The Sun.
London, England, 1852-06-03 00:00:00

ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH COMPANIES.

Yesterday, on the meeting of thehceo Electric
ittee, Mr.
Ricardo, M I'., was cross-ex trained. rr Tele-
graph C mapeny had paid large dividends, larger than
they would be able probably t, pay again; but for teeny
years they had paid no divide)ndstetall. The company
had forty miles of underground telegraph.
Mr. Hatcher had been engineer-in-chief to the Elec-
tric Telegraph Company from its formation,
now its consulting
eengineer. At the commencement went aosf
five
operations sendingwords a minute was considered
good, but now they could send from thirty to thirty-seven
words in a minute. There was a possibility, if duplicate
lines were established on a railway, oosi y'e
fs
onetelegraph,rai
st.by
placing their wires in connexion with theothe
the intelligence that went over them, but it was not
necessary that the two companies should have the same
signals.
air. Edwin Clark, C.E., engineer-in-chief to the
Electric Telegraph Company, stated that he had within
the last twelve months put up 1,500 miles of telegraph,
and gave it as his opinion that the underground system
of telegraphs was perfectly practicable, The best and
most perfect insulation for the wires underground was
gaits percha, with which they were supplied by the
Gutta percha Company, whose patent had also been
successfully applied for the submarine telegraphs.
Mr. GILPIN, contractor for the Irish Channel subma-
rine telegraph, now being carried out between Fort-
patrick and Donaghadee, described the operations in
connexion with that undertaking. About sixty miles of
the eighty- fivo of trench for the underground telegraph
on the Scottish coast was finished. The wire to be sunk
in the Channel would be about twenty miles. Operations
were going on for carrying it underground from Do•
naghadee to Dublin and Belfast. The cable was ready
to be sunk on the first favourable tide. The total length
of this telegraph would be 250 miles. There would be
four wires, cased with gutta perchs, and placed in tubes
underground. The Gutta Percha, Company supplied the
casing, and no one else could, that corepauy having a
patent right for the purpose. The trenches were
reef
deep. As they did not expect to get a great number of
messages from Ireland, they intended, if possible, so as
to do it cheaply, to make their stations at the various
post-offices in the towns, and pay the post people to
work the wires. Thought the undergroued wets beter
than tha aboveground system. Had been well received
in Irelaud, and the only trouble they had had was that
of pleasing every body.—(Lsughter.) The Irish Channel
Submarine Company only startea last February, and
expected that in another fortnight their entire line would
be completed. Admitted that Mr. Ricardo was a trustee
of the cempany. The telegraph was being laid down by
Mr. Gliffia, the superintendent of the undertaking, and
the Government placed steamers at the companya dispo-
sal to assist in sinking the cable.
Before the committee adjourned an interesting expe-
riment was made to show the rapid,ty, precision, and
perfection with which an express dispatch now daily
passes between London and York. For this purpose, at
short notice, the telegraph wires cemmunice.ttirittre H
from the
central office in the Strand with the lobby o ()Use
of Cowinding
mmons were brought up the etaieease int
the committee-ratan, and there attached to an instrument
the table. Noiice eves simultaneously given to some
hundred intermediste stations to keep the electric
line clear for a special dispatch. The chairman, with
the Times in hand, requested
the telgraph clerk to tell
his colleague at York (290 miles) " to seed up the fourth
advertisement in the fourth ecaurah of that paper, Mr

Baldock, one of the members, with a repeater timing the
transit. In 15 seconds after the request was sent the
advertisement in question was forwarded from York and
rend Off without an error on the face of the instrument
in the committee-room, in two minutes and a fraction,
to the great gratification of an present, the manipulator
stating that bad it not been for the hurried arrangements
it might have been aceornpi6hed in one minute, and at
a cost but slightly more than that paid for the advertise-
ment
in the paper.

COMPLETION OF THE SUBMARINE
Dus TELEGRAPH,
urt, WEDNESDAY.—A submarine telegraph
between the coasts of England and Ireland is now an
accomplished fact, and an event pregnant with inte-
rest as regards the future welfare of this country.
Yesterday morning, at four o'clock, the Britannia
steamer started from Holyhead with the telegraph
cable on board, preceded by her Majesty's steamer
Prospero, a vessel furnished by the Admiralty, as a
pilot to the expedition. The steamers proceeded at a
low rate of speed, varying from four to six miles an
hour, paying out the wire with the greatest care and
precision as they recgded from the English coast ; and
at length, after a passage of little more than sixteen
hours, and without the occurrence of any contretemps,
arrived at Howth Harbour amid the cheers of those
who had assembled to witness their approach.
The Freeman's Journal of this morning contains
the following particulars of this gratifying and Manor-
tant event :

" We have the satisfaction to comnaunicate the grafi-
fyirigintelligence that the first message from Howth to
Holyhead was transmittlt at-half-past eight o'clock last
evening, and an answer instantaneously received. The
Irish public will at once anticipate that the message
was an Hurrah for the Irish and American packet
station!'

