The Sun.
London, England, 1865-06-19 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, JUNE 19, 1865.

The Atlantic Telegraph.

At length all the preparations connected with the
final departure of this great telegraphic expedition
are completed. On Wednesday the Amethyst left
the telegraph works with the last length of 245
miles of cable on board, and on Saturday the opera-
tion of coiling this in was begun. This work will
probably last till the 22d instant, when the Great
Eastern will have in her as nearly as possible 7,000
tons of cable, or, including the iron tanks which
contain it and the water in which it is sunk, about
9,000 tons in all. In addition to this she has al-
ready 7,000 tons of coal on board, and 1,500 tons
more still to take in. This additional weight, how-
ever, will not be added till she leaves the Medway,
which she will do on the morning of the 24th, for
the Nore, when the rest of the coals and special
stores will be put aboard, and these will bring her
mean draught down to 32ift. Her total weight, in-
cluing engines, will then be rather over 21,000 tons,
a stupendous mass for any ship to carry, but well
within the capacity of the Great Eastern, of which
the measurement tonnage is 24,000. Her way out
from the Nore will be by Bullocks Channel, which
the Admiralty are having carefully buoyed to avoid
all risk in these rather shallow waters. Before the fol-
lowing spring tides set in, about the 6th or 7th of
July, the Great Eastern will start for Valentia. There
she is expected to arrive about the 9th or 10th, and
there she will be met by the two ships of war ap-
pointed to convoy her—the Terrible and the Sphinx.
Both these vessels are being fitted with the best ap-
paratus for deep sea soundings; with buoys and means
for buoying the end of the cable, if ever it should
become necessary; and with Bollen's night light
naval signals, with which the Great Eastern is like-
wise to be supplied. To avoid all chance of accident,
the big ship will not approach the Irish coast nearer
than 20 or 25 miles, and her stay off Valentia will
be limited to the time occupied in making a splice
with the massive shore end, which for a length of 25
miles from the coast will be laid previous to her ar-
rival. This monstrous shore end, which is the
heaviest and strongest piece of cable ever made,
will be despatched in a few days, and be laid from
the head of a sheltered inlet near Cahirciveen out to
the distance we have stated, where the end will
be buoyed and watched by the ships of war till
the Great Eastern herself comes up. Some idea
of the strength and solidity of this great end may
be guessed by the fact that its weight per mile is
very little short of half the weight of an ordinary
railway metal. For the shore end at Newfoundland
only three miles are required, and this short length
will be sent in the Great Eastern. When once the
splice is made from the great cable ship to the English
shore end—an operation which will consume about
five hours—the work of laying the cable will instantly
commence. By this time every mile of the cable in
the three tanks will have been joined up, and at a
stated hour, morning and evening, a series of signals
will be sent through the cable to the land at Valen-
tia, and thence to London, giving the latitude and
longitude of the great ship, the state of the weather,
and the number of miles paid out. The cable will
he first taken out from the forward tank, next from
that amidships, and lastly from that astern ; and if
all goes well the vessels should arrive with nearly 500
miles of cable in her still unused, an excess which
is most wisely allow 2d in case of accident. We may
add that since the paying-out apparatus has been
in work its action has been faultless. Messrs. Can-
ning, Clifford, and Temple have absolute charge of
all the details connected with the submergence. Mr.
De Sauty is in charge of the electrical condition of
the cable for the makers, Mr. Varley goes to repre-
sent the Atlantic Company, and Professor Thompson
as scientific adviser and referee. These gentlemen,
however, are only the chiefs of the various large
departmental staffs which will be on board.
With regard to the proms of laying, it is hoped
the Great Eastern may be kept throughout the
whole voyage at a uniform speed of six knots
per hour, faster than which it would not be safe, as
a rule, to run out the cable. At less speed than this,
however, the big ship would fail of steerage way,
and with a beam wind would certainly go to lee-
ward without some counteracting influence. This
influence will be afforded, if necessary, by the pad-
dle-engines, which are to be disconnected, and the
efforts of one wheel at either side would be quite
sufficient to over-balance the effects of anything
but a very violent storm. The latter risk is
now literally all that has to be feared. Everything
else which human foresight can suggest, either in
cable or ships, everything which long experience or
scientific progress can devise, has been provided,
and the success or failure of this vast expedition is
now only a question of weather. On this only
doubtful point, therefore, it is gratifying to know
that Captain Anderson is sanguine of all doing well.
