The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-12 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The good fortune which is said to wait
upon valour does not always attend jobbery, however
determined and courageous. If ever a body of men
had this title to success, it was the promoters of the
famous Galway Company. They procured a subsidy
from Lord Derby s Government by methods and
arguments which Conservative speakers wore after-
wards driven to justify upon principles worthy of
Sir Robert Walpole. Having signally and re-
peatedly failed to fulfil the conditions of their coa-
tract, they treated the forfeiture of it as ax insult
to Ireland, and rallied their countrymen of all par-
ties to their rescue. The screw was put on and kept
on with such relentless dexterity thiit Lord Pal-
merston's Govern men t gave way under it, and actually
consented to renew the subsidy. It is true that they
affected to shelter themselves under the report of a
committee, and even went through the form of treat-
ing the question as one of public interest; but the
trick was too simple to deceive any one, and, to do
Lord Palmerston justice, was never intended to have

this effect. It was no secret that the £70,000 a year
was to be paid by the Post-office, not for the more
speedy conveyance of our American mails, but as a
peaceoffering to Irishmen. From this point of view
there was, perhaps, no need to be ashamed of
it. It is ten times more important that Ireland
should be satisfied than that we should hear from
America, a day sooner or later, and no less-than
this was the real consideration for the bargain.
Still it was hoped that, just to save appearances,
the steamers would keep their time, and not break
down too often. If there had been no fleet at all,
it might have been worth while to pay the money,
but Mr. Alderman Raynolds and others had been
careful to inform us that there was a very fine fleet
all ready, to enumerate the number and tonnage of
the vessels, and to adopt a high tone, as though the
arrangement had not the least taste of a resem-
blance to an Irish job, or what Lord Ulanricarde
happily called " eminently an Irish question."
This bold play, as we have said, deserved better
luck than has befallen the Atlantic Company.
We have not before us a detailed list of all the
disasters that have occurred on this line since it
was reopened, but we know quite enough to make
us sympathise with all those who have anything
to do with it. If the stars in their courses
had fought against the shareholders, their dis--
comfiture could not have been more complete.
Either on the high seas, or in entering some har-
boar, or in quitting some harbour, something is
sure to go wrong with their vessels. If they are
not caught in a fog the machinery gets out of order,
and if the machinery does not get out of order they
come in collision with a rock. This is whet has hap-
pened to the last of which we have any intelligence.
"The Atlantic Royal Mail steamer Anglia, from
Liverpool to Boston, went on the Black Rock in
Galway Bay at 5 a.m. to-day." This beats every-
thing. In Galway Bay, the very station of which
the capacity and safety were so much extolled, and
which was to become the great Atlantic port of the
British islands, a vessel well found and skilfully
commanded runs straight upon a rock However,
it is not so bad as it might be, for "it is expected
that she will be got off safely at high water."
this reminds us of the language in which the
American newspapers are wont to announce the
usual result of a Federal invasion. The " safety"
of a vessel that is floated off a rock close to the
Irish coast in an attempt to cross the Atlantic at
express speed is like the safety of a conquering
force that is withdrawn by a strategic movement
behind intrenchments. The Anglia may be saved
from shipwreck, but can shs possibly arrive punc-
tually at her destination ? If we may waive for a
moment the reserve wnich makes us unwilling to
put this company on its defence, we would fain ask
what conceivable claim it can have to public sup-
port unless it can fairly beat all competitors in the
time of transit. On the supposition that there was
no job in the case, Galway was selected not as the
most convenient starting point in other respects
either for passengers or goods traffic, but simply as
the nearest port to America. It was assured that the
mails, at least, could be transmitted from one con-
tinent to the other with the utmost despatch and
regularity. How have these expectations, if they
deserved to be called so, been fulfilled ? We will
not go so far as to say that not a single voyage has
been made within the agreed time, but we may
safely assert that such voyages have been the ex-
ception, and not the rule. Again and again the
news brought by these vessels has been anticipated,
and the practical inferiority of the Galway route
established by the only test that we can apply. One
purpose, and one only, has hitherto been served by
it, that of facilitating the passage of emigrants from
Connaught to New York. This is not the place to
inquire whether this is a proper object of Imperial
policy, but it was not the motive assigned for the
grant, and Mr. Gregory_ would scarcely advise us to
provide the United States with recruits at our own
expense. Now, either the penalties for these inces-
sant defaults will beenforced or they will not. If they
are not, the other Companies who now compete
handicapped with the Atlantic will have the best
possible reason to complain, and the job will have
been carried beyond the limits of fair play. If
they are, they will eat into the profits of the
concern and bring down the dividends terribly.