" The telegraphic communication being now, we may_
say, completed between London and Galway, the esta-
blibhment of an American packet station on the west
coast of Ireland cannot be long delayed. The mercan-
tile necessities of the empire will now force on what
every Government has hitherto denied for the advance-
ment of Irish interests.

" But we must not to•day indulge in anticipations as
to results. Our present duty is t 3 detail the latest facts
connected with the completion of the stupendous un-
dertaking.
" The Britannia and Prospero made their second start
from Holyhead shortly after two o'clock, A sr., yester-
day morning, the Britannia paying out' the cable
steadily and constantly testing, by the indicators on
board and ashore; the perfection of the communication.
" The voyage was unmarked by any incident of• im-
portance,.and was, happily, free from any accident. The
cable fell so straight, and sank so evenly; that only
three miles more than the straight line across the Channel
were payed out. This, in a course of sixty-five miles
was really extraordinary.
" A few minutes alter three o'clock, P.M„ the vessels
were sighted by our look-out, and at eight o'clock,
the Prospero entered Hou'h Harbour. the Britannia
lying outside, near the itland of Ireland's Eye, through
the channel near which the cable was subsequently
brought to shore by boat.
" The moment the Britannia had arrived at her desti-
nation, and communicated the fact to Holyhead that the
Irish shore was reached, the final grand test was applied
to the telegraphic cable by connecting the wire with one
of the ship's loaded guns, and passing the word fire' to
Holyhead. The answer was the immediate discharge
of the gun on board the Britannia. The hour was then
just hall-past eight o'clock, The works had been per-
formed in little more than 18 hours.