In his experience of many years and hundreds of
voyages backwards and forwaids in command of
the Cunard liners over this very track of the Atlan-
tic, he states that in the early part of July it never
blows long or strong, and that during that time he
had never even heard of any bad weather which
could for a moment affect a vessel like the Great
Eastern. If these anticipations should prove cor-
rect—and there are none better capable of forming
them than Captain Anderson—and if all goes well,
both as to course and rate of steaming, telegraphic
communication with the United States may be looked
f3r at the latest about the 20th or 21st of next
month. Yet, in the estimate of events, it must not
be forgotton that, in the last memorable expedition
in the Agamemnon, midsummer was fixed on as the
time when a storm in the Atlantic was almost im-
possible, and the records of the Meteorogical De-
partments both here and in America certainly justi-
fied such an expectation, as they showed that fOr 50
years no storm had taken place at that time. Yet
it was precisely on the 21st of June that the hurri-
cane with which the Agamemnon and Niagara had
been battling for some days was at its height, and
those on board the ill-towed Agamemnon, at least,
knew not from hour to hour which was to be their
last. Most earnestly is it to be wished that on this
great occasion the calculation of averages, if not
more just, may prove at least more fortunate. As
far as regards the cable itself there is absolutely
nothing to be desired.

The Malta and Alexandria wire was an enormous
improvement on that by means of which it was
hoped to connect England with the United States.
That laid along the Persian Gulf is again a great
improvement on the Malta and Alexandria ; while
this which is to cross the Atlantic is a still more
marked improvement on them all. So exquisitely
delicate are the tests that a minute flaw even in one
of the four coatings of gutta-percha has been de-
tected, its place defined almost to a yard or so, and
the length in which it occurred at once cut out. It
is a singular but significant fact that almost all the
accidents and stoppages which have occurred to sub-
marine cables have arisen from those which have
been laid in shallow water. A deep-sea line once
well laid seldom or never gives future trouble, ex-
cept, of course, in those few rare cases where the
line has to be taken over ocean depths known to be
liable to volcanic disturbances. Thus the deep-sea
portions of the Malta and Alexandria line from
Malta to Tripoli have, it is stated, never given an
hour's uneasiness, while the shallow sections from
Bangazi, &c., to Alexandria are constantly getting
out of repair. As a set-off to this, however, it is
only fair to say that shallow cables may be repaired
with as much facility as they seem to break down ;
while, on the other hand, the first fault of a deep-
sea line is, as a rule, its last.
At the bottom of the Atlantic it is needless to
say that no volcanic disturbances are apprehended.
Along the route on which the cable is to be laid the
depths vary from 1,500 to about 2,500 fathoms. The
dangerous part of this course has hitherto been sup-
posed to be the sudden dip or bank which occurs
about 100 miles off the west coast of Ireland, and
where the water was supposed to deepen in the course
of a few miles from about 300 fathoms to nearly
2,000. Such a rapid descent has naturally been re-
garded with alarm by telegraphic engineers, and
this alarm has led to a most careful sounding sur-
vey of the whole of the supposed bank by Captain
Dayman, acting under the instructions of the Ad-
miralty. The result of this shows that the sup-
posed precipitous bank, or submarine cliff, is a gra-
dual slope of nearly 60 miles. Over this long slope
the difference between its greatest height and greatest
depth is only 8,760 ft., so that the average incline is,

in round numbers, about 14,5 ft. per mile. A good
gradient on a railway is now generally considered to
be 1 in 100 ft., or about 53 in a mile, so that the in-
cline on this supposed bank is only about three
times that of the ordinary railway. In fact, as far
as soundings can demonstrate anything, there are few
slopes in the bed of the Atlantic as steep as that of
Holborn-hill. In no part is the bottom rocky, and
with the exception of a few miles, which are shingly,
only ooze, mud or sand is to be found.
