The Sun.
London, England, 1865-04-06 00:00:00

UNIVERSITY BOAT RACE.

We have to record in the practice of yesterday—which,
despite the unfavourable state of the weather, was wit-
nessed throughout by a large number of equestrians and
others—two fine races, one between the Oxonians and a
crew of picked London watermen, and the other between
tho Cantabs and a fine crew of the Great Kingston Rowing
Club, mainly composed of past University men of eminence.
The first of these trials of skill and stamina took place at
noon betweenthe Oxford and the best 8 London watermen
selected for the occasion, the boats being manned as
follows :

OXFORD st lb
1. Mr. R. T. Raikes, Merton 11 0
2. Mr. P. Senhouse, Christ Church 11 1
3. Mr. E. F. Henley, Oriel ... 12 10
4. Mr. G. G. Coventry, Pembroke... ~. 11 10
5. Mr. A. Morrison, 8a11i01... ... 12 6
6. Mr. T. Wood, Pembroke 12 1
7. Mr. 11. Schneider, Trinity 11 10
8. Mr. M. Brown, Trinity •.. 11 2
C. E. W. Tottenham, Ch. Ch (cox.) 7 13
WATERMEN.
1. David Coombes, Horsleydown
2. T. Wise, Hammersmith
3. Horace Cole, Chelsea
4. John Mackinney, Richmond
5. J. W. Tagg, East Moulsey
6. T. Hoare, Hammersmith
7. George Hammerton, Kingston
8. Henry Kelley, Putney.
John Phelps, Fulham (cox.)
The Oxonians left their boat-yard at 20 minutes past 11,
and started straight up the river at a fine pace, doing 37 to
38 strokes per minute in a drizzlingrain, which increasedin
intensity as they get to Mortlake. Contrary to usual prac-
tice, they did not leave their boat until they reached the
Ship, shortly after which the watermen appeared coming
through Barnes-bridge, rowing in such finished style as to
induce the belief that they were quite fitted to hold their
own against the Oxonians. After the gentlemen had taken
some rest they got into their boat again, and turned her
head down the river, but they had drifted some 50 or 60
yards below the Ship before the race commenced, owing
to a desire on the, part of the watermen to forge ahead.
At the actual moment of starting the watermen wore a few
yards in front, and, although the gentlemen rowed at the
topof their speed at 42 strokes per minute, the professionals
gradually left them, had cleared themselves in about a
quarter of a mile, and opposite the White Hart, Barnes,
wore leading by half a clear length, the Oxonians having
to row through a heavy wash, which watermen know so
well how to throw up. The course taken by John Phelps,
moreover, whose crew had started with the best station, was
exceedingly good, while that of the Oxford coxswain was
the reverse, and the watermen reached Barnes-bridge first
by a length and a half. The time of the Oxonians was
2min. 45sec.—a splendid performance ; but it must be borne
in mind that they rowed on a much better tide than that of
Tuesday, and had a strong wind down the reach in their
favour. After this performance the two crews paddled
down a little distance, and then continued a series of races
all the way to Putney, the watermen having generally
rather the best of it.
The Cantabs left Putney about three quarters of an hour
after their opponents, and after a smart row up to the
White Hart at Barnes turned and rowed through the
bridge, and started down some few yards below it under
the same favourable circumstances as the Oxonians, ex-
cept that the rain had very much increased, rowing 43
strokes per minute, which they continued for some consi-
derable distance, the pace upon the boat being very great,
and the form improved. At Hammersmith-bridge, which
was lined with spectators on horse and foot, a very fine
crew of the Kingston Rowing Club were in waiting to give
them a spin home to the aqueduct, the gentlemen man-
ning the Kingston eight being—Bow, F. Middleton ; 2, C.
Cardale ; 3, C. C. Mowbray ; 4, F. Wade ; 5, B. Seymour ;
6, R. Shepherd ; 7, W. B. Woodgate ; stroke, W. Risley ;
F. Walton (coxswain). Messrs. Risley, Woodgat e, and Shop-
herd rowed in the Oxford crew of former years. At the time
they started the Kingston Club was some two lengths in
advance, and before the Cantabs were well into theirstroke
had added another to it. Beth caulo down at a flying pace
past the Soap-works, where there was no diminution in
the lead of the Kingston gentlemen ; but from this point
the superior condition of theCantabsbegan to tell, and they
gradually gained upon theiruntmined opponents, who were
barely enabled to reach Putney-bridge a length in, advance.

