The Press.
London, England, 1857-10-31 00:00:00

accompany the development of the " parts "
of society. There would then ever be a grow-
ing instead of a decreasing disparity between
the standards of right and wrong current in
the world; whereas, nothing but a gradually
increasing uniformity would realise the visions
of the progressionist.

There is real thought and great argu-
mentative skill here evinced both in
attack and defence ; but the subject is
of course too extensive to enter upon in these
columns. We cannot lift the veil of futurity,
and in default of that have nothing but the
evidence of the past to guide us. Now, people
will never be brought to weigh this in the
scales of pure reason Either an unconquer-
able innate leaning will sway a man to the one
side or the other, or education or associa-
tion will have done its work in determining
his choice. We have the facts before us.
Certain virtues and certain vices are charac-
teristics of a rude age—certain others of a
civilised age. Which we may consider the
better and th 3 worse depends on a variety of
causes over which reason has little control.
Who shall determine whether the shopkeeper's
serf of the nineteenth century is or is not an
improvement on the gentleman's serf of the
thirteenth century? Who shall decide be-
t oveen Robin Hood and Leopold Redpath ?
If one was charitable, so was the other; if ono
was hospitable, so was the other—" he gave
" excellent dinners," said a nobleman. If one
was brave, so after his own fashion was the
other. The lawyer will prefer Mr. Glossin,
and the soldier will prefer Dirk Hatteraick, to
the end of time. We 'cannot help fancying
that the happiness of the world in the aggre-
gate has been pretty much the same in all ages;
and that the painful contrasts between classes
—generating as they do envy, discontent, and
vice—the rupture of sympathies between em-
ployers and employed—arid the physical
horrors attendant upon over-crowded cities—
are, to say the least, a fair set-off against the
sufferings of the poor in former times, whether
from pestilence, famine, or oppression.
The concluding section of this volume is
ingenious and readable, but to discuss it at
any length would draw us beyond the limits
within which we are necessarily confined.

The Atlantic Telegraph. A Descriptive History,
published by Order of the Directors of the
Company. London : Jerrold and Son.
A SHORT time previous to the late attempt to
lay a telegraph cable between Ireland and
Newfoundland. the directors of the Atlantic
Telegraph Company, formed to carry out this
gigantic undertaking, sanctioned the prepara-
tion of the pamphlet ab we named, which we
recommend CO our readers as explaining in
detail the various difficulties encountered, and
to some extent overcome, in the recent at-
tempt to connect England and America by the
electric chain. Throughout the whole pam-
phlet the reader must, of course, bear in mind
that it is written by the advocates of a com-
mercial enterprise, who are naturally enthu-
siastic about it, and record their impressions
as they receive them—that is to say, with all
points favourable to their views in relief.
The first question to be decided was the
practicability of sending an electric current
through an insulated wire upwards of 2,000
miles in length. The cables manufactured in
1855 for Newfoundland and the Mediterra-
nean—both afterwards lost—furnished an
opportunity for trying experiments through
1,146 miles. The time occupied by the trans-
mission of the electrical influence had to be
measured, and for this purpose Mr. White-
house invented a most ingenious instru-
ment :

The basis of this scrutinising instrument is a ribbon of
chemically-prepared paper (like the one already described),
unrolled from a drum by clockwork ;—receiving instru•
ments which make local batteries print on the ribbon by
short circuits when magnetically directed to do so;—and
seconds pendulum vibrating in such a manner that it sends
an electrical current opposite ways along the wire under
examination at each beat, or half vibration, a result which
is brought about by the following arrangement. The pen-
dulum itself hangs upon a pivot, which is one of the poles
of au electrical battery, but is prolonged upwards into a
sort of crest, that touches a spring right and left as it
sways to and fro. The springs, when at rest, press upon
a pillar lying between them, ichich is the other pole of the