We cannot help remembering the disclosures on Mr. HUDSON'S fall; the accounts rendered by Sir MORTON PETO and his co-directors of the North of Europe Steam Navigation Company ; the REDPATII forgeries of scrip ; and numberless instances where a proper supervision of their servants by the shareholders would have rendered a reckless dealing with the funds of the concern extremely difficult, if not impossible. The stake is so enormous—the capital of the London and North-Western amounting to thirty-five millions of money, and the Great Northern to not much less—and the interests at stake so momentous, that, setting aside the case of the shareholders altogether, the public cannot afford to see these gentlemen wear bone and sinew in a struggle which is sure to end in the fabled Gnouement of a like pug nacity in the case of the Kilkenny cats, for nothing is more certain that in some shape or other the costs of all these proceedings will have to come out of the pockets of this same public. Under these circumstances, and having these considerations in view, we are glad to see a tendency of late to more conciliatory measures. On the retirement of Captain HUISH, immortalized by Punch as one of the rival Curtii who impelled his pant ing engine into the yawning gulf of railway competition, the Directors of the London and North-Western have inclined to milder counsels, and we have reason to hope that their good example will be followed by the lesser constellations of the railway horizon. We have systematically—and, in deed, quite lately—pointed out the grave errors committed by the Legislature in not at the first controlling by regulations framed on wide and sound bases the various conflicting interests brought into irremediable contradiction by the different Acts of Parliament passed for particular companies and special purposes. However, they are the law of the land, and nothing can now be done but reconcile them as best we may. But clearly the proper as the first duty lies on the railway companies themselves so to regulate the enormous powers granted them as not to endanger them selves and each other, and ultimately by careful and judicious arrangement with one another to benefit the public at large, who arc their common master. And such we believe to be the feeling which has prompted the late arrangements at Euston-square, and in common fairness we feel bound to congratulate all parties on the first step in the right direction. The speech of Lord BROUGHAM at Grantham last Tuesday, on the inauguration of a statue to Sir IsAAc NEWTON, was worthy of that versatile genius. On the occasion of ceremonies of this kind, his Lordship sniffs the battle from afar. His knowledge is of that encyclopaedic character that he can always draw upon it for a popular harangue without fear of disappointment. In the whole circle of the moral and physical sciences he is perfectly at home. At poetry, painting, and the art of war, he glances with the eye of a master, his burden being throughout— Vixere fortes ante Agamemnon, and the course of his observations tending to illustrate the progressive character of all knowledge, and to show that the greatest discoverers have generally been preceded by experimentalists in the same path. Unfortunately, however, these comprehensive orations are apt to be deficient in real soundness. No reader or listener well versed in even the rudiments of logic or mental philosophy but would regret the Noble Lord's observations, for instance, on the subject of Lord BACON, whom he states to have " exploded the errors, the absurd dogmas, and fantastic subtleties of the ancient schools" —meaning, we suppose, " schoolmen." We should very much like an oppor tunity of asking Lord BROUGHAM what he meant by these absurd dogmas, and whether he had ever really given his mind to a serious consideration of what the old schoolmen were striving after. We confess we have our doubts upon the subject. It has been shown by COLERIDGE, we think with sufficient certainty, that there is nothing irreconcileable between the methods of BACON and ARISTOTLE ; and upon ARISTOTLE, of course, the theories of all the schoolmen were more or less based. Men of Lord BROUGHAM'S stamp of mind do mischief to the cause of true learning by these random statements, of which the present instance seems indeed somewhat incompatible with the general tenor of his discourse. Iris Lordship, however, is a relic of that generation which, in its eager crusade against exclusiveness, forgot the dangerous consequences of trying to give every one every kind of informa tion. His own vast abilities have, owing to this blunder, produced far less literary and philosophic fruit than they might have done ; while the great educational institution with which his name is principally associated already mourns over the error which fundamentally vitiates her teaching. The present generation, we believe, is wiser. And a growing conviction may be traced in the minds of our ablest men concerned in education that we must strive at less, if we would endeavour to gain more, than the preceding generation.