The Sun.
London, England, 1865-03-03 00:00:00

ANGLO-INDIAN TELEGRAPH.

According to a telegram received yesterday from
the company's agent at Constantinople, the line of
the above company was in efficient working order,
and messages could therefore be forwarded by that
route via Constantinople.

THE Two " Miss BROWNS" AT CRACOW.—I
remember, during the recent insurrection in Poland,
attending as knight-errant upon two Miss Browns at Cra-
cow. I don't know which created most sensation—Mdlle.
Pustoveytoy, Langiewicz's female aide-de-camp, who was
captured on the day of their arrival, or my two charming
compatriots themselves. It was a refreshing sight to watch
them, in little pork-pie hats and tucked-up skirts, paddling
about the muddy streets of Cracow, and one that cheered
the hearts of the poor people they came to comfort. And
then to go with them through wards of wounded youths,
and see the presence of the "Englishwoman" would cause
the wasted features to light up with a glow of gratitude
and pleasure, and how the poor lads would look with
wonder and astonishment at these two unprotected beings
who had come all the way from England for no other pur-
pose than to minister to their necessities. Depend upon it
" the Englishwoman abroad" is a glorious institution
Why, she even sometimes penetrates to places where the
Englishman has not been seen, and then, what is the
impression she leaves on the inhabitants ? They say, of
course, "If England produces this sort of woman, what
splendid fellows the men must be !" She does more to
maintain the prestige of the British empire than all our
iron-clads put together, for she is clad in the triple
panoply of virtue, benevolence, and pluck. I was knight-
errant to the Miss Browns when they were in the middle
of a forest surrounded by Cossacks, distributing pro-
♦isions to an insurgent band, which they were visiting at
the peril of their lives ; and their presence so affected the
rugged chief of the band, and the presence of the rugged
chief of the band so affected them, that they all went
together, and in the energy of their enthusiasm they dis-
tributed among his men every disposable ornament they
had about them, down to their hair-pins. Don't you sup-
pose, as I stood looking on with glistening eyes, that I felt
proud of my countrywomen ? and don't you suppose that
the remnant of those two hundred reckless spirits, who are
now in exile in Siberia or elsewhere, when they hear the
name of England, will associate that country in their
minds with two rather young women in pork-pie hats,
such as they had nerer seen before, who fed them and
wept with them, and, perchance, tended them when they
were wounded ? Mayhap a stray Briton, pushing his ex-
plorations years hence into Asiatic Russia, will be asto-
nished at the overwhelming civility of some poor lonely
exile, and little think he owes it all to the Miss Browns:—
, Blackwood's Magazine.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMM—The House of Commons, by rejecting
.ast night Mr. H. Baillie's motioil for a Select Com-
.

mittee on the arming of vessels of war, declares not
so much that it is satisfied with what has been
achieved, or that it has implicit confidence in the
wisdom of the Navy and Ordnance authorities, as
that it cannot expect much benefit from a renewed
examination of the subject by a section of its own
body. It is undoubtedly a good thing that the Battle
of the Guns should be fought now and then in Par-
liament. A healthy criticism keeps all parties,
whether inventors, naval architects, or officers, in
due activity of mind and energy of purpose. Even
a little captiousness and undeserved fault-finding
may have its uses, so that it be not overdone, and
the country so often assured of its inferiority to
foreign nations that at last it ceases to take note of

any Warnings whatever. Such a debate as that last
night is to be expected. We might almost predict
from the nature of things that it should be of periodi-
cal recurrence. Mr. Baillie had got up the subject

well and made a telling speech. This, however, ;was
not difficult, for it is inevitable that there should be
much to say, and that some of the proceedings of
the Admiralty should afford an opportunity of easy
victory. How could so vast a change be introduced

into the navies of the world without scientific mis-

,akes, falsified calculation, blunders, and extrava-

gance ? Only ten years ago there was not an iron-
clad vessel on the sea. The earliest attempts in this
new construction were only made towards the close
of the Russian War. In that great contest full
reliance was placed on wooden line-of-battle ships,
which, with the new appliance of steam, seemed to
furnish the most perfect machines for naval warfare.
During the few years which have elapsed a revolu-
tion greater than that caused by the introduction of
steam itself has taken place. The increase of the
defensive power of vessels has necessitated a complete
change in the offensive weapon, and this in turn has
reacted on naval construction, even so far as to
make it likely that the very principle of broadside
firing will be abandoned. The last few years have
been a time of incessant inquiry and incessant im-
provement, but improvement bought, it must be
confessed, at an immense cost of money. It is easy
. .