There are few subjects which of late have excited
more interest or attracted a larger share of public
attention than the completion of some one of the
various plans which have been invented for effecting
a safe and certain means of communication between
the passengers and guards and drivers of railway
trains. There is no doubt that the public were first
aroused to insist on some solution of this most diffi-
cult question by the murder of Mr. Briggs at Hack-
ney, though the purely exceptional nature of that
crime, the detection and punishment which over-
took its perpetrator, and partly the gradual con-
sciousness which was evinced that scarcely any
amount of communication with the guard would
suffice to save a traveller from one really bent on
assassination, soon caused the feeling to die away.
It has lately, however, been revived on far more ra-
tional grounds than the first panic which gave rise
to it last summer. Since then tires have come off
wheels, axles, have broken, carriages caught fire or
run off the line, and it is rare now to find a week
passing without accounts in our columns of fearful
peril undergone by passengers who were bumped and
dragged along in a carriage off the line or with a
broken axle, powerless to avert the dreadful fate
whiCh impended over them every second, and from
which nothing but what may be almost termed a
providential interference has saved them. In but
too many cases of railway accidents that have ter-
minated with such fatal results it is well known that
all danger could have been easily avoided had the
passengers only possessed some means of communi-
cating with either guard or driver. It is only of
these latter disasters that the public are certain to
hear, for not one half of those which terminate with
dreadful frights and severe bruises to travellers are
made public. The demand for some means of con-
trolling the progress of the train on the part of the
passengers has, however, become so urgent and per-
sistent that the whole question has lately been re-
ferred to a Committee of the Railway. Clearing-
house, where the various chief managers of the me-
tropolitan railways under the able presidency of Mr.
Forbes, of the London, Chatham, and Dover have
had to inquire into and report upon the enor-
mous number of designs, inventions, and proposi-
tions for easily effecting this much-to-be-desired
means of communication. The very onerous duties
of the committee in this respect were fortunately
lightened by the fact that out of upwards of 200
plans proposed only two or three were really worth
considering at all. The report of this committee
has not yet been made public, though it is generally
known that it will in effect be against any of the
plans proposed—that it will request the Board of
Trade to take the onus of preparing any plan, and
also to assume the responsibility of the safe working
of the various lines when they have put it into the
power of passengers to stop trains on the line at will.
This will, of course, be a very unsatisfactory conclu-'
sion for the public, though the arguments by which
the railway managers can support this decision are
entitled to every weight and grave consideration.
First, they can point to the fact that in proportion
to the numbers carried and the high speed of tra-
velling—which latter is, of course, a most serious
element of danger—the number of passengers killed
on English railways are almost lower than the num-
bers killed on any other railway system in the world
while the loss of life among guards and railway offi-
cials is in England not more than half of what is
caused on continental lines, from the enforced rule
of the guards having to pass from carriage to car-
riage while the train is in motion to collect tickets,
&c. There is, however, no choice in this country as
to whether the passengers' signal is to stop the train
or to bring the guard to the carriage, for the latter
result is impossible on English lines, where the sides
of tunnels and the constantly occurring abutments
of bridges come so close to the carriages as to leave
no room for the guard to pass, and almost certain
death would result to any attempting it. Nothing
therefore remains but to give passengers the power
of stopping trains at once, and this is one which
the managers consider would be fraught with con-
stant and terrible danger to the public on the short
metropolitan lines, where the stoppages are constant
and the trains succeed each other at intervals of lit-
tle more than three minutes. Yet it was on a line of
this kind, and worked under these conditions, that
the murder of Mr. Briggs was committed, just as
the external facilities afforded on the French line to
enable the guard to enter any of the carriages while
in motion gave easy means of access to the mur-
derer of the French judge and equally easy and
certain means of escape. To speak plainly, how-
ever, perhaps too much excitement and too much
alarm have been caused by the murder of Mr. Briggs.
No one ever enters a railway carriage with the same
confident expectation that he will be as safe there
as in his bed, yet scores of people have been mur-
dered in their beds without causing a tithe of the
sensation that was awakened by the murder of Mr.
Briggs--a sensation due probably more to the novelty
of the crime and its mysterious discovery than to
the mere crime itself. Certain it is that there is no
signal yet devised by engineers or electricians which
would be quite enough to prevent those bent on
effecting murder from committing it before assist-
ance could come, even supposing the victim was so
little taken by surprise as to be able to sound the
signal before he was injured. It is not, however,
with a view to the prevention of the most rare crime
of murder or attempts at murder that it is sought to
have communications established between passen-
gers, guard, and driver. The number of these crimes
is so small as to be scarcely worth considering. It
is to prevent danger from the constantly-recurring
accidents caused by broken tires and axles, car-
riages on fire or off the line, that the signals are
really designed. The value of such an invention
applied to carriages of main line trains on long and
rapid journeys is not likely to be ignored by the
report of the Clearing-house Committee, though it
is not improbable but that it will point to the diffi-
culties, the almost insuperable difficulties, of work-
ing extensive rolling stock between distant places,
and to the almost certainty of carriages not fitted
with a continuation of the signalling apparatus
getting put into long trains, and so rendering the
signals from all the rest of the train worthless. To
fit all carriages is, as we have said, objected to ;
and it is asked, what would be likely to be the
result if the trains so fitted were used on the great
popular fete days at the Crystal Palace, where the
trains, full of " excited " holiday makers, are
running at two or three minutes' intervals up to 1 in
the morning, if it were left to any
carriage to stop the train in the middletd ofpassengerthmo any
area
solution
ugmtoi oob nde
speed after it.
when two or three were coming at f
It must be admitted,ththeewr.eafbyoercos,oftlavhedaptrtaahctetreiacllaa:l
einacarde:taltble energy and enterprise
nmolfaatillhisnY:iqdffiuuesce lilttiootin'etisi;
with which the South-Western Company have come
forward in the matter, and to the skill and ingenuity
employed by their electrical superintendent, Mr. W.
Preece. The invention of Mr. Preece is that
which has been most favourably thought of by the
Clearing-house Committee, and it is also, we believe,
most strongly approved by the Government In-
spector, Captain Tyler. The whole apparatus is
simple in the extreme, and consists merely of a
strong clever adaptation of that power of the future,
electricity, to enable every passenger in every com-
partment to communicate with both guard and
driver. The machinery consists of a small six-cell
sulphate of mercury battery (a French discovery),
and a battery not liable to get out of order, and
which can work without change or supervision for
12 months at a time. This battery is connected by
common insulated wires passing under each side of.

