The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-04-09 00:00:00

47-
NORTHERN TIMES.---T Ivir?rrOOL Ti _ll
J„4 v 9

Detroit Ecclesiastique Francais," by M. Dupin—a
condemnation to which 60 bishops adhered,

proves that the telegraphic despatch given in a
London journal, of the departure of the Sardinian
Minister at thP. Austrian Court was erroneous. The
arquis de Cantono, although he 1164 broken off all
official relations, will remain here for the rest of the
Spring. Probably before the period for his depar
ture arrives some arrangement may be come to.
A despatch from General Martini, the rAustrian
arnbasador at Naples, confirms the statement that
the court of the 'Two Sicilies is More and more
diSposed to make ad%vancee toWarde the re-eStab-
liiehment of diplomatic relations with the Western
oWers. The construction of the building for the
Industrial Exhibition of 1859 is to be commenced
in a few days. It will be situated near the
Schwartzenberg Garden.

miiiinery, and tano attieles are included in the
reduction on imnorted goods, which in most cases
may be calculated at about 50 per cent , > n itnport-
ant conSideration both for manufacturers and
consumers. Great redUctiOns are also made in
the export duties on raw sillth ; but thoSe on linen
rags, woollen rags, and bones are increased.
The royal visitors expected for the Easter cere•
monies are beginning to arrive. The Count o'
Syracuso, brother of the King of Naples, got here
on the goth ult., acid had an affectionate interview
with his noliness on the following day. The Grand
Duke Constantine and the Grand DUcbess Olga of
Russia are to arrive on Saturday, Next week is
fixed for the entry of the Empress Dowager, and
the royal circle is to be completed by the presence
of Prince Charles of Prussia, and the artistical ex
King Lonis of Bavaria. Other accounts defer the
arrival of the imperial party until after Easter.

structors) are responsible for the efficiency of their
men, to acquaint themselves with this most impor-
tant part of the soldiet's training by careful study
of the book of regulations, by giving their personel
superibitendence to the drill and practice of com-
panies tinder the instructor, and by availing them-
selves of the assistance and information to be
derived on the subject from the district inspectors
of musketry at their periodical visits : and his
Royal Highness looks to general officers of districts,
divisions, and brigades to see that all do their duty
in this as on every other head of service.
"All serjeant majors of infantry are to go through
the course at the school of musketry, and those at
home are to be held in readiness to proceed to
Hythe on the next relief of detachments
" This order is to Ire read to . the assembled
officers of infantry regiments, depot battalions, and
depot. ' "By command,
"G. A. WETLIERALL, Adjutant dcacral.4

An order has been received at Portsmouth for
expediting, by night and day work, the gun-boat
flotilla ordered for China.

The Transit iron steam troopship, Commander
Ennis Chambers, wont to Spithead on Monday
night, and left on Tuesday for China, with the
troops before reported.
On Tuesday the head-uarters, staff, and two
troops of the 31 (Prince of Wales') Dragoon Guards.
commanded by Col. J. D. Dyson, arrived at Cha.
tham from ttublin, under orders to proceed to Can-
terbury Barracks, where this regiment is to be
stationed. The following officers also arrived with
_the head quarters—viz., Capt. H. Marsh, Lieut. C
B. Mi viTle, Lieiit H. W. Berkeley, Cornet G. R
Rawlinson; Cornet and Adjutant J Dan, and
Assistant Surgeon,C. J. White. The 3rd Dragoon
Guards to relieve the 11th Hussars, removed to
Hounslow.