to show what ought not to have been done, how this
course was hastily taken, how that course was too
timidly abstained from; but the conclusion at which

hose who have watched the various controversies

have for the most part arrived is, we think, not so
despairing as that of Mr. Baillie. That gentleman
makes the most of the early shortcomings of the
Armstrong gun. It is beyond a doubt that the 110-
pounders manufactured some time since in large
numbers, and distributed among her Majesty's ships,
were in great measure unsuccessful. They were, in
the first place, made not to be used against iron-
plated ships, of which only a few specimens then
existed in the navies of the world, but against
wooden vessels. Nor had they been sufficiently
tested, particularly with regard to their capacity of
bearing rapid firing. Why, then, were they sent on
board the Queen's ship, it will be asked, at a time
when it was known that wooden ships were likely to
be superseded by stronger vessels, and without those
experiments which ought to precede the use of a new
invention ? The answer is, that the Admiralty
thought it necessary, at a time of unusual political
complications, and when the employment of new
inventions was producing extraordinary results on
the other side of the Atlantic, to arm as many ves-
sels as possible with the most powerful gun which
was then in its possession. This was unfortunate, it
must be admitted ; but when are the consequences
of panic and hasty preparation other than unfortu-
nate? The navy was supplied with guns of untested
and, as it turned out, of deficient construction ; it is
for the most part these guns which have given rise
to the complaints which come home from Japan,
and have been rife in the Channel fleet, and they
must be considered as already superseded. Yet it
would be wrong to conclude from these mistakes
that the country is behind foreign nations in its ar-
maments. The later guns of Sir William Armstrong
—the 9.3 t-inch shunt gun and 6-ton 7-inch—have,
according to Lord Hartington, been fully successful
against iron plates, while the improvements which
have been made in the construction will prevent a
recurrence of the accidents which attended the use
of the first issue. At any rate, we have now guns
which are capable of penetrating any plates which
we possess, and any that our neighbours are likely
to possess. The long rivalry between Sir
William Armstrong and Mr. Whitworth has,
we think, led to improvements which will enable
the country ultimately to possess a gun superior to
any that exists among foreign nations. The merits
of the two systems may, we hope, be combined to
some extent, and, even if they be not, the Govern-
ment is at liberty to patronise either or both, and
to arm its ships wherever it can find the most effi-
cient weapon. As for the American guns, the most
vaunted of them is confessed to be a failure. The
Parrott gun was the only rifled gun in the American
service, and it was relied on by the Federal Go-
vernment to do the chief work in the reduction of
Fort Fisher. Admiral Porter, however, has re-
ported that almost every one of the Parrott guns in
his fleet burst in such a manner as to inflict injury
upon the men who worked them. Then is there
anything in the principle of the American guns
which we should imitate ? The most trustworthy
men of science in this country think not. Instead of
guns sending enormous shot at a low rate of speed,
it is better, in the opinion of English artillery and
naval judges, to have smaller shot propelled at the
highest possible velocity by large charges of powder.
This is the principle which is now being worked out
in this country, and it will give us, we trust, a gun
which will overmatch anything our, neighbours can
produce. There is no reason why the Government
should not go on with its experiments ; and it is far
better that the Ordnance Committee should continue
their labours, testing each detail, and endeavouring
by degrees to perfect the instrument they are at
work upon, than that a Committee of the House of
Commons, the greater part of whom would be com-
paratively ignorant of the subject, should sit to
decide on half evidence, and urge the Government
to some hasty decision. We believe there is no ne-
cessity that large numbers of guns should be at
once manufactured, with the almost certain result
of another great waste of money when a newer
principle is discovered. The true policy of those
concerned in the defence of the country is simply
to go on improving and experimenting, so that
when the tune comes we may know what is the best
weapon to employ. The engineering and manufac-
turing power of this country is so immense that we
never need fear being left behind in the race of pre-
paration. But it would be even better to incur
some small degree of this danger than the certainty
of constant waste and the mortification of seeing
the finished productions of one year laid aside
before the close of the next.
POST.—We are setting to work in earnest to make
up for our inferiority to the patriarchs. We are try-
ing to beat them in invention as much as they beat
us in longevity. The problem of the day seems as
though it were to accomplish in 70 years what was
formerly accomplished in 900. To solve this the
telegraph comes to our aid, and a very great feat
the telegraph has just accomplished. A message has
reached London from Kurrachee in eight hours and
a half, on the opening of the Indo-European line by
way of the Persian Gulf. For all purposes of com-
munication this amounts to an annihilation of time
and space. We ought, at this rate, to accomplish a
great deal more than our ancestors. The old patri-
archs, we suspect, knew very little of distant lands,
and had still less communication with them. But
whatever were the limits of their geography, they
were doubtless slow enough in their movements.
Time was, however, not of much moment to those
who had their millennium upon earth. It was, per-
haps, for the intervening generations between those
days and these, that the thing came hardest of all.
They were equally without the longevity of their
predecessors and the invention of their descendants.
They truly must have found life a dream. It was
to them an unsubstantial reality, in which one gene-
ration sowed the seed and another plucked the fruit.
We all know the traditionary meaning of the pro-
verb, " an East India voyage." It meant something
like Vasco di Gama's expedition round the Cape.
If you got to India in six months, you were lucky.
A year of the fortune-hunter's abbreviated life was
spent in going to look out for his fortune and in
coming back after he had obtained it. A year was,
within the lifetime of men still living, the usual
time within which English- merchants commonly
expected to get an answer by return of post to let-
ters addressed to Calcutta. What would have be-
come of the cotton trade of our own days under such
circumstances it is hard to imagine. Cotton growers
and merchants would have been trading blindfold.
Even with the rapidity of communication with India
we have had lately the mercantile difficulties caused
by the distance between Liverpool and Bombay
have been very great. Over and over again large
commercial houses have been brought to the brink
of ruin by the sharp oscillations of price that an
apprehended termination of the American war has
given occasion to. But if India is to remain a com-
petitive country of supply, it is of the utmost im-
portance to her that she should have prompt intelli-
gence from the country in which the demand lies.
The completion of the Indo-European Telegraph is
therefore a work of great commercial as well as of
great political importance. It is hard to say in which
point of view this achievement has the greater signi-
ficance. The political results attach to us m respect
of other countries than India ; for the complete li
puts Constantinople, as well as London, in commu-
nication with Kurrachee, and gives us nearly the
same means of what is transpiring throughout
Western Asia, from the Bosphorus to the Persian
Gulf, that we have of learning what is happening