As regards the commercial prospects of the un-
dertaking, it may be stated that the Atlantic Com-
pany have begun their work under the renewed
agreement with the Government for a subsidy of
£20,000 a-year, and, in addition, a guarantee of 8
per cent. upon a capital of £600,000. All systems
of Government guarantee of this kind are in them-
selves radically bad, and opposed to every rule of
free trade and commercial enterprise. In this case,
however, the guarantee is not only at variance with
the principles of political economy, but possesses its
own special attributes of absurdity. Thus, in return
for their guarantee, which is only to continue in
force while the line is in working order, the Govern-
ment demand that the maximum charge for mes-
sages shall not exceed 2s. 6d. per word. With such
a tariff the line would be absolutely choked with
messages, and the company, in return for its over-
work and general maladministration of business,
would only receive a revenue of £250,000 a-year.
At a tariff of £1 per word, on the contrary, the
company, while guaranteeing a message to, and the
receipt of a reply from any part of the United
States within 24 hours, could with ease earn a re-
venue of £1,000,000 a year, or nearly twice the cost
of the present cable. In fact, the Government gua-
rantee is only conditional on the line being in work-
ing order, and while it is so working the company
can, for the reasons, we have stated, do ten times
better without it. If the shareholders are wise, the
sooner they shake off this clog upon their enterprise
the better. At present it is estimated that the opera-
tion of telegraphing can be safely conducted day
and night at the rate of from six to eight words a
minute. Both Professor Thompson and Mr. Varley,
however, are confident that with the new machines
they have invented this rate may be increased to
nearly 12 words a minute. On this expectation,
however, we decline to venture an opinion. The
despatch of a message of 100 words through the line
to America, and the clear receipt of a similar num-
ber in reply, will, after the cable has been laid, be
accepted by the company as a proof that the wire is
in perfect working order, and without further for-
mality it will at once be opened to the use of the
public. Most earnestly do we hope that this greatest
scientific undertaking may be followed by the com-
mercial and political success which the completion of
telegraphic communication with the United States
must achieve.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

~--~

THE " SPECTATOR" ON KINDLY TORYISM.—Mr.
W. H. Smith, the Conservative candidate for
Westminster, has performed, and performed well,
a very difficult task. He has contrived, while re-
jecting noisy Toryism, the creed of the Carlton
and the Standard, to reflect that very great and
influential body
of English opinion which we may
describe in the words quiescent Toryism. There is
in almost every county and borough of England,
perhaps there exists even in Westminster, a large
body of voters who usually vote on the Conservative
side, who have a strong repulsion from change, who
dread constitutional innovation, and who are disposed
to look to the past rather than to the future, but who
nevertheless are not Tories in grain. Every now and
then, convinced by a catastrophe or a leader, they
sway heavily round to the Liberals, and, when they
do, opposition disappears. They dislike reform pro-
posals not so much because they are " democratic,"
as because they think the old Constitution has worn
very well, and like an old garment has got easy, and
everybody under it seems very comfortable and con-
tent. If it is clear to them that anybody is not so,
then they are willing to abate the discomfort, are
sometimes as keenly sympathetic to material hard-
ship as they are indifferent to hardship of idea. They
shrink from a reduction of the suffrage, but will re-
organise the Civil Service, start at a fancy franchise,
but are quite willing to revolutionise the Poor-law,
shudder at a workman's demand for a vote, but press
into the lobby when asked to protect him from over
work. Naturally enough they are as Tories heretical
on the subject of education. Your hard Tory, the
man whose creed is of the intellect as well as of the
feeling, has at heart a dislike of education—doubts
whether it does not equalise men too much, questions
whether really good people would not be as content
with the culture of their station as with its income.