The Minx steam vessel, Lieut. Roe coinnianding,
has arrived at Spithead from the West Coast
of Africa station. She left Ascension on the 3rd
ult., and Sierra Leone on the 27th. She has
been exceedingly healthy the whole term of her
service on the coast. She has been sixty miles up
the river Lagos, settling the disputes with King
Koski. She brought a small mail. She left at
Ascension the French men of war Dragon and
Phlegethon ; at Sierra Leone the British steam
men of war Medusa, 4. Cote. Baby ; Trident 6,
Corn. F. A. Close; Hecla, 6, Corn. Aplin ; and
Insolent gunboat, the latter repairing her boilers ;
with the French war steamers Jean d'Arc and
Euphrates. The Minx brought home as passen-
gers Mr. Sturdee, Master R.N. of II M.S. Tortoise ;
and Mr.•Yoting, Assistant Paymaster of ditto.

The -screw steamship Jlmes Watt, 91, Captain
T. V. Anson, and the screw steamship Nile, 90,
Captain G.-N. Mundy, which arrived on Sunday
from Portsmouth, were inspected on Monday in
Plymouth Sound by Port Admiral Sir Win. Parker.
Both their crews are to be paid off.
The screw steam gunvessel Nimrod, 6, Captain
Roderick Dew, arrived at Plymouth on Sunday
with mails for China. .

The paddle wheel steam vessel Dee, 4, Master
Commander T C Pullen, left Plymouth, on Mon-
day. with supernumaries for the eastern yards.
The screw steam gun vessel Surprise, 4, Corn
mander S Cresswell, went from Hamaoze into Ply-
mouth Sound on Monday to try her machinery.
The Scorpion, 6, Master Commanding J Parsons,
(1855), has arrived at the Nore from the West
Indies, where she was employed as a surveying
vessel. She is ordered to be stripped and paid off
into ordinary at Chatham.

A number of invalid troops who were sent from
Chatham garrison to Bath, for" the purpose of
undergoing medical treatment in that city, have
returned to the hospitals at Chatham, and a fresh
party of invalids will be forwarded, it having been
found that the troops experienced great benefit
from their treatment at Bath hospital.
A new 91 gun two decker screw steamer, to be
called the Atlas, is proposed to be laid down at
Chatham dockyard, to be built after the same
dimensions as the Renown, 01, recently launched
there.

The screw steam sloop Miranda, 15, Captain H.
Hall, which left Malta on the 4th of March, and
Gibraltar on the 28th, entered Plymouth Sound
on Tuesday afternoon, but left again for Sheerness
under Admiralty orders. She has about twenty
supernumeraries and invalids from the Black Sea
fleet, and landed at Plymouth part of the crews of
the merchant brig Serapha, of Swansea, and the
barque Uncle Charlie, of Liverpool, both wrecked
at Jaffa on the 3rd Feb.

Capt. Bunce, Capt Fitzgerald, Lieut. Hill, Lieut.
Thompson, and Lieut. Macey, in command of a
detachment of the Royal Marine forces at head
quarters who are under orders for embarkation,
assembled on Woolwich common on Tuesday, in
order to go through a theoretical course of exercise
and drill, preparatory to being supplied with the
new Enfield rifle, in which they are ordered to be
throughly instructed.
Lieutenants Dodson, Blake, Ley, and Donellan,

in charge of 180 rank and file of Royal Marines, on
Tuesday morning paraded at head quarters,
Woolwich, and having been inspected by the
Commandant, they proceeded to Deptford dock-
yard to relieve Lieutenants Travers, Sims, Arwett,
and Willis, with the detachment on guard there.
Captain O'Connell's 7th company, 3rd battalion
and Captain Forde's Ist company, 4th battalion,
Royal Artillery, under orders for Canada; and
Captain Chancellor's Ist company, 14th battalion,
with Captain Waller's 2nd company, 14th battalion,
for Halifax, embarked yesterday from Woolwich
Arsenal on board the ship Lebanon.
The Moorsfort and the Nelius are ordered to go
down to Woolwich to embark the four companies of
Artillery under orders for Hong Kong.
The screw steam store-ship Hesper, was, on
Tuesday morning undocked at Woolwich, after
being fitted with Griffith's patent screw propeller,
and the gun-boat Leven was admitted into the dock
to complete her fitment for China.
The Admiralty yacht Banshee left Woolwich
yesterday at 11, and proceeded to Dover to convey
his Excellency Feruk Khan, the Persian Plenipo-
tentiary, and suite to
Her Majesty's screw steam frigate Euryalus, 51,
Captain G. Ramsay, C B , arrived at Spithead on
Monday night at sunset from the North American
and West India station, and left on Tuesday for
Plymouth to be paid off.
The office of Private Secretary to the First Lord
of the Admiralty has become vacant by the resig-
nation of Mr Thomas G. Baring. Mr. C. N. Kempe
has been appointed private secretary to Mr. B.
Osborne, vice Mr. Stapylton, resigned. Mr. E. N.
Swainson has been appointed private secretary to
Mr. Phinn, vice Mr. Graves, promoted.
The following appointments have been made at
the Admiralty :
Commanders—C. E. H. Vernon, to the Cordelia ;
Thos. Goss, to the Coast Guard.