Nor can we see any fair prospect of improvement.
After the former breakdown, and the fierce agita-
tion both in and out of Parliament about the rights
and wrongs of Galway, we may take it for granted
that every precaution of which their means ad-
mitted was taken by the directors. Accidents may
happen, but they do not happen with the unifor-
mit?y of a fixed law, and though " misfortunes," as
the saying is, " do not come singly," they rarely
come in such numbers and with such regularity un-
less where they have a permanent cause. It will
be impossible to evade the question whether the
Galway experiment has not been tried long
enough. Ireland had set her heart on its being
made, and it has been made for many months
under every advantage. So far it has proved a
dead failure, and a second set of shareholders are
threatened with ruinous loss. Must this company
be tested, as cannon are tested, up to the point of
a destructive explosion, or shall some other gratifi-
cation be provided for the Irish nation in lieu of it ?
This is what Parliament will have to consider. If
the directors can show that they are the victims of
a fatal series of mischances, or the peasantry of
Connaught can make good their deinand for a cheap
means of transport under the name of a posts
service, we have not a word to say against it. We
have long advocated the concession as a pecuniary
largess to Ireland, and we freely admit that the
recipients should be consulted as to the form in
which they will take it.
POST.—If the author of the grim tragedy, the
last act of which came to a close on Monday night,
had not been a man skilled in poison—specially
educated, so to speak, in a department of science
which he turned to such devilish account—many
individuals, conscious of being the objects of some
outstanding feud, might well resolve to live exclu-
sively on eggs. The subtle power at a poisoner's
command of inflicting sudden and silent death was
perhaps never more forcibly illustrated than by the
murderer Hunt on Saturday night. The conditions
under which the wife and two children succumbed
to poison without the circumstance being discovered
until the cab door was thrown open, its destination
being reached, are so extraordinary—would have
seemed, had they not actually occurred, so impro-
bable—that the author of a sensational novel,
drawing on his imagination for the results, would
hardly have escaped the imputation of transcending
the probable to a wholly unwarrantable degree ;
nay further, we argue that if the wretched mur-
derer-suicide had given himself up to the police at
once—as soon as the hue and cry was raised—de-
nying his cognisance of the deed, and throwing the
accusation on his wife, the probability of such aver-
ment would have been strong that whatever the
coroner's jury might have done, the judge's jury
would never have convicted on the strength of such
evidence as has been hitherto adduced. That, when
the man Hunt got out of the cab opposite Furni-
val's-inn, his wife and children were alive, and that,
subsequent to his departure, the fatal dose of prus-
sic acid was adminstered by Mrs. Hunt, would have
been an hypothesis so plausible that it must have
commended itself to a jury if backed by Hunt's
own asseverations. This view of the case will be-
come the more evident if we pass cursorily in review
some of the specialities of prussic acid. Quite true
it is that real, absolute, undiluted prussic acid is so
dire a poison that a mere drop of it let fall, not to
say upon the tongue, but into the eyite,t e s
da
strong animal—a dog, for instance—wit su
denness of a lightning stroke or a cannon-ball; but
this sort of prussic acid we apprehend must have
been out of the question. In the first place, it can-
not be bought ; it must be prepared by the person
using it, and when prepared must be kept sun.
rounded by ice, or it rapidly decomposes. If the
murderer bought his prussic acid, it could not have
had more than five per cent. strength, and most pro-
bably only three per cent. It is indeed competent to
assume that Hunt—acquainted with chemistry as
he was—manufactured prussic acid intermediate
in strength between that of absolute acid and the
but even this assump-
dtiiolunt,eiflaiqduoipdtedof,
btynenoshmoepasn;
s removes the difficulties
which beset the caee. Whatevertheorginal strength,
it would seem to have been diluted by mixture with
beer; and for that reason it is with the hypothesis
of dilute prussic acid that we have to concern our-
selves. Now, the progress of symptoms—dilute
prussic acid being swallowed in a tetchy poisonous
dose—is somewhat as follows :—For the first three
keeonds, or about, no effect will be perceptible; the
patient, noticing a strong taste of bitter almonds,
will becote:,
has been swallowed, no more. With the fourth
as— e4s hat boil!; en't rit!ou,-, mate-
rial