" Messages were now rapidly interchanged, and a
salute of the Brieannia's guns fired froin Holyhead. A
letter had arrived in Dublin, directed to a gentleman who
had left for Holyhead by the mid-day steamer, and whose
presence was immediately required in London. A mes-
sage was sent to seek him out. Within half an hour, he
was discovered, and he responded, 'I am here.' You
are wanted in London." I shall start by the next train.'
" Another hour and the cable was ashore, the con-
nexion completed with the land wires, and the indica-
tors at the Dublin terminus of the Drogheda Railway,
in Amiens-street, were conversing with those at the ter-
minus of the Chester and Holyhead Railway in Holy-
head. By this time all the parties connected with the
now happily successful enterprise were quite worn out
with fatigue, and further experiments were abandoned
for the night."
The cable which now forms the means of commu-
nication between Holyhead and Howth is not com-
posed of four wires, like the one from Dover to Calais,
but consists of a single copper wire, perfectly insu-
lated with gutta perche, and protected by an outer
covering of iron galvanised wires. In order to secure
the cable from injury by the tides and the sharp
rocks, it has a double covering of iron wires from
each shore for some considerable distance into the sea.
The double covering of the seventy miles of wire
with gutta percha was done by the Gutta Percha
Company, at their work, in Wharf-road, City-road,
and then shipped to Gateshead, where the task of
placing on the iron galvanised wires was performed
by Messrs. R. S. Newell and Co., the proprietors of
the cable. The laying down of the cable took place
on Tuesday, the Ist June, under the superintendence
of Mr. Newell and Mr. Statham, of the Gutta Percha
Company.
(From the Morning Chronicle.)
Suwarrow's celebrated epigrammatic dispatch was not
more brief and pointed than the first announcement
which another wonder of the age has just made of itselt.
Our yesterday's impression contained our first telegra-
phic dispatch from the sister country—" The Irish Sub-
marine Telegraph is completed. This fact—the fact
and the record of it being identical—was launched from
Dublin at nine o'clock on Tuesday evening, and at 10.33
we welcomed it in the Strand. To announce its own
existence was a worthy inauguration of the telegraph.
The capitals of two islands, divided by a sea fierce and
wild as the hatreds which have too often separated Eeg-
land and Ireland, are now not only on speaking term',
but are within an hour and a half of what Dr. Johnson
would have calnd " conversational reciprocity." Dublin
and London can bold direc% colloquy, with only ninety
minutes between question and answer; and, as telegra-
phic cemaninication cannot be expected to form an ex-
ception to the law of progress which governs all material
and scientific inventions, we may anticipate that Puck's
period of " fury minutes" will shortly be the utmost
that will be required to waft a sigh or a command be-
tween Dawning-street and the Plecesix park. Are we
premature in regarding this event as auguring a better
future for Ireland? May we not hope that the mythic
device of classical times, which proposed to link a
wavering dependency to the parent state by the practi-
cal allegiance of a chain, is about to be exemplified under
happier auspices? Ireland bas long been united to es
by au iron cable, stern as the adamantine fetters of
necessity or destiny herself. We trust, however, that
the reality will supersede the symbol. The telegraphic
wire is a better bond than physical force; the Union
1800 may yet be merged in that of .8,51,12n;da,,nd may,th
ofe
" United Kingdom of Greet Britain and
1.
perhaps, take its real date from the
electric band rather
What lomore car- '
ser, truer,
than from an Act of Parliament.
more generoni ties, larger sympathies. and a
dial recognition of common interests_aadmu
jtuunael dinBtsie,)s?,
should one day be traced back to the first of , _
What if the silent rope of wire do that which 'neither
Henrys nor Cromwells, Elizabeth' nor Georges, Strung-
bows nor Straffords, Ora:tends nor Pitts, have yet achieved
towards cementing England and Ireland? It cannot but
be of good omen that, if the two countries are to be con-
nected by links of iron, these are to be employed in
spreading intelligence, knowledge, the arts of peace
and the lessons of law, order, and industry, rather that;
in shackling the minds and consciences of our fellow-
subjects, fellow-Christians, and fellow-men. The grim
centuries of our iron rule have, we trust, passed away;
the only material fetter which is likely to be perpetual is
the electric chain; and we may hope that Ireland
henceforth need no other buttery than a galvanic will
The ultimate cause of English and Irish misunderstand.one.
ings
is, probably, the fundamental difference o race.
Celt and Saxon—by an arrangement which it •
cult to understand theoretically as it is to finodfisp;ascdtiict
exceptions to it—present a marked diversity
wthieth eth-
tual,religious, and social development. Such is illt(lgielecee;
irresistible fact; and some slight acqusintanc
amount of un-
profitable y would, perhaps, have saved no small
profitable legislation. speeches, sieges, evictions, dragoons,
and polemics—Parliamentary, theological, educationel,
to harmonize
fiscal, and economical. The only way
such formidable elements of repulsion is to enable the
two races to unite and fuse—and, as a preliminary to
fusion,- to make them understand each other; and, fer
the promotion of such mutual understanding, there is
nothing like facilities for direct and constant intercourse.
As communication advances, civfilization spreads.
Roads are the great first pioneers °
law, and political knowledge; and thhumanity, order,
the iron highways of
this age are the most powerful
Euro-
pean civilization. The electric telegraphagents of modern
as the harbinger of a new and . may be saluted
brighter era for Ireland,
because it promises to bridgevri over that gulf of prejaci,iesei;
ignorance, and suspicion
us and our sister island. ape has been spread bete` ,
much to unlearn, about
eacia e have much to learn
each
side other. There are
egif
side cankers and sores •
though one, alas. !
too inven3rate a ram
.e: . is, worse still, of recent few
years own llaLl.Ctlng—to
years will undo the malignant influence
justify us n
ofexpectnig that a
would be the bathos ofimagine that,
because wo have got withinsentimentalism w icentnries. et
aistanee of Dublin,
the two countries will sp Bakingrush
into each other's
arms, and I,:r eat anc,'' at ?untie.
i 11 a wild hurrah
upon the success of telegraph.th.en!atantrc
All that we dare to
hope is, that this lie the beginning of better
times- In one r event may • easy be palpable and
ict the gale
immediate. Tleas"Pd " "stration of Ireland is now ren-
dered almost as easy its that of an English county; for
Dublin is not further from 'Whitehall than are the Len-1
don Docks. The mistakes of local
_authorities_ will
henceforth be more than ever inexcusable. Mach of Ire-
land's misgovernment bits arisen from its anomalous and
her theelectrie telegraph will
exceptional Executive.
Whet
retaining the Vice-Re-
not be a strong argument against_
h 11 not here inquire; but
g 41137 in its present shape we 1 *