The Express.
London, England, 1855-05-19 00:00:00

A SHORT METHOD WITH THE RUSSIANS.

EVERT third man you meet now-a-days either has
himself, or is excited about a friend who has, some
great invention in knapsack', bullets, guns, "hells, or
other more powerful engines of war. All the world
is set upon destroying Russians, and the more ardent
and inventive of these destroyers have plane for
blowing Sebastopols or Cronstadts off the earth or
out of the water with little cost and no loss of life to
ourselves, but the wholesale dispersion into speed
the Muscovites and Muscovy. Of these inventor,
of portable Vesuvivass Captain WARNER was an
eminent example, Lord DUNDONALD is use, sad
an eccentric Apostle of universal peace and goodwill
promises to be another. We mean Mr. Roust
OWEN, who at the close of a meeting the other day
for inaugurating a universal social millennium pro.
dated drawings and plans of his Devastator, an ss•
ilas of the Vesuvian nature above referred to. This
esatrivance would seem to owe its origin to ths
brains of • peace Apostle with about the same pre
priety as the elastic rod loaded at both ends is called
a " life preserver." Everybody, i. e. every English
man—except the twenty Bright men of the Mancha*
school, and some few infatuated oligarchs—wilha
to destroy the Russian power. Now, some ma
are perfectly convinced that they have iambi
engine; which would do this work—if they tea
only get money and other facilities for bringing thin
inventions into operation. Here, then, we bate
supply and demand. A few persons have—for short•
nese, we will say—Vesuvinsee to sell: everybod/
wishes that &Vesuvius should be employed, if a rod one
can be found. The only agent of everybody is the
Government, and in war the Government is the only
prime dealer. Therefore in the end the case Mende
thus : the Government wants a Vesuvius, and Lord
DIINDONALD offers one. The Government cannot
buy a pig in a poke ; how, and at whose expense, LI
the reality or genuineness of the Vesuvius to to
tested?

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The ordinary, and upon the whole by far the bats
method in which the Government deals with an in.
ventor, is to grant him the sole right to manufacture
his invention for a certain number of years upon the
condition that he so fully describes it that at the end
of that time it may be freely enjoyed by the public;
the inventor himself being in the mean time at the
cost and labour—severe enough in most crier-of
bringing it into use. If the particular invention is of
a nature to be used by the public generally, do
inventor does his best to get some trade
manufacturer, or engineer, to take it fl?
And a very difficult task he has before him. It is do
fashion to talk of the enterprise of engineers and
manufacturers; and no doubt very enterprising WAY
are, in any matters that tend to add to their own re.
nown or wealth; but they, like the rest of this wok -
a•day world, are too busy to investigate the merit!
of anything that does not immediately concern their
own particular specialit4. We speak advisedly whoa
we say that no persons, as a elan, are more odes:
tifisaliy ignorant of, or have less faith in, in'
ventions out of their own immediate line thin
' engineers. If, on the contrary, the invention
relates to the special work of an engineer or moo*