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

WARMING AND VENTILATION OF THE

:ROUSE OF COMMONS. •
The second report of the Select Committee appointed
to consider the best means of improving the ventilation
and lighting of the House and its appendages has been
printed. After describing the plan upon which the ven-
tilation of the House is at present conducted, by means
of fresh air oonveyed from the clock tower (until the
completion of the Victoria Tower), through iron pipes
with other apparatus, the Committee are of opinion that
the condition of the ventilation of the House of Com-
mons and its appendages is still unsatisfactory, notwith-
standing the improvement which has been effected in
the House itself since the period when the Com-
mittee were appointed. The report then proceeds
to detail the improvements which have been in-
troduced since the commencement of the ses-
sion. The Committee are not prepared to approve of
the complicated plan of forcing air by mechanical power
combined with the extracting powers of a shaft with a
furnace or steam jet, and ascending and descending cur-
rents for supplying fresh and abstracting vitiated air.
In conclusion, the Committee desire to give it as their
opinion that the failure of the ventilation of the House
of Commons, at the commencement of the session, can-
not fairly be imputed to any radical defect in Dr. Reid's
system, because the House was hastily occupied with an
infinity of arrangements incomplete; and the lighting,
from which the greatest amount of mischief arose, was
neither contrived by Dr. Reid nor under his control ;
and in surveying the whole of this matter it is, perhaps,
only fair to that gentleman to bear in mind that his
original plan was a comprehensive scheme for the ven-
tilation of the entire building, °Nile superintendence
of the greater portion of which he was de-
prived when the works were more than half completed.
These difficulties and complications were further increased
by the fact that, in that portion of the New Palace
termed the finished portion, which has been delivered up
formally by the architect to the Board of Works, there
were still not less than three different and sometimes
conflicting authorities, namely, the architect, the venti-
lator, and the Board of Works; and until the whole is
placed under the absolute control and vigilant supervi-
sion of the Board of Works, it is vain to expect good
service or economy; and all attempts at inquiry will be
baffled by the allegation of divided responsibility. Under
these circumstances, your Committee are of opinion
that, as regards future management, the entire respon-
sibility of ventilating and lighting the House and its ap-
pendages should be confided to one competent person,
under' the direction and supervision of the Board of
Works; and with a view to secure proper attention to
any complaints that may hereafter arise, a Committee
should be named at tbe commencement of each session
to confer with the Board :of Works upon any measures
that mcty appear necessary to remove such complaints.

ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH COMPANIES.
Testeeday, on the meeting of the committee, Mr.
Ricardo, M.P,, was cross-examined. Electric The Tele-
graph Company had paid large dividends, larger than
they would be able probably to pay
a t ll
again; but for many
years they had paid no dividends The company
had forty miles of underground telegraph.a
Mr. 'tetchy'. had been engineer-in-claief to the Elec-
tric Telegraph Company from its formation, and was
now its consulting engineer. At thecommencement
operations sending five words a minute was
good, but now theycould send from thirty to thirty-seven
words in a minute. There was a possibility, if duplicate
lines were established on a railway,
placing their wires in connexion le of one telegraph,
the other,srealinbgy
the intelligence that went over them, but it was not
necessary that the two companies should have the same
signals. 1
Mr. 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
gutta percha, with which they were supplied by the
Gutta Percha Company, whose patent had also been
successfully applied for the submarine telegraphs.
Mr. Glum., contractor for the Irish Channel suhma-
rine telegraph, now being carried out between Port-
patrick and Donaghadee, described the operations in
connexion with that undertaking. About sixty miles of
the eighty-five of trench for the underground telegraph
on the Scottish coast was finished. The wire to be sunk
in the Channel would bo about twenty miles. Operations
were going on for carrying it underground from Do-
neghadee to Dublin and Belfast. The cable was ready
to be sunk on the first favourable lido. The total length
of this telegraph would he 250 miles. There would be
four wires, cased wi•
th gutta percha, and placed in tubes
underground. The Gutta Pemba Company supplied the
easing, and no one else could, that company havin a
g
patent right for the purpose. The trenches were li feet
deep. As they did not expect to get a great number of
messages frola Ireland, the intended, possible so as
intended, if p
to do it cheaply, to make their stations at the various
post-effiees iu the towns, and pay the post people to
work the wires. Thought the undergroued was bettor
than the aboveground system. Had been
had was well recei
that
in Ireland, and the only trouble they
had
of pleasing everybody.—(Lauehter.) Tho Irish Channel
Submarine Company only started last February, and
expected that in another fortnight their entire line would
be completed. Admitted that Mr. Ricardo was a trustee
of the company. The telegraph was being laid down by
Mr. Griffin, the superintendent of the undertaking, and
the Government placed steamers at the company's dispo-
sal to assist in sinking the cable.
Before the committee adjourned an interesting expe-
riment was made to show the rapidity, precision, and
Perfection with which an express diipateh now daily
passes between London and Yore. For this purpose, at
short notice, the telegraph wires communicating from the
e
central office in the Strand with the lobby of the house
o£ Commons were brought up the winding staircase °.---
into
the committee-room, and there attached to an instrument
on the table. Notice was simultaneously given to some
one hundred intermediate stations to keep the electric
line clear for a special dispatch. The r m an, with
the Times is heed, requested the tele
graclai
his colleague at York (290 miles) " to send up the fourth
advertisement in the fourth column- " clerk to tell
Qi that paper, bir.