Surgeon—Dr. W. Wood, to the Hastings.
Assistant Surgeon—Dr. Thos. Coghlen, to the
Hastings.
Mr. J T. Partridge and Mr. T. Greet have been
nominated Masters' Assistants.

A Finm IN PARLIAMENT.—The licensed r ictnallers will
ho delighted to learn that their Parliamentary supporters,
Sir H. Meux, Mr Bass, and Mr Whitbread, will bo mate-
rially aided by the accession of three partners in one
brewery firm, who will have seats in the new house : Sir
E. N. Buxton, for East Norfolk ; Mr Charles Buxton, for
Newport, Isle of Wight ; and Mr Robert Hanbury, the
younger, for Middlesex.
How TO KEEP YOUR PASSPORT IN PRUSSIA.—I once
knew an Englishman who determined on taking up his
residence in Prussia, and who did as every sensible person
who has a passport will try to do, keep it. Not having
delivered up the passport to the police, though for some
days he had taken possession of his domicile, a func-
tionary of the Polizei called upon him for the document.
All that the Englishman could say in German was " Ja."
and "Nein," though he could understand a great deal
mores The policeman touehed his hat. " Your passport,
sir." My little friend pulled off his hat, shook his head
violently,
" " Your passport ?'' "Nein."
stand " Nein." "Nein•
and ejaculated, " Nein," "Do you under-
" I must have it." " Nein " " Where is it ?" "Nein.,
" Ach der toile Englander !" "Nein." The policeman
was at first inclined to be annoyed, but lie finished by
Lughing outright, ander lost sight of his passport.—The
walking away. My friend gained
his point. He never
National .21(agazine.

I INLAND AND S JBM'ARINE TELEGRAPHIC
COMMUNICATION.

