The Sun.
London, England, 1865-01-02 00:00:00

called into existence. It is within this same interval
that the Steam Engine has been transformed from a
Stationary Engine into a Locomotive. It was only a
very few months prior to the Battle of Waterloo—it
was while NAPOLEON was yet immured as Emperor
in the island of Elba—that the Steam Engine and the
Printing Press were first combined for the rapid
printing of a great daily newspaper—namely upon
that thenceforth ever-memorable date, the 29th of
November, 1814, when the Times was first of all
steam-printed! Duringthese Fifty Years, MACADAM
has been superseded by STEPHENSON ! The" Rocket"
has outstripped the " Highfiyer!" The engine driver
in his fustian jacket, has long since, replaced the
stage coachman in his innumerable capes. Old
WELLER is as much a personage of the past as a
Druid—while cinderous Mr. TOODLES, stoking
himself as well as his engine, is the homely and
familiar JEHU of nowadays. It was only after
1816 that we began to get rid at last of the dingy
little oil lamps previously lighting our streets—sub-
stituting for that old-world system of oil lamps (at
the outset, with immense difficulty) the then new-
fangled scheme for lighting our towns and cities
with Coal Gas ! A material or " pabulum" now
consumed at the annual rate—here, in London
alone —of about eight thousand millions of
cubic feet, according to a recent calculation
made by Mr. HOLLINGSHEAD ! Within this
Half Century, the old blundering "Sema-
phore" has yielded up its place to that wondrous
system of the Electric Telegraph—the fibrous

threads of which ramify hither and thither all
over these islands, under the Channel, far and
wide over the whole European Continent, trail-
ing under •$e .of the, illExliterranean,
into Africa, into ./isia the Nervous System
of the Modern World I Nay, upwards of seven
years ago, upon the 16th of August, 1857, were
there not momentarily exchanged thrilling
through the core of those thousands of miles of the
Atlantic Cable, trailed profoundly along the channel
of the mighty ocean dividing Europe from America
—certain memorable communications of amity and
good-will, flashed to and fro through the same
marvellous agency, from one continent, to another,
between the English Sovereign and the American
President ? Within this interval of Fifty Years
it has been, moreover, that we have learned
at last how effectually to mitigate--even at
intervals, it might be said, to annihilate—pain,
through the benignant influence of Chloroform.
It has been within this same interval of fifty years,
as recently, in fact, as in 1842, at Singapore, that Dr.
MONTGOMERY discovered a perfectly new and mar-
vellous material for commerce and manufacture in
Gutta Percha. It was during the September of 1847.
that Gold was found lying about in such astonishing
abundance at California—afterwards in Australasia
—afterwards in Vancouver ! It has been only since
the 7th of January,: 1839—when DAGUERRE first
made known to the public his own wonderful dis-
coveries, and the yet earlier discoveries of NIEPCE,
in regard to the action of light as a means of per-
petuating the marvellous images of the Camera
Obscure— that we have been learning (every
year more and more effectually) how our portraits
can be taken as it were in the twinkling of
an instant, by the pencil of a sunbeam. It
has been as recently as within the last 18 years
of this same wondrous Half Century, nay, it has
been no further back than since the year 1846, that
we have been taught. by the astonishing mechanical
tee;pity of EL ins HOWE, of Massachusetts,-1-I,
.
14451.°:i
'inns
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TvElir THEATRE-ROYAL, ADELPHL-
A-1 ..;;6010 k•rupriht antl Abu:lager, tt. A etn4Ler.
THIS EVENING, ICI ON PARLE FRANCAIS. Mr.
J. L. Toole.
Ai er which, at 8, LEAH. Mies Bateman ; Messrs. Geo.
J rdan, Swinbourne, R. Phillips, Stuart; Miss H. Simms.
Hrs. Billington.
To conclude with DARK DOINGS IN THE CUr-
BOARD BY THE KNoTTIMPEII BROTHERS. Messrs.
J. L. Toole, Paul Bedford, R. Phillips, and Mrs. A. Mellon.
Commence at 7.

