The Express.
London, England, 1858-08-09 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, MONDAY EVENING, AUGUST

Surely the neurity for all these electrical roads,
along which the travellers must ilways pass usingle
file however rapid their miirch,,ig"indict
direct and independent submarine jpotaunkatif
with the Mediterranean is as issitiplast in.. oak
mercial u it is imperstire ia t political point of
view. P• • g••

IQ many ways we English are behindhand in
Telegraphy. We use signals and instruments in
?..ngland superseded throughout Europe and Ame-
rica. Telegraphy is far more expensive in England
than it ought to be—either for the interests of those
who use the Telegraph, or those who derive their
dividends from it. Switzerland has her uniform
twit of one frau for every mirage throughout
her boundary. Twelve shillings is the cost of sending
a single message of twenty words from England to
Trieste—a distance of about 1,670 English miles.
The charge of eonveying this message from England
to the Continent is tire shillings; so that the foreign
charge for more than 1,300 miles is only seven shillings.
The adoption of proper instruments, the multiplica-
tion of lines of communication, and the reduction of
charges ought to work as great a reformation in the
present state of English Telegraphy as ROWLAND
Him, worked in the Post-office by the introduction
of the penny postage system. The penny post and
the money order office are valuable hints by which
telegraphists might profit, and with advantage to
the oomenurity at large as well as to themselves.
Such an invention as that of Professor HI:011211'
Printing Telegraph shows how the Telegraph may
be improved both in the speed and the accuracy with
which messages can be conveyed. It also dis-
penses with the necessity of a copying clerk. The
message being printed simultaneously at both
stations, the copy at the near station may be kept
by the Company for reference, while the distant one
can be immediately sent to its destination. Won-
derful as arc the capabilities of such au instrument
as this, we are by no means disposed to regard it as
the limit of mechanical adaptation and ingenuity.
There will be little encouragement for inventors
if the Telegraph Companies are careless of adopting
improvements, and trust rather to monopoly than the
advancement of the public interests.

We believe that a direct submarine line, passing
through no foreign land but the narrow isthmus of
Suez, to India is • political necessity which cannot
be disregarded. The submerging of the Atlantic
cable shows the practicability of accomplishing this
work. scarcely less important for commercial than
for political considerations. Two thousand miles of
cable can be laid down in the depths of the Atlantic
in a week. It will be a disgrace to English enter.
prise and statesmanship if another year passes with-
out an Electric Line, which can readily be guarded
from the attack of every possible human foe, being
extended from England to her Indian Empire.

THERE is one class of Englishmen to whom
Cherbourg has loug been as familiar as Cowes.
Our yachtsmen who annually " lay in a stock" over
the water, are as much at home within the Diyue as
in the Solent or Plymouth Sound. The beautiful
craft of the Royal Yacht Squadron, and the
other clubs, have been, for many years, at
least as familiar to the eye of a Cherbourgeois
as a French line-of-battle ship. And at the late
festivities the yachts of private English gentlemen
were the most remarkable feature in the sea view.
They covered the water for miles, and the ships of
war were lost amid the crowd. This passion for the
sea, which is common to all classes of Englishmen,
would lead now, it need were, to the same results as it
did in the days of ELIZABETH. As the Armada stood
up Channel, from every river and harbour on the
English coast issued the private vessel, of the
nobility and gentry, to aid the Royal Navy by
hanging on the enemy's flanks, distracting his
attention, and picking off stragglers. The gentry
who now-a-days own our yachts, and the crack sea-
men they employ, could, in like manner, cover the
sea with effective privateers if we were to be engaged
in a naval war. to-morrow. We need no Chan-
nel Squadron to remind the inhabitants of Cherbourg
that the sea is a second country to Englishmen, and
that if the goal of a Parisian sickens at such an
" eccentricity," it is the delight of English gentle-
men to brace their energies by battling with the
wave and the breeze. It would be difficult to ewes-
ass the effect on a Frenchman's mind of such a epee-
tacle as the fleet of English yachts which has been
manceuverieg in Cherbourg Roads. Screw line-of-
battle ships and frigat es, huge commercial steam-ships
—these are the commonplaces of maritime power and
enterprise ; • pleasure navy is its poetry and
romance. A national sport, which maintains • fleet
of hundreds of the finest craft, and supplies a nursery
for thousands of the smartest seamen in the world,
is the sport of • race from which the sceptre of the
sea kingdom cannot be wrenched.