" We have the satisfaction to communicate the grati-
fying intelligence that the first message from Howth to
•Liolybead was transmitted a half-East night o'clock last
evening, and an answer instantatieoiSlY-Tedetired: •Tha
Irish public will at once anticipate that the message
was an ' Hurrah fer the Irish and American packet
station!'

" The telegraphic communication being now, we may
say, completed between London and Galway, the esta-
blishment 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 duly is to 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 IT, yester-
day morning, the Britannia paying ont' 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 aftdr three o'clock, P.M., the vessels
were sighted by our -look-out, and at eight o'clock, P.M.,
the Prospero entered 'loath Harbour, the Britannia
lying outside, near the Wand of Ireland's Eye, through
the channel near which the cable was subsequently
brought to shore by boat.

" The morneat tho 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. Tho answer was the immediate discharge
of the guu on board the Britannia. The hour was then
just half-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 Britannia's guns fired from 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 be responded, lam 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 Dalian terminus of the Drogheda Railway,
in Amiens-street, were conversing with those lit 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 percha, 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 works, 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 let 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 itself.
Our yesterday's impression contained our first telegra-
phic dispatch from the sister country—" The Irish Sub-
merino 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 ennounce 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 terms,
but are within an hour and a half of what Dr. Johnson
would have called " conversational reciprocity." Dublin
and London can hold direct colloquy, with only ninety
minutes. between question and answer; and, as telegra-
phic communication cannot be expected to form au ex-
ception to the law of progress which governs all material
and scientific inventions, we may anticipate that Puck's
period of " forty minutes" will shortly be the utmost
that will be required to waft a sigh or a command be-
tween Downing-street and the Pnosaix park. Are we
premature in regarding this event as auguring a better
future for Ireland? May wo 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 has long been united to es
by an 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 of
1800 may yet be merged in that of 1852;acd the
" United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland"
ram rather
perhaps, take its real date from the electric band r
than from an Act of Parliament. What if closer, truer,
mutual duties
dial recognition of common interests an ,
should one day be traced back to the first of
more generous ties, larger sympathies. dand a more cor-
dif the silent rope of wire do that which neither
Juno, 1852?
Henrys nor Cromwalls, Elizsbeths nor Georges, Strong-
bows nor Straffords, Ormonds nor Pitts, have yet achieved
towards cementing England and Ireland? It cannot but
be of good omcn that, if the two countries aro to be con-
nected by
.links of iron, these aro to be employed in
spreading intelligence, knowledge, the arts of peace,
and the lessons of law, order, and industry, rather than
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 bo perpetual is
theleh henceforth
2flotrielectricmthachain;o and wo
that Ireland will
ian a galvanic one.
English and Irish misunderstand.
The
eecausenaonftdhe wr battery h
ings is, probably, the fundamental difference of
race.
Celt and Saxon—by an arrangement which it is as
ra
diffi-
cult to understand theoretically as it is to find practical
telrleecae
t
in
'exceptions to it—present a marked diversity of
tual, religious, and social development. Such is the great
theological, education
irresistible feet; and some slight acquaintance with eth-
nology would, perhaps,isp have saved no small amount'
enable the
prolitablelegislation
siteligeeel'oe;iction' of
tin-
preliminary to
and polemics—Parliamentary,
fiscal, and economical. The only way s, dragoons,
other; and, for
such formidable elements of repulsiaosn
there fusion,t r c e
tos
maketoy
tunitehe
ma nd
understandfuse— au
eachfuse—and,
nothingtho promotion
like
facilities
coi
ifi t
e finch
for
mutualr direct
n
is
As communication advances, civilization
intercourse.
lzation
Roads are the great first pioneers ofspreads.
thisp esa age
civilization. are the m ori,tho
elpowerfulcotri c agentstole;
law, and political knowledge; and the humanity, order,
modern Euro-
pean iron highways of
aiatoto hf,r,,ifii,
as the harbinger of a new and brighter°legra PI
because it promises to bridge over may be saluted
. r that gulf of prejudice,
ignorance, and suspicion which era for Ireland,
We las been spread between
much to unlearn, about eaoefh
us and our sister island.
, have much to learn and
side cankers and sores
though one, alas ! is, Worse other.
There are on each
our own inflicting—to too inveterate a hature—
justify us in expecting that a (.-7
still, of recent date, and of.
years will undo the malignant influence of centuries.
that,l
would be the bathosgot
v,o.fishe.ntimentalism to iniaginsseublin,
the two countries will
because wo have
arms, and forget ancient"
in speaking distanceaotheeether,3
upon the success of the animositiesA
once rush
.intao
,eviot_
All that Ivo dare to
hope is, that this event telegraph.b the
beginning
ef better
hurrah
times. In one respsct, ma
e.n mayB be palpable and
immediate. The administrationt of Ireland is now ren-
dered almost as easy
Dublin is not further from that of than are the Lon-
dones sihr ties an English county; fur
Docka. Tmhoeremthist of local authorities will
henceforth be
.sgoverntneut haanas
land's tni "'excusable. Much of Ire-
exceptional Executive. Whether theelectric telegrayh will
not be e-aevrseirsein from its anomalous and
, a strong argument against retaining the Vice-Re-
Pity in i;s present shop we shall no; here inquire; but