The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-14 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

THE " SATURDAY REVIEW" ON THE ATLANTIC
CABLE.—Before these lines are read all uncertainty
as to the accident which has befallen the Atlantic
cable will probably be ended by the arrival of the
Great Eastern or one of her consorts. But it
scarcely needs this final evidence to enable us to
say that the cable is broken, and that about two-
thirds of the way across to Newfoundland the
severed end lies, with or without a buoy attached,
2,000 fathoms deep at the bottom of the ocean.
The scientific methods for determining the position
of a fault are thoroughly reliable within a small
percentage of the whole distance ; the operators
can discriminate between the signs of a total rup-
ture and a partial loss of insulation, and the tele-
graphs from Valentia leave little room to hope for
any but the worst news. It is no wonder that this
report has been received as the announcement of a
national calamity. While the Great Eastern was
staggering round on her stormy passage to Valentia
she was followed by the hopes and fears of thou-
sands who had no interest in the adventure beyond
that which every one must feel for a magnificent
effort of courage and science in what is pre-emi-
nently the cause of civilisation. The shock of the
first temporary failure added to the anxiety with
which the further progress of the Great Eastern
was watched from day to day. Each successive
telegram helped to revive the confidence of all,
until, just before the final accident, the belief that
the voyage would end in a prosperous issue became
almost universal. If 1,200 miles of the rope that
was to bind together the Old and the New Worlds
could be laid in safety at the bottom of the At-
lantic without a defect that the most delicate in-
struments could detect, it seemed unreasonable to
doubt that the remaining third of the work would
be completed with equal success. The course of
the adventure had been watched with the same
anxious interest with which a nation awaits the
reports of a pending battle, or the bulletins from
the sick bed of -a man whom the public cannot
spare. The worst news has come at last, but the
course already taken by the Telegraph Company is
a guarantee that the enterprise will not be given
up, and that this fresh failure will serve only as a
stimulus to renewed exertion. That sooner or later
the Atlantic cable will be successfully laid is almost
a matter of certainty, and our regrets at this unex-
pected mishap need not be mingled with anything
that savours of despair. It would be a rather doubt-
ful consolation to those who have had the conduct of
the enterprise to be able to say that no default of
theirs had contributed to the 'disaster. If the cable
was lost from an error of judgment, or from the
neglect of any possible precaution, the misfortune
will bear good fruit in the warning which it will
supply for future guidance. If, on the other hand,
the failure resulted from what in the old legal
phraseologyis styled the act of God, the complacency
of directors and engineers might be less disturbed,
but the danger of a repetition of the same disaster
would remain inevitable and unmitigated when the
next attempt was made. There is no doubt that at
nearly every stage of the undertaking all the safe-
guards which science and experience could suggest
were employed to secure a prosperous issue. Not a
yard of the cable was accepted without the most
searching examination, and not a day passed with-
out repeated tests to assure the continued soundness
of the core. The very material of which the wire
was composed was required to come up to a standard
of conductivity which had never before been ap-
proached. Scarcely anything that vigilance and
skill could do had been neglected to insure the abso-
lute perfection of the cable. The singular accident
by which the first defect was occasioned—the drop-
ping of a fragment of wire into the cable-tank—
shows, it is true, that vigilance may sometimes fail,
but at the same time it indicates a risk which, now
that it is known, is certain never to be incurred
again. But for this fault—repaired as it was almost
as soon as discovered—the cable may be said to
have been shipped in absolutely perfect condition,
or as nearly so as human care could secure. The
same anxiety to guard against every imaginable
danger was displayed in the choice of the pattern
for the rope. The core was increased in diameter
as far as was feasible under the conditions of the
undertaking, and the rate of signalling attained was
sufficient proof of the wisdom of this departure from
the former model. The most serious danger of all,
that of rapid deterioration from the rusting and
weakening of the iron coating, was met by covering
the metal strands with an impervious casing which
probably more than doubled their prospect of longe-
vity. The chance of such a mishap as that which
has probably occurred—the fracture of the cable in
the process of paying out—was counteracted by in-
creasing the strength and consequent weight of the
rope to the utmost point which the carrying capacity of
the Great Eastern allowed, while at the same time
the strain was diminished by reducing the specific
gravity so much that a mile of the cable, though
twice as heavy in air, scarcely- weighed more in
water than the same length of the former cable. A
rope which would bear eleven miles of its own
weight in water was not unreasonably thought to
be tolerably safe against accidental fracture ; and,
but for one peculiarity, the risk of this kind would
probably not have been one-tenth as great as in the
case of the cable of 1857, which, whatever its other
faults, proved at any rate strong enough to be suc-
cessfully laid across the Atlantic. The one difference
to which we have referred was worthy perhaps of
more consideration than it received. The exterior
coating of this last cable was comparatively rough
hemp, while that of the old one was smooth iron.