With the exception of our yachtsmen, however,
Cherbourg was until now almost a terra ignota
to English travellers. Boulogne, Calais, Havre, and
Dieppe have become almost as familiar sounds to
the English ear as Brighton, Dover, Folkestone,
and Hastings ; Caen and Avranehes are British set-
tlements, and St. Melo is the usual continuation of a
trip to the Channel Islands ; the valley of the Seine
is favourite ground for our ramblers afoot; but
Cherbourg, with all its early historical associations,
common to the two nations, and surrounded by a
rural landscape as soft and rich as an English county,
has been left undone by the indefatigable followers of
Mr. XIX% r. Few Frenchmen even have known more of
Cherbourg hitherto than a Bedfordshire yeoman may
be supposed to know of Pembroke or Sheerness. To
the enlightened Parisian, Cherbourg was (by report)
a dockyard and a naval arsenal, and, for the rest, a
dull, out-of-the-way, hole-and-corner provincial town,
which no man in his senses not professionally obliged
to go down to the sea in ships would ever dream of
exploring. French navel men regarded Cherbourg
much as English nasal men regard Sheerness—as a
sort of postscript to creation, specially designed by
the Providence of naval affairs for fitting out and
paying off ; but totally irreconcileable with civilised
human existence. In truth, under ordinary circum-
stances Cherbourg was as uninteresting and unin-
viting a spot as the most disgusted of sightseers in
march of ennui could desire to live aid die in. Even
ea a naval port, it always seemed to be neglected and
forgotten. Neither in the dockyard nor in the roads
was there any approach to the stir and animation of
Brest or Toulon. Besides these ordinary guardships,
you would see for weeks and weeks a mere brig,
with perhaps a steamer or two, abreast of the
breakwater ; the appearance of a third or
fourth pendant was quite an event. For the ,
unhappy officers and crews on the station, a run
ashore was a poor escape from the dreary round of
drumming, and heasswork, and piping perpetual,
afloat. Yet, if the officers and crews grumbled at
the dead or live depression of the tows, the citizen',
it must be teemed, returned the compliment with
interest, and grumbled without ceasing at the cruel
Indifference and neglect to which they were cal-
-1 dunned by every suceesslve Ministry of Marine.
The Preeest Ignperial Goveromeet enjoys a we op-
portunity et winning the hearts of the citizens of
Catelbourg, by simply sparing them a ship or two
from the Reese and Toulon divisions of the fleet.
The completion of the railway from the capital

cannot fail to give a new life to the old town.
Hotels and cafés may be expected to spring up.
Inst of a kim,:pral odieere, loalthlt•Of they
w up ill ary, a scot* of eoloaik and
su playin dominos in listless deligiikon,
and a firtt melancholy tradesmen Icpt in a number of
dejesiid ieactionailes, 'there wlll ` llsi Teen al active,
hopeful, and thriving population moving through
gay and busy streets. Instead of a steamer and a
brig, looking as if they were in perpetual quaran-
tine, a squadron of ab leastlialf a dozen pendants
will give animation to the sea-view. English holi-
day-makers, tired of the eoujours porelriz of the old
familiar French watering places, will flock to the
rising town, and in the tribute brought by these
visitors the townsmen will find an ample com-
pensation for the gains of the smuggling trade, which
was sure to flourish whenever France and England
were at loggerheads, and which is now irrevocably
a thing of the past. Cherbourg will awake some
morning and find itself not only famous, but
fashionable.