The kindly Tory, on the other hand, dislikes and
rather dreads ignorance—feels about as good clergy-
men's wives do about dirt in a cottage, as something
unpleasant, which ought to be done away with
not only for the sake of the cottager but of those
brought into contact with him. He would educate
everybody, and but for religious difficulties would
not be disinclined to make education compulsory,—
indeed has actually done so in all villages dependent
upon factories, that is, in half the villages of the
North. In ecclesiastical matters the class is, on the
whole, for the Church, but thinks a great deal too
much fuss is made about trifling differences, and
while it would on no account turn the Bishops out
of the House of Lords, has an odd but very pro-
found dislike to their making themselves very pro-
minent in it. Mr. Smith reflects these opinions,
which scarcely find. expression in the Press,—the
Tory newspapers having been for years more violent
than their own leaders,—and reflects them very ac-
curately. He knoNvsl he says, of " no great or
wsthinilge,
by
in England"—one-fifth of
Dr. Simon's account,
getting too little to eat—and likes power to be given
sthereio population graietvioanneteheexi
" to the man who has something to lose." He does
not in politics wish for "sudden or serious changes,"
but still he thinks that " the system of administra-
tion requires reform." " There are reforms in our
streets which need to be effected ; there are reforms
much needed in the dwellings of our poor ; and if I
were asked for an opinion I would say that I would
much rather the poor should be educated before
they were admitted to the franchise than afterwards.
In that direction I believe some very useful reforms
may be effected ; but I know that the work will be
a long and laborious one, and one which cannot be
carried out with .
much eclat by the reformer."
In fact Mr. Smith prepared, if he can, to
assist in extinguishing ignorance and pau-
perism, which we take it would involve a
very much greater innovation in this country
than even the introduction of manhood suffrage.
It is a kindly creed, it is held by large bodies of
Englishmen, and it is worth while to consider for a
moment whether the Tory party, as a political
party, can really claim credit for carrying out a
policy such as this, a policy that is which, while
refusing to meddle with the franchise, will support
education, the social amelioration of the poor, and
administrative reform. We scarcely think so. As
a matter of fact, all measures for giving assistance
to national education have been carried not by them,
but by their rivals. It was Lord John Russell who
moved the first educational grant ; Liberals esta-
blished, and their Archbishop worked out, secular
education in Ireland ; and it is by Tory votes that
the conscience clause, without which education
would cease to be national, is endangered. That
party is said to be ready even now to give up the
national system in Ireland if only it could thereby.
obtain Ultramontane support, and the more Con-
servative a Liberal may be the more certain he is to
talk of the " extravagance" of the very limited
grant for education. No doubt many Tories, as,
for example, Sir John Pakington, are sound on the
matter, but as a party it is the Liberals who have
carried out the ideas Mr. Smith professes, who
have forced education on the half-reluctant upper
class, and who have twice defied necessary
allies, the Catholics and the Nonconformists,
rather than surrender their plans for popular
enlightenment. So also with the condition of the
condition of the poor. It was the Reform party
which carried the new Poor Law, and so saved the
country from demoralisation ; which has substituted
Union for parochial rating, and so set the labourer
free ; which has carried lodging-house Acts, and
for hygeine, and which, above all, has accepted the
grand principle that the credit of the State may be
usefully strained to increase the thrift of the poor.
Nothing the Tories have done for a generation will
do so much in the end to raise the masses as the
opening of State savings' banks and the establish-
ment of State insurance-offices, both measures de-
vised and carried by the Minister whom of all
statesmen the Tories regard with the most loathing
respect. It is true the Tories have voted pretty
readily for the Ten Hour and Factory Acts, but we
have yet to learn how much class feeling and class
dislike had to do with their votes ; their opposition
to the Union Chargeability Bill, and to all sugges-
tions for the subjection of cottages to strict survey,
suggest that they had a good deal. When in 1845
Sir Robert Peel proposed in the interest of the
masses to take off that tax upon bread which now
seems so monstrous as to be almost incredible, the
Tories repudiated him, accepted as their leader the
most virulent of his opponents, and would have re-
jected his measures but for the enormous pressure
applied outside. As to administrative reform both

parties are equally innocent and equally guilty,
neither really opposing any reasonable measures,
and neither venturing often to take the initiative.
It was, however, the Liberals who carried the in-
troduction of competitive examinations into the
Civil Service, and so threw the bureaus finally open
to the middle class, and the greatest reform in
departmental management which we have recently
seen—the reduction of dockyard accounts to a
system, under which a Government yard may gain
credit for the cheapness as well as the construc-
tion of its ships—is due to Mr. Stansfeld, whom
the Tories expelled because he happened to number
an Italian Red among his friends. Why, then, if
the things which Mr. Smith professes to want, and
we doubt not really does want, are good, are we to
seek for them in the men who will support Lord
Derby ? Because they will also resist the extension
of the franchise ? That is a good answer fora Tory,
but it is a very bad one for a Liberal, and that is
the point at which we wish to arrive. Mr. Smith's
speech is by far the most moderate one yet made on
the Conservative side, yet when all is told his creed
is simply Liberalism minus a willingness to include
working men in the Constitution, and minus also,
we imagine, though he says nothing about it, any
willingness to innovate on ecclesiastical discipline.