The increased friction against the water may have
been no disadvantage while the paying out went on
without a hitch ; but it must have enormously in-
creased the strain when the cable was subjected to
anything like a jerk, as it could not but be when-
ever it became necessary to stop the paying out in
a rough sea, or to attempt the still more difficult
task of hauling in, to recover and repair a fault. It
was in this process that the final accident will pro-
bably be found to have occurred. Every pull upon
the rope caused by the pitching of the ship or the
winding in of the cable was resisted by the friction
of two miles of rough rope, in addition to the weight
of the cable itself. Nothing but the most elastic
play in the machinery could neutralise the danger
of an irregular strain, which might at any moment
reach the breaking point ; and the want of any pro-
vision of this kind in the paying-out apparatus had
been long since pointed out as the one defect in the
arrangements for the enterprise. It was from a
sudden jerk, caused perhaps by injudicious handling
of the breaks, that the failure of the first cable of
all arose. When the second attempt was about to
be made, a proposal to introduce an elastic break
into the machinery, so as to give a free play of 40
or 50 feet, was considered, and ultimately re-
hected, on the assumption that with proper
andling the ordinary breaks would supersede
the necessity for any such contrivance. The suc-
cess, such as it was, of that cable was thought to
confirm this opinion ; and on the present occasion
the paying-out ship was fitted with the same ma-
chinery that had sufficed before, and the notion of
guarding by elastic action against the chance of a
jerking strain was abandoned as a wholly uncalled
for precaution. When the full details of the acci-
dent are known, it will probably be traceable to this
unfortunate determination, and should this prove to
be the case, the cost of the late expedition (not
much more after all, it is said, than £200,000) will
not have been wholly thrown away. Each succes-
sive failure has taught its lesson, and taught it so
effectually that on this last trial all the defects
which rendered the former cable useless were com-
pletely excluded. If our judgment as to the cause
of the recent accident should prove correct, this
danger too may be stopped out with equal certainty
on the next experiment, and, costly as the lessons
of experience may be, the enormous income which
long lines of telegraph invariably earn would suffice
to pay a good percentage on the expense of half a
score of failures.

THE " LONDON REVIEW " ON CLUB TYRANNY.—
The morals of club government require to be re-
duced to something like definite form and legality.
Scandals are constantly arising, which show how
loose and vague are the relations existing between
clubs collective and their members individually. A
few months ago the Garrick Club lost some of its
most distinguished members, owing to a very ques-
tionable exhibition of temper on the part of that
body ; and since the Conservative Club has got
itself into hot-water by an act which can only be
described as one of would-be despotism, combined
with contemptible weakness. On the 13th of July,
Mr. Charles Hopkinson, one of the members of the
club, received a letter from the secretary, setting
forth that, " it having been reported to the com-
mittee " that he, Mr. Hopkinson, had given his
pledge " to vote for the three Liberal candidates for
Berkshire, Messrs. "Walter, Bouverie, and Cramer,"
the secretary was instructed to inquire if such was
the fact, and to request the favour of an early
reply. The committee seem to have been very much
in the dark with regard to the whole proceeding.
In the first place, there was no such candidate as Mr.
