The Express.
London, England, 1866-07-30 00:00:00

BROGVEN'S GOLD GUARD CHAINS.

.41j9_1

JOHN BIiOGDEN'S GOLD ALBERT CHAINS.

JOHN BROGDZN'S GOLD BROOCH CHAINS.

BENSON, J. W., by SPECIAL APPOINT
MENT to MILL Ui. Primo of WAIL&

BENSON, J. W., PEE MEDAL, LONDON,

BENSON, J. W., PRIZE MEDAL, DUBLIN.
Ors It

LLERY for BRIDAL PRE-

BENSON'S GOLD JEWELLERY for XOURN-
INO.

BENSON'S DIAMOND JEWELLERY.

BENSON, OLD BOND-STREET, and WEST-
BOLTILNEOZOVZ.

BENSON'S STEAM FACTORY, Ludgate-hill.

TIIRTLE, TURTLE, TURTLE.
clear TWA. and Invalid TURTLI SOUPS always seedy.
ST. Maws -BALL, siommarisir, mamma.
W DONALD, Preddididc

gilt erpretio.

wvertbersonis InlZdad tor "-III; l--tin" Lanka Ivombir
mTager od be at the Mos, 10, vorloolrost, by Two
ddod on do cbky of publkoilon.

lAYMAIKIL

Taus Enn•nW TEI BALANCE 0100X101T. Mr. Howe
and Miss Ada Osswedish.—THE POOL GENTLEMAN. Mr.
Compton Mrs. Cldppeadalm—BOl AND COI. Mr. Backstone
mad Mr. Compton.—And THREE WILMS ATTER MABILLAGL

PETNCINIf&
TICS EVENING, TEI lIIIGUINOT CAPTAIN. Merry wining.
sad G. Homy • Yam NeGoon, Augusta Mama, and am
Gar ling—And QUIET LODGING&

BRITANNLIL
TNte 2•1111110, THE JOLLY DOOB OF LONDON; OR, TWO
ROADS OF LIFL—MIor 14416 Loaner, Her Barman, C. Brown.
and Mader R Sendorn—Asd THE DUSTMAN'S TREASURE ;
OR, WZOG AND TEI HOFIMUL

HIGH WATIR AT LONDON MUM
TIM DAT —Maining. Ma. 40m Afternoon, 3h. MM.
TO-110A1M1P—Memilag. 41t. 17m Afternoon, Mi. Mm.

LONDON, MONDAY, JULY SO.

IT must be acknowledged that we have borne
with much sobriety the temptation to be
jubilant over that great triumph of human
skill and enterprise, the successful laying of the
Atlantic cable. It is not unlikely that as a
physical marvel this wonderful instrument will
gain upon our imagination as we have daily oppor-
tunities of reflecting on the benefits it procures;
but we are not in a situation to be affected on the
moral side of our nature, as we should have been a
few years ago, by the opening of instantaneous
communication between the New and Old Worlds.
We have been taught by sad experience to form a
juster estimate of the limits within which civiliza-
tion is to be advanced by material agencies than
we once held, and it was scarcely necessary for
a weekly contemporary to warn the daily journals
on Saturday that perhaps after all the millennium
had not come. We no longer hail in our Inter-
national Exhibitions tho certain pledges of per-
petual peace. Since the first Atlantic cable was
laid a terrible civil war has shown that the nearest
social ties, and the most weighty interests, and
the closest habits of intercourse, may fail to con-
stitute this security. The good news from New-
foundland finds us wondering more and more at
the effects upon the happiness of mankind which
seem likely to follow the work of the needle-gun.
In this mood we are more likely to undervalue
than overrate the worth of the Atlantic cable as an
international bond of peace. For, after all,
it is true that everything which brings commu-
nities into nearer connexion with each other, and
establishes a communion of benefits between
them, does work for peace. We may go further,
and affirm that, whatever makes men
know one another better has the same tendency.
This world is not so constituted that increasing
knowledge involves increasing repulsion. There
are eternal relations established between light and
love which, incessantly disturbed and interrupted,
are for ever seeking renewal. In this faith let us
go on multiplying French treaties, cheapening
ocean postage, and laying new submarine cables,
assured that in so doing wo are not only promoting
the interchange of commodities, but really and
• truly binding man to man.
The Atlantic cable is a sign and a monument as
well as an organ of the civilization of our age. We
see in it gathered up and completed the results of
the wonderful group of mechanico-chemical sci-
ences, combined with a triumphant feat of en-
gineering. The most penetrating and sagacious
minds of this and the two last generations have
toiled patiently in order that we might be able to II
triumph over space, and speak, as friends with I
friends, to brethren in another hemisphere. Con- I,
fident that in the ordination of Providence no
knowledge is really worthless, no honest search for
it vain, OERSTED has experimented, and
Ammo generalised, and FARADAY disoo-
vered in the region of electrical and mag-
netic inquiry, freely giving up the fruits
of their labours to be adapted by other skilful men
to the wants and uses of mankind. They could
not foresee, and they did not ask to be able to
foresee, the infinite applications which might be
made of the truths they found out, when,
operating upon the facts which had accumu-
lated in the course of experience, they ascer-
tained the relations which bound them together,
and when, declaring the laws of those relations, they
organised knowledge and raised it into science.
It is well at such a moment as this we should not
forget what the disinterested man of science, work-
ing alone and accepting truth as his greatest re-
ward, is constantly doing for society. But there
are others whose claims to admiration are nearer
and more obvious. When Curwins discovered
the properties of the Leyden jar, and the electric
shock which it produced was an object of curi-
osity and terror—Muscamrsaoss declaring that
he would not take a second one for the kingdom
of France—Bozs magnanimously wished that he
might " die by such a shock, and have the cir-
" cumstances of the experiment recorded in the
" Memoirs of the Academy." Professor Baca-
MAN, without having made any formal vow,
was killed in the course of an electrical expe-
riment. Sacrifice and risk have not in this instance
taken that appalling form. It is the estate
rather than the body that we place in peril, and
it is well known that considerable fortunes have
been ventured in this undertaking. It is very
easy for bystanders to say that in such en enter-
prise it would be criminal to yield to discourage-
ment ; but it must be remembered that at-
tempts to lay a working Atlantic cable, reckoning
from the first endeavours to form a company, have
extended over twelve years, and have been at-
tended with losses and disappointments that might