MISS BA TEMA N.-NEW Tbegs announceHEATRE-
YA L ADELPIII.— Mr. Webster to
that theß gOreat Tiagedienne, Miss BAT it:MAN, having peaer-
formed with unparalleled success the character of " Lh"
fora period of nine consecutive mouths during the last season
at this Theatre, and since won the plaudits of thousands in
Liverpool, Birmingham, Dublin, Manchester, and blasgow,
she will RE-A PPEA it at this Establishment To-night, Jan.
2d, 1885, in her original character of the Jewish Maiden for a
limited number of nights, previously to her appearing in
other illustrations of the Cla• sic Drama, which are in prepa-
ration. The B x-ollice will be opened on Monday, Deo.
when places may be secured for ..uiss Bateman's engagement
a fortnight in advance.

[4O.YAL PRINCESS'S THEATRE.
Sole Lessee and Manager, Mr. Geo. Vining.
THIS EVENING, a new Extravaganz , entitled THE
MAGIC HORSE AND THE ICE MAIDEN' I RINCESS.
After which, THE STREETS OF LONDON. Messrs.
Vining, J. W. Ray, D. Fisher, D. Murray, J. Nelson, H.
Forrester. 11. Mellon ; Mrs. Henry Marston, Miss Emma
Barnett, and Mitid Rainy Gwynne.

ROYAL STRAND THEATRE.
Sole Lessee and Manageress. Mrs. Swanborough.
THI-i EVENING, at 7, SHORT AND SWEET.
After which, the Grand Christmas Burlesque, THE
"GRIN" BIJIIES ; or, the Mrs. Brown of the Mississippi.
Messrs. Stoyle, Thorne, James, Fenton, &c.; Itlesdames Ada
Swanborough, Raynham, Slinl..son, Johnstone, ac.
To omclude with THE WILFUL. WARD. Miss Palmer

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tins DA.Y.—Morning, 4h. 5Q- ~—Afternoon, sh. 20m.
-Dr:l.—Afternoon, c' 81U.

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Will be ready for publication almost immCiately,
when ie shall have the pleasure of presenting a
copy of it to each of our subscribers.

yed eye—

Non-subscri'oers can obtain this singular imvelty
in the Photographic Art—to be entitled—

A SUN PORTRAIT,
either at our own Office, 112, Strand, or at any
Photographic Publishers in the United Kingdom.
A similar Photograph--of the size of an ordi-
nary Carte-de-Visite--giving a facsimile of the
very First Number of this one of the Oldest of the
Daily London Newspapers, will be published simul-
taneously.

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441i*-.110 SIT it
5*444

LONDON, MONDAY, JAN. 2, 1865.

Yesterday the Fifteenth Year of the second half
of this Nineteenth Century duly commenced. So
that by Midsummer next upwards of half a cen-
tury will have elapsed since the last of those
gigantic Battles in which the philosophic genius of
Sir EDWARD CREASY has so sagaciously recognised
the few great turning-points in the history of the
human race. Fully half a cent ury , past and
gone, since the date of the Battle
of Waterloo And that half century, moreover, one so extra-
ordinary of its kind, that we do not hesitate
to affirm, with regard to it, that it marks an
epoch of intellectual development—particularly in
respect to the physical sciences—more notable of
its kind in the annals of humanity than—we will
not merely say any other half century that could
be specified, nay, nor, even, than an
rounded y completely
r century preceding it, but we will go so
fa as to add, than any given thousand
that could be named ! ,in years
And' asserting this,
we would here at once insist that we are
in no way whatever guilty of anything like
extravagance or exaggeration. During these Fifty
Years last past a more astounding advance
than had ever before been dreamt of, has
been made among the civilised races of the earth
in the way of developing appreciably their material
civilisation—in respect, as we have said, more
particularly to the expansion of the physical
sciences ! Otherwise to express it—in the applica-
tion of the fruits of these physical sciences towards
the furtherance and the multiplication of the per-
sonal comforts and social conveniences of mankind,
more has been accomplished, we would seriously
maintain, during these last Fifty Years, than during
any other age, no matter what its duration, that
could be particularised. As affording conclusive
evidence that, in thus writing, we are writing
distinctly within the mark, we need direct
attention simply and exclusively to actual known
Facts. Facts that meet our observation daily
upon all hands and in countless multitudes—Facts
that it is utterly impossible for any one to over-
look.