Cramer, the third candidate being Lard Uffington;
in the second place, Mr. Hopinson had not
formed the intention imputed to him. The latter
gentlemen, however, did not choose to deny at the
moment the allegation that he was going to vote for
the Liberals at the coming election, because to have
made such denial would have been an admission of
the committee's right to askthe question. He there-
fore took high ground, and requested that the com-
mittee would give him the name and address of the
person who had " reported" the alleged intention,
the precise words used, when and where they were
used, the words in which the resolution stood on the
minute-book of the committee when the secretary
ivrote on the subject, where and when the minute

instructing him to write was made, where and when
it was confirmed, and " the names of the members
of the committee who voted the resolution embodied
in the minute." To this the secretary replied that
the letter thus addressed by Mr. Hopkinson to the
committee should be laid before that body at their
next meeting on Thursday, the 20th of July (the
letter was dated on the 14th). It was on the 20th
that the election for Berkshire took place ; so that,
as Mr. Hopkinsion remarked in a subsequent letter
of the 17th, he was to be kept under the influence
of a species of intimidation until after the election
was over, since any further resolution to which the
committee might come could not be communicated
to him until the evening of the 20th at the very
earliest, or more probably, the morning of the 21st.
" You have, then," continues Mr. Hopkinson, ad-
dressing the committee, " assumed powers, and held
yourselves out to me as possessing powers, which
you knew you did not possess, in causing to be
written to me an inquisitorial letter on the subject
of the exercise of suffrage for Berkshire, founded on
an anonymous malignant falsehood, the author of
which you knew, but dared not avow. In directing
this letter to be written, you have been guilty of a
flagrant abuse of your office of committee-men, and
of a serious offence against me and all the members
of the Conservative Club." Furthermore, Mr.
Hopkinson stated that, up to the 13th of July,
on the evening of which day he received the
first letter of the secretary, he was uncertain whe-
ther he should vote at the Berkshire election at
at all, or, if he did so, in what direction he should
vote ; but that the attempt which had been made to
intimidate him left him no alternative but to vote
for one or more of the three Liberal candidates,
thus vindicating his electoral independence, and
challenging the committee to establish the powers
which they claimed to possess. The response to this
bugle-note of defiance is sufficiently meek. The
committee " express their pleasure" at the denial of
the original report, and hope that that report has
not been the _means of inducing Mr. Hopkinson to
vote for the Liberal candidates. The hope, how-
ever, came too late. Two days after the deed was
done—viz., on the 22d of July—Mr. Hopkinson
again wrote to the committee, and thus vigorously
took them to task for their ineffectual attempt at
tyranny :—" Rebuked, discredited, humiliated, you
have not the manliness, or good sense, to offer one
word of regret, of apology, or of reparation. Having
used a falsehood for your own purpose (and in this
case the immediate purpose was electoral intimida-
tion), you have indorsed it, made it your own, and
incurred all the liabilities of it. I require of you—
a public acknowledgment of the falsity of the 6 re-
port '—a public apology to myself and the members
of the Conservative Club—a public disclaimer of
the power of electoral intimidation. I shall be
obliged by your informing me at your early conve-
nience whether you will comply with these reason-
able and moderate demands." We can well under-
stand that the poor committee must have thought
the demands anything but " reasonable and mode-
rate," as they involved the swallowing of some bitter
words, and the performance of a public act of hu-
miliation. Mr. Hopkinson was, perhaps, a little
cruel in that last remark. The schoolmaster, after
administering a severe flogging to an offending
pupil, might as well require him to admit that the
punishment has been mild in its nature and just in
its object. The secretary of the Conservative Club,
however, merely acknowledges the receipt of Mr..
Hopkinson's letter, and informs the writer that it
shall be laid before the general committee at their
next meeting. What the general committee will
do in the matter we do not know ; but, if they ac-
cept Mr. Hopkinson's reproaches meekly or in
silence, their credit for the possession of spirit and
self-respect will not stand very high with the out-
side public.