The attention of all speculators, bath on this and the
other side of the Atlantic, has been of late much directed
to this most imoorfant subject, The gigantic undertak-
ings of recent companies and the gigantic failures which
have signalised the efforts of others have left the public
mind in a state of some uncertainty as to the prac-
ticability of great ocean lines of telegraphic com-
munication, no matter how much they may be
desired or hose willingly the money nsay b 3 forth-
coming for all attempts to form them. As yet, however,
notwithstanding the popa'arity of the idea, there has
been no great system of telegraphs devi'ed, especially
such as obtain in the United States. This has been in
part owing to the expense, which, by inducing extra
charges, has, of course, by reducing the number,
rendered the transmission of messages less lucrative than
was at first expected, and pertly owing to the great
ibstacles which s ill presen, themselves in the way of long
eabenarine cables. A scheme, however, is in process
of being oeganised, which at least promises to
meet all deNekeata, to bring the means of in-
land condo,,eicatie,-: to the doors of all in
the United Kirrtdern, aeal to fathom with its sub-
marine lines the Peroades and most distant seas-
whether the proposed plan will a eewer or not we cannot
say, though, if properly carrier out„ 't ought to do so, for
the improvements which it expects to I.l'troduce into the
means of telegraphing are not less ipor"ant than the
changes it proposes to effect in the system itse!f. These
mechanical aids and inventions are the patens of Mr.
Allan, who has devoted himself with untiring energy to
perfecting the electric telegraph, to the development of
which he has applii d practically some of the more impoi:taut
recent discoveries of our chief eleAriciane. These
erovemen s consist, first, in essential mechanical alterations
introduced into the construction of submarine cables, and—
next in various new apparatus for the application to the
telegraph of Faraday's most valuable eisooveries in voltaic
electric induction. On both points the gain to the public
should be great if the inventions and the further improve..
inents which they will naturally suggest are properly and
energetically, carried into effect. The error which has
hitherto proved so fatal to most plans fcr submarine
communication has been that of having a ponderous
cable, weighing six or eight tons, and costing from £3OO
to £5OO pet mile: These cables, as our readers
are aware, ate cmnpes-d by winding spirally eight
or ten stout iron wires round a soft c ire of OA
percha, which contains fbC insulated conducting wires of
copper laid straight. In attercag to lay down such lines in
deep waters their weight is so enorNous that they can only
be prevented sinking in a mass by pCsverful breaks on the
drum on which they are coiled, and which, i7.ben they act at
all, strain the cable to such an extent that the outside spiral
wires, working upon the soft core, stretch, while the con-
ducting wires, laid straght along the centre, cannot. In nearly
every instance, therefore, in which weighty cab. es have
been laid down in deep seas, either some of the conducting wires
have been severed entirely, or when the strain and pressure
have been greatest their insulation has been injured, or they
have become attenuated. The first two accidents
of course utterly destroy the whole cable as a medium for tele-
eraphic communication, while the last is scarcrly less injurious,
as in all conductors of electricity the weakest part becomes the
standard of the whole, and the difficulty already experienced is
getting a full sized wire to conduct a current sufficient to trans-
mit a message along 1,000 miles of submarine cable, would, of
course, be increased almost indefinitely with a wire r‘doced by
strain in any part to half its original diameter. Almost all these
accidents have occurred in attempts to lay long lines of cable
under deep seas. This was ospecially the case with the Mediter-
ranean cable, which, front its preposterous weight, ran out
so fast that no breaks were sufficiently powerful to check
it, though in the attempt to do so the conducting wires
were crushed, and " kinks" occurred so rapidly that in a
very short distance all of them were severed, and it was at
last found necessary to abandon the cable altogether. So
with the cable in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and so
with the second cable in the Mediterranean, between
Sardinia and Algeria. To overcoms these difficu'ties,
which seem to offer almost insurmountable obstacles to
any long line of submarine communication, Mr. Allan has
invented a new kind of cable, which, when once seen, is,
like breaking the egg, a wonderfully simple solution of
the present difficulties. It is a cable about one inch in
diameter, the centre of which is formed by nineteen
wires, of tinned iron wire, twisted into one strand, an
inch in circumference; This is enclosed in a case of
indiarubber, coated over with a mixture of tar and sand.
The cost of the whole is only £7O per mile, and its weight
only 8 cwt. The core of this cable is thus made, both
its strength and its conductor. The conducting power of
iron as compared with copper is as 24 to 120, but the
increas el sectional area afforded by the large iron strand
more than compensates for the relative difference.
But under certain circumstances fhe strand may be
formed of iron and copper mixed, combining the enhanced
conductibility of of the copper with the strength of the
iron, so that where weight to carry, or much increased
conductibility is a minor consideration, the aeaount of
metal and insulation may be subdivided, and so form
several conductors, without at all diminishing its stye agth
as a whole. They can be made on this principle of iron
and copper mixed, and so as without mixing the metals in
each conductor they will be formed of conductors of
different metals. The lightness and comparative smallness
of this cable make it appear but a slender thread by
which to join distant climes, sundered by the roll of the
great waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean ; but
experience has shown that within certain limits as to
durability the cable cannot be too light. In the present
instance it is so constituted as to have a relatively greater
specific gravity to the water, and no more than is req-aired
for the purpose of submerging itself gradually. Thus,
without the use of damaging breaks on the. drum, it may
be laid kngthwise on the surface, finding its way to the
bottom in that position, it requiring all its weight and
the friction in the water for the last few hundred
yards to produce force sufficient to withdraw it from
the ship. No depth of water or distance frem land
can at all affect the iaying down of such a cable,.
Another great difficalty in submarine telegraphic
commnaication is in getting the electric current
along a great length of wire. Propelling a message, so to
speak, requires an intensity of electricity which at present
cannot be produced without quantity, and which in long
distances charges the conducting wire, and produces a
retarding influence, the proper means to overcome which
are to this hour an enigma among the most profound
electricians.