Those, then, are the dividing lines which separate
the reasonable Liberal from the moderate Tory, and
the Liberal elector who is inclined to vote for a can-
didate because he professes social objects like his
own, must remember that he thereby helps to post-
pone the enfranchisement he regards as wise, and
the religious freedom which he believes to be just.

THE " EXAMINER " ON AUSTRIA STILL BEING
PROTECTIONIST.—After all the puffing of Austrian
progress we have lately had in Parliament and else-
where, the policy of the Apostolic Empire continues
to be in the main what it ever was—inveterate
against freedom and invincibly ignorant. The tid-
ings of the week from Vienna contain two facts
which, in themselves, are an epitome of Hapsburg
rule. An unhappy Polish gentleman, for many
years a distinguished advocate at Warsaw, having
been, like althost every man of honour in his coun-
try, compromised in the late revolt, made his way
to England, and after residing here in safety for
some time, ventured recently to visit Vienna
for the purpose of arranging some family affairs.
He was claimed while there as a rebel by the
Russian Ambassador ; seized and sent back to
Poland ; tried, and, of course, convicted there ; and
he is now on his way to Siberia for life. This
is a specimen of the advanced:spirit of justice, cle-
mency, and honour whereof we have been told such
flattering tales. Now, as to the progress in fiscal
and financial wisdom. An international commission
was constituted some three months since, having for
its professed object the conclusion of a treaty like
that made by Mr. Cobden between England and
France. We had indeed little left to concede ; but
we were willing to do all that in us lay to increase
the interchange of products raw and manufactured,
and it was thought worth while by the Austrian
Government to amuse ours by offering to receive in
conference the Vice-President of the Board of
Trade and three other gentlemen as commissioners,
to confer with an equal number of Viennese officials
on the subject. Mr. Hutt, accompanied by Mr. S.
Beaumont, Mr. Lewis Mallet, and Mr. Morier, have
spent many weeks in the Austrian capital, but they
are now about to return re infecta, being unable to
make the slightest way with their impracticable and
impenetrable associates. Herr Kalischberg, a politi-
cian of the Hardwicke or Newdegate stamp, holds
the office of Minister of Commerce; and bringing
with him to the conference certain spirits as wilful
and as prejudiced as himself, day after day he is
said to have spent in hopeless wrangling about
theories of trade well nigh exploded in all other
portions of the world, and in the avowal of a dogged
resolution not to entertain any proposal that would
directly or indirectly affect vested interests so called.
These vested interests all appertain to the German
portions of the empire, and the imperial commis-
sioners were accordingly exclusively German.
When a vacancy or two happened accidentally to
occur, Lord Blomfield suggested blandly whether it
might not be well to have the presence of some one
who would represent the interests and wishes of
Hungary in the commission. No regard, however,
was paid to the suggestion; and after many vain ex-
postulations andremonstrances, the English commis-
sioners told their ambassador that they despaired of
being able to approach, far less to attain, any
practical result. To save appearances, their sittings
were last week adjourned until the end of August;
but in reality there is no expectation that they will
ever be resumed. And all this occurs on the very
eve of the announcement of a new loan by Herr
Plener, the Minister of Finance, who finds himself
unable to make both ends meet without resort to
borrowing once more at rates which must, of course,
be ruinous, because the Customs do not yield a fifth
of what they ought to yield, and because they are
sentenced to infertility by the stupidity and obsti-
nacy of protection. Count Mensdorff is described
as having tried to avert as long as possible the con-
fession of failure in the negotiations for a commer-
cial treaty, and we see that it is alleged by some of
our contemporaries that the Archduke Regnier, the
Emperor's uncle, who fills the post of Premier in the
Apostolic administration, is a man of somewhat less
narrow and bigoted prejudices than Herr Kalisch-
berg. Be this as it may, we only know for. certain
that he has not had the will or the power to over-
rule his retrograde colleagues ; and that the Vice-
President of the Board of Trade has been doomed to
have his diplomatic journey for nothing.