"LONDON SOCIETY" ON FIVE O'CLOCK TEAS.—
There are indeed some men who are said to object
to five o'clock teas, as robbing them of just that
portion of the day which was erst particularly their
own ; in which they either attended to their " busi-
ness" (vague and unintelligible word), or rode, or
played racquets, or what not. With such I cannot
sympathize ; and the more moderate of men, who
are neither intensely commercial nor rabidly muscu-
lar (or what not), find in the afternoon hour of
ladies' society a peculiar charm, characterized as it
is by far less restraint and ceremony, and far more
familiarity than the evening ever knows (not to
mention the increased facility for tete-a-tetes in con-
servatories and balconies), and gain from it an an-
tidote to the dulness of the morning which is so in-
evitable a result of last night's four o'clock cotillon,
and a gentle stimulant enabling them to work up to
the point of brilliancy for the conversation of the
evening's dinner. And so I protest that I am de-
lighted with tea, and not only on general principles,
but also for my own special reasons. In the first
place, it dispenses me from a great deal of journey-
ing about to produce the illusion that I have per-
sonally " been and appeared" by delivering two
pieces of representative pasteboard to a footman
who probably loses them before his mistress comes
home. This is one of society's duties which I have
always held in abhorrence, as being a shade more
foolish than any emanation from the brain of the
wildest Bedlamite. It is intelligible to leave a card
upon new acquaintances, because it teaches them
one's address and how to spell one's name, which
they would never i,arn from a footman's announc-
ing. But it seems to-me to be the height of human
extravagance to suppose that my friends who know
both my name and address should be gratified by
not seeing me, but by inspecting the result of Mr.
Ortner's skill in line-engraving on a card. And so
as tea takes the place of pasteboard I honour it.
Then, too, it enables me to wear my lavender kid
gloves a second, or even (with care) A third time ;
and besides that, the most regular attendasts among
the ladies at Lady Mena Maltyre's ThursdUs)
whose afternoons I most affect, are, as I notice,
those whose complexions look as well in the
cold daylight as in the warm flood of brilliancy
shed by wax tapers. Indeed the only members of
the sex who have a second opinion on the subject are
those who labour under an imputation (unjust
of course) of importing into their charms either as
to their cheeks a loan from the rose, or as to their
eyes " a touch of the hair-pin," and who, if they are
to show at all in the day, prefer to do it in a barouche
in the Park under the cover of a distance, a spotted
veil and a pink parasol.' Then what can be more de-
licious than the making of the tea ? Miss Maud
Maltyre and I have been practising it ever since the
" Thursdays" began, and though we have studied
hard, we have not yet quite learnt how many spoon-
fuls are necessary, or the exact quantity of green
required to make a perfect mixture. Many consul-
tations we hold too over cream and sugar, and who
takes either or both, and Irlive in the hope of im-
proving under her tuition. What a delicious soft-
stealing charm I find, too, in the music which is
always so good (for Lady Mena is a great musician
herself), and which we sit and listen to in a quiet
corner and admire so much, and always manage to
applaud at the wrong time ! I do not know much
about music myself, but somehow I love to sit and
listen :to it by the side of Miss Mena's tea-table.
Yes, those Thursdays are very charming, and would
be more so, if it were not for that great clanking
plunger Adolphus Bridoon, who hangs about like a
heavy, stupid giant as he is, and will talk to Maud.
His regiment is quartered in Ireland, where, if the
military affairs of the country were properly attended
to, he ought to be made to remain. I wish I were
his colonel, wouldn't I refuse him leave ! Perhaps
the suburban tea is the nicest form of the thing
altogether, and it furnishes a sufficient reason for
the original invention of Richmond and Hampton-
court. Croquet there takes the place of music, not
without occasional advantages either, for there is
such an esprit de corps in each of the opposing sides,
such a delightful clinging together of "friends,"
such intense, uncompromising hatred of " enemies,"
such consultations, and such glimpses of tiny feet,
and withal, such immense fun in cheating, that the
London afternoon, with so much more people and
music crowded into small rooms than they were
ever intended to hold, pales before it. Miss Maud
always looks lovely, playing at croquet, even if she
plays it badly—and we do both of us somehow
manage to get croqueted a long way off from the
game, and generally in the same direction—but to
my eyes she does not look nearly so lovely playing
the piano, even if she plays it well, which she does,
for she gets surrounded by a pertinacious crowd of
admirers, who engross all her attention, and whose
one idea of pleasing her is to make her play a second
time, which leaves me raging on a remote sofa.