Almost at the same moment that Lord Palmer-
ston was paying a tribute of respect in the House of
Commons to the memory of the late Mr. Cobden
the Vice-President of the French Council of State,
M. de Forcade la Roquette, while speaking upon
the corn laws in France, concluded as follows. We
quote from the Moniteur : •
" Gentlemen,—ln this discussion upon the corn laws the
name of Sir Robert Peel has been mentioned ; but, to be
just, it must not be forgotten that that great statesman was
inspired in his glorious undertaking by a man who has be-
come celebrated—Richard Cobden. This morning's mail
from England has brought the news of his death. (General
movement of regret.) Ido not think I am out of place in
a discussion upon the corn laws and the Treaty of Com-
merce in rendering a public homage to an illustrious
stranger. (Loud cheers.)
"M. Gamier-Pages—Tres Lien ! Tres bien
"M. Auguste Chevalier—We all join in the expression
of regret. (Yes, yes ! from the other members.)
"Since Fox .(continued M. de Forcade La Roquette) no
statesman in England has shown a more sincere and
cordial affection to France. (Applause.) He exerted all
his energies to set aside the dissensions and jealousies which
for so long a period separated the two countries; ho did all
he could to strengthen the alliance between Franco and
England, an alliance rich in its results, and so necessary
to the progress of the civilisation of the world. (Loud ap-
plause.)
"M. Gamier-Pages—Yes it is true. Tres Bien.

" His death (continued M. do Forcado La Roquette) is
not a 'calamity for England alone, but also for France,
which deeply regrets his loss, and joins in the universal
regret which it has occasioned. (' Yes, yes!' from every
part of the:House).
" M. Glais Bizoin.—Yes, let England know that our re•
grets are unanimous. (Cheers and loud applause.)
The House then adjourned."