THE " SATURDAY REVIEW" ON THE ASCOT CUP
—For an hour before the race General Peel has been
walking almost unnoticed in the paddock. It seems
odd that the favourite for the Ascot Cup should ob-
tain no more attention, but this race is principally
for honour, whereas the New Stakes, which precedes
it, has a heavy pecuniary value both in itself and as
throwing early light upon the chances of next year's
Derby. However, the New Stakes have been run
for with a result which need not be discussed now,
and the two-year-olds, of whom we shall hereafter
hear so much, are being sheeted and sent home.
Fordham, in the white and crimson of Lord Glas-
gow, is now mounted on General Peel. The
horse is everything in appearance that had been
hoped for a year ago. It has been said on
former occasions that this magnificent animal
Is not exactly what one would fancy for a
racehorse; but then he has proved that he is a race-
horse, so there is no use in saying so again. He has
that commanding beauty of look and movement
which would rivet attention anywhere. No one
who has seen General Peel can forget him or mis-
take him at a distance, just as no one could forget
or mistake St. Alban's, whose shape has been re-
produced in a son of his who ran to-day in a two-
year-old race. Custance has ridden Ely in almost
all his important races, and the scarlet and black of
Mr. Cartwright could not be more ably borne. Ely
was called beautiful wherever he appeared last year,
and well deserves the title, for a more truly-shaped
horse or a more graceful mover never was seen. As
he cantered past the stand at Ascot, the admiration
of the spectators was expressed by the same hearty
applause which greets a favourite actor after an
effective scene. This was a genuine testimony to
I the power of grace in form and action, for Ely was
never puffed like some other horses, and, in spite of
his victory in the Champagne Stakes, the public
would only have him for the Derby during the pre-
vious winter at an outside price. The red and blue
of Count Lagrange—of which such vast quantities
have been manufactured into neck-ties—were worn
as usual by Harry Grimshaw, but he has succeeded
Edwards in the mount on PAM de l'Air after the
mare's great days are gone. She gallops well, but
her action is not so much admired as it was a year
ago, and she looks small and slight by the side of
Ely, and still more when compared to General Peel,
upon whose large and well-knit frame any such
weight as Bst. 101 b. ought to be a trifle, while Fille
de l'Air will hardly live under her corresponding
weight up the Ascot hill. The ground is as hard
as it can be, but here are three first-class horses,
and good legs and feet will carry a horse over any
ground. The lead was taken by Oppressor from
the start, and he held it past the stand, and all
round the course into the straight, having run in
front for upwards of two miles, and almost until
he could run no longer. When he was done
with, Fille de l'Air was done with also, and at

the distance-post there were but two horses in
the race. The three three-year-olds and the French
mare were all too much beaten by pace and weight
to struggle up the hill, but Ely was going well, and
appeared to have the race in hand until opposite the
stand, when General Peel was sent out by Fordham
with so much force and freshness as to look as if he
could not lose. The General had been ridden judi-
ciously throughout. He is not the best of stayers
over a distance, but he is capable, when not ex-
hausted, of showing wonderful speed at the finish of
a race. Accordingly, Fordham saved him as far as
possible until .near home, and came with a rush
when there was barely enough of the race left to win
it in. Many people thought that he had won upon
the post, and some, perhaps, may have thought that
he could have won if he had begun a trifle sooner.
But looking at what occurred afterwards, it is pro-
bable that Fordham did the best he could in making
a dead heat of it. The other horses were out of the
race. As 6 to 4 was laid on General Peel for the de-
ciding heat, it is probable that his backers thought
he ought to have won before. As might have been
anticipa:,ed from the known quality of the horses,
Custance took the lead from the start, with Ely,
while Fordham kept General Peel as far as he dare
behind. In this order they ran all round the course,
and at the turn into the straight Fordham was near
enough to his opponent to play the same game over
again, if he had had under him the necessary mate-
rial. But either strength or heart was wanting, for