ABD-EL-KADER IS THUS DESCHIBED BY A CORRE-
SPONDENT OF " THE READER :"—The presence of
Abd-el-Kader in London recalls to me his passage
through the south of France. I believe that it will
not be without interest to your readers to know the
details. One morning—it was in 1848-1 was on
my way to Spain ; and in passing through Bor-
deaux I chanced to meet Abd-el-Kader. Heaven
knows that I no more dreamt of meeting Abd-el-
Kader than the Grand Turk himself ! I was going
out of my hotel when I saw a great number of
people standing before a house watching it atten-
tively. The Emir had arrived but five minutes be-
fore. Some Arab heads presented themselves from
time to time at the windows ; one especially, a
negress, who had thrown back the curtains of a
window on the first floor that she might the better
see the crowd below, drew their attention, who, on
catching sight of her, began to cheer and hiss alter-
nately. She was Abd-el-Kader's wife—pro tern.
Bordeaux, the city of the South, where they manu-
facture enthusiasm the most, hastened to do homage
to Abd-el-Kader with a fervour not to be surpassed.
The windows of the houses which looked upon the
hotel ceased not to display beautiful pictures of the
most beautiful faces that a man could ever wish to
see. The exhibition lasted three days. I say no-

thing of those who crowded the streets, in carriage
or on foot. Many of the fair sex had given much
for their places—many would have given more to
be allowed to kiss the naked feet of the Emir, which
are, they say, of great beauty. I saw Abd-el-Hader.
In London, probably, I should not have regarded
him any more than if he had bee Mr Tupper:
perhaps not so much. But here I 4111rothing bet-
ter to do. The Emir is short of stature and slightly
built, with a white face of a pleasing expression,
and has the appearance of having been delicately
reared, rather than brought up in the cavernous re-
treat of Arabia. He inclines his head a little, and his
eyes, which are of a bluish grey, have a pleasant
smiling aspect. I admired his teeth especially,
which were of a whiteness and transparency sufficient
to drive a nun of twenty-eight to despair. Only one
pearl makes a spot, as it were on this marvellous
string : it is the tooth of Mahomet, perfectly yellow,
but a golden yellow, and which they say with reve-
rence is his, because Abd-el-Kader is the only one
since the Prophet with whom this significant phe-
nomenon has been produced. The Emir lives with
his mother and his wives, who are 40 in number.
As to his father, he has been dead now a long while.
The next day I saw Abd-el-Kader again—it was at
the " Grand Theatre," where they played two acts
of the " Muette de Portici," and a Spanish ballet.
All Bordeaux had secured places. Such a tumult !
such an excitement ! such a crushing of toilettes !
It recalled to my mind the most brilliant of Covent
Garden evenings. The first act was gone through
without the least attention from the audience. All
eyes were turned towards the Mayor's box, which
had been reserved for the Emir; and, as it was
facing the stage, everybody listened to the opera
with the back towards it. The interlude passed in
the same manner, with unanimous disappointment.
However, as the curtain was about to rise, an at-
torney entered the box, which had remained empty
up to that moment, and seated himself in the corner
at the right, in an arm-chair of red velvet. The
public, being in a laughing mood, received him with
a volley of ironical bravo. The attorney, who was
the Mayor's assistant, bit his lips, assumed an air of
disdain, and appeared absorbed in hearing Auber's
masterpiece. A little while after the Emir entered.
He saluted the audience with his little hand, and
smiled with somewhat of an air of sadness. This
was the first time he had ever been in a theatre ;
however, he appeared neither too dazzled nor too
much astonished. Quite the contrary the Arab
who accompanied him, who bore on his burnt
physiognomy the ingenuous expression of his ad-
miration, and even laughed at the lustre which
hung-over him. Abd-el-Kader seated himself in
the fore part of the box, at the side of the attorney,
who forthwith began to do the agreeable, and look
at the audience with an air of triumph. This at-
torney wore a coat of black cloth, which glistened
in the rays of the lustre, and gloves of such a rich
depth of the same colour, that I unconsciously
began to dream of mortgages and bequests. I was
indeed distressed as I viewed and thought over the
picture before my eyes.—Abd-el-Kader and an At-
torney at the I lay.