The following notice appeared in the Cloak-room
of the House of Commons :

"The funeral of Mr. Cobden will take place at Laving-
ton-Q-hurch, Midhurst, cm- Friday nest, .the 7th inst., at 1.
p.m. For the convenience of those who may be desirous of
attending, a special train will leave the Waterloo station at
9.40 a.m., and return to London at 3.45 p.m. Tickets can
be obtained by application to the Secretary of the South-
Western Railway, Waterloo station."

Yesterday morning at a meeting of the city coun-
cil, at Manchester, the mayor (Mr. Bennett) asked
for a suspension of business in order that they might
pay a tribute to the memory of the late Mr. Cobden.
Ile then moved :—" That the council has heard with
deep and unfeigned grief of the sudden and unex-
pected death of Mr. Richard Cobden, M.P. While
fully sympathising in the regret universally felt by
the nation for the loss of one of its most distin-
guished statesmen, by whose exertions inestimable
and enduring benefits have been rendered to his
country, this council feel called upon in an especial
manner, to record their grateful recollection of the
many important advantages conferred upon the city
by the late Mr. Cobden, who it will ever be their
pride to remember as one to whom this city is largely
indebted for obtaining the grant, and subsequently
securing the establishment, of the charter of incor-
poration ; and as an active and influential member
of the first elected council. That this council desire
to offer to Mrs. Cobden and the members of her
family the respectful assurance of sincere condolence
and heartfelt sympathy in their deep affliction."
Sir E. AR3IITAGE seconded the motion, and, after
observations from Mr. Romney, Mr. Heywood, and
Mr. Goadsby, in the course of which it was sug-
gested that, as far as convenient, business should be
suspended and shops and warehouses closed on the
day of Mr. Cobden's funeral, the resolution passed
unanimously. It was subsequently arranged that:the
Mayor, the ex-Mayor, and Sir E. Armitage attend
the funeral on behalf of the corporation.
The Salford Corporation have arranged that the
Mayor and ex-Mayor of that borough should repre-
sent it at the funeral. At a meeting of the Manches-
ter Chamber of Commerce yesterday a resolution of
similar purport to that agreed upon by the cor-
poration was adopted, and Mr. Malcolm ROSS, presi-
dent, Mr. John Holliday, vice-president, and Mr.
Fleming, secretary, were requested to attend the
funeral on behalf of the Chamber.

We take the following particulars respecting the
early days of the deceased statesman from the Man-
chester Courier :
" Mr. Cobden began life as a lad in a London
warehouse. Growing into a young man he was sent
on matters of business to many of the houses with
him that he and two of
d ssOu. s
me hade
which his firm was connected. Among those he so
visited was Mr. John Lewis, of 101, Oxford-street.
Mr. Lewis conceived a liking for the young man on
e
which
whatever
io're
h
account of theed to
to come smarc
dtaon,dtza his us
or
business-liketheon manner in
and transact
kind
w
gave him a few
hesitationOaeday young
told
and Cobden came to him,
with
comrades, young men like himself, had heard of
a businesshis
near Manchester, which a gentleman was
retiring from, and the plant of which was to be had
for £1,500 ; this sum the three had agreed to raise
among them,
but Cobden had no friends to help him.
with his quota, and therefore he ventured to ask Mr.
Lewis if he would do so. Mr. Lewis, from his par-
tiality to him, at once assented ; and Cobdenleft him
in high spirit. But soon after he called again, with
a long face, to say his colleagues had not been able
to raise their £5OO each. After a while, however, ho
came again to state that the owner of the business
in question, having heard favourably of the trio,
agreed to let them have it for Cobden's £5OO. Would
Mr. Lewis still let him have the money ? Mr. Lewis
very kindly complied, and the three shortly after
began the world together. The £5OO was speedily
repaid ; and, after a very few years, one and then
another of the partners drew out of the business with
a handsome fortune, and Richard Cobden came to
be what he was. The foregoing particulars were
related to the writer by Mr. Lewis, who retired from
business about 25 years ago, and subsequently died
in Madeira."

EARTHQUAKE IN CORFU.—It is reported from
Malta that shocks of earthquake have been lately felt at
Corfu. It is said that a mountain near Arta has thrown out
smoke and flame. It is also reported that a village in tho
neighbourhood has been destroyed, with two or three hun-
&l'd of its inhabitants.