Within the narrow compass of this Half Century—
since the Downfall of NAPOLEON, since the close of
the last great European war—the New World and
the Old have been covered with an iron network of
Railways. It is during these last fifty years, in fact,
hat the whole of the vast Railway System has Dem

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY •RVEMNG, JANUARY 2, 1865.

on. Acror4

;ic States Will continue to be the chief seat of v
• r. - •

of the World—in regard to the fecundity of these
Fifty Years, in the expansion of the Physical
Sciences, in the development of Man's Material
civilization—it will be found that it begins there
and that it ends there. The expansion is that
purely of the Physical Sciences ! The develop-
ment is that simply of a Material Civilization !
Spiritually, ethically, morally regarded, these
Fifty Years that have brought us the Railway,
the Electric Telegraph, &c., &c., have brought
us before their close—among other priceless fruits of
the Age We Live In—Mormonism and Spirit-Rap-
ping—cynical depreciations of Revelation, such as
those penned by the reverend Essayists and Re-
viewers, or, let us say, such as those penned by a
certain Right Reverend commentaor upon the
Bible, one apparently bent, as one may say, upon
measuring the Infinite by a two-foot rule ! Bring-
ing us, moreover—this same last Half Century---
among these and divers other kindred fruits—a
spasmodic Revivalism that, in its wildest parox-
ysms, looked very much, indeed, like insanity !
Bringing us, beyond all this, M. RENAN'S profane
sentimentalism--a sentimentalism applied, not to
what CHATEAUBRIAND reverently called the Genius
of Christianity so much,, as actually, even, to the
Divine Founder of it ! Unparalleled as these last 50
years have been, therefore, as we maintain, in the
History of the Human Race—when looking back
along that vast perspective of the centuries of which
we have any record—they are unparalleled mainly,
if not exclusively, we would here equally insist,
by reason of their expansion of the Physical
Sciences, by reason of their development so very
wonderfully of a Material Civilisation.

,r-
The arrival of the City of Glasgow with news
from New York up to the 19th ult., although it does
not bring us any unexpected news, at least serves
to contradict some of the erroneous rumours of the
Hansa. Up to that date, the 19th, Savannah had
not fallen, although its capture was confidently
looked for by the Federals. The mistake made by
the Voruna on leaving Charleston Bar arose from
the vessels of Admiral DAHLGREN'S fleet being
gaily decorated with flags and streamers in honour
of some great success, most probably for the capture
of Fort M'Allister, so that our anticipations that
the news would at least prove premature were well
grounded. But Savannah is not certain to fall into
the hands of the Federals, although, of course,
its capture is possible enough. It is closely be-
sieged, but it is also strongly defended, and the
strength of Confederate entrenchments has been
proved more than once. General SHERMAN'S army
is said to be in good condition, having lived on the
pest of the land ; but we question the accuracy of
the statement, that during his march he has only
lost a thousand ' men ! In Tennessee, meanwhile,
the Federals have achieved a more positive success,
although the real condition of the respective armies
of HOOD and THOMAS is not yet accurately stated.
Northern papers talk about the capture of 50 guns
and 10,000 prisoners, which we may perhaps divide
by four, if we wish to learn the truth.
Meanwhile the Federal losses have gone up
to 3,000 ! HOOD has fallen back on the
Brentwood hills, and it is supposed he would recross
the Tennessee. BREPTCr..7, most likely
join him. THOMAS has recclv,:u. „1.,, or-General-
ship it aonour of the victory which has filled the
North with c 2.