If we are rightly informed, there are both land and sub-
marine wires going comparatively short distances from this
metropolis, to send a message through which requires bat-
tery power to an extent that is perfectly amazing, and even
then in damp or unfavourable weather the needle moves most
sluggishly. It is still almost doubtful whether this retarding
influence, in whatever manner it is caused, may not prove
a fatal obstacle to any submarine cable between this
country and America. Mr. Allan meets this difficulty by
a novel application of the secondary coil, by means
of which he produces and induced current the great
intensity of which is almost equal to the coil of Rum-
koff. The result of the experiments that have been as yet
tried with this apparatus have been in the highest degree
satisfactory. The only doubt that exists in our mind is
that, in case of only one wire being laid, as with the newly
contrived cable, the water must be used for the return
current, which supposes a perfection of insulation in the
conducting wire such as, for a distance of 2,000 or 3,000
miles, it will be difficult, and indeed almost impossible, to
attain. But we presume the subject of a return wire to
complete the circuit will be a matter for the subsequent
consideration of the company. It is proposed by the com-
pany that is about to avail itself of these patents to
establish, i❑ the first instance, a system of telegraphic
communication throughout the United Kingdom almost
as complete and extensive as our present postal
arrangements. It is intended to lay down perfectly
new lines, communicating direct from London with
all the chief manufacturing town.; which are to form
sub.centres with the smaller towns and even villages
around them. The wires will be thinly coated in gutta
percha, and laid in numbers branching off to the different
towns en route. The cost of each wire it is estimated will
not exceed £lO per mile. It is intended by these to con-
vey messages to all parts of the kingdom at one uniform
rate of Is a message, or a penny a word irrespective of
distance. This principle has already answered well in the
United States and Switzerland. where it is found that the
revenue of the telegraph developes itself in geometrical
progression according to the number of towns included by
it. Thus, if 12 of the largest towns in England send on
an average 50 messages per day to each other, the gross
receipts, without including intervening stations, would be
£120,450, while 24 towns sending 100 messages per day
would yield nearly £500,000 per annum. For carrying
out this system Mr. Allan has devised a recording tele-
graph, a great improvement on Mess's and Bain's, which,
while avoiding the mistakes which in spite of the utmost
care so often occur with the needle telegraph, can be
worked at less than half its cost.

The ocean lines are at the outset to be confined to laying
a cable from the Land's-end to Flores in the Azores, and
thence to Halifax, making the deep sea stretch, it is
alleged, about 400 miles shorter than the route between
Newfoundland and Ireland, and avoiding the land lines,
which are expensive to maintain, and therefore create an
extra charge on messages between the two termini. From
Halifax direct lines already exist, comtnunicatinq with the
Canadas and the United States generally. Future ocean
lines will, of course, depend on tl'c shareholders ; but,
should the American cable answer the expectations formed
of it, it is then intended to extend the system to the
Channel Islands, Gibraltar, Malta, and even India. For
the sake of the public and great commercial and national
interests we wish success to the proposed scheme, and
hope that the new company, whenever it is formed and at
work, may not be deceived in the practicability of their
plan, or in its results to themselves.