on the mouths of the Indus. Besides this, the poli-
tical advantage of placing the Indian Government
in such almost instantaneous communication with
us, is inestimable. Before long, in all probability,
the route from Kurrachee to Calcutta will be Ss
complete as that from London to Kurrachee alrea I
is. It is difficult to measure the difference that tt,a,s.
would have made to the Indian authorities if 9
same communication had existed in the critical Pe%
of the mutiny. What additional confidence wc
not have been created among those who were con;
ducting the heroic defence of the British dotainictic
in India, could they have known of the gigs
preparations which we were making for their sucee.ii;
Dili-
in sending out, though not ourselves a greathter Blia.
tary Power, a far greater force than any o
tion had ever sent across the seas before. For w..!
future this event will rank among the m aost inlP°.lll,
tant of those that have helped to consolidate our the
thority in Hindostan since the suppression of
will
mutiny. But the commercial results of this 10rIc
probably be of hardly less importance than the Pi)ess
tical results, though they may be soraewb,,at first
obvious and striking at first sight. In ~631
place, they will always be in action. Comte'
advantages are in their nature being continua],
in course of realisation ; while great political ad-
in
vantages arising from rapid communieatien fre-
chiefly reaped upon great occasions not veil ace
quently happening. But besides this, celunlrell
in its present stagething depending not merely
on supply and demand, but on more artificial ding
trivances than were prevalent in the ruder tra (res•
of former times, such as the variations of excbae
Mr. Goschen, in his able work on that sub) and
.lftso
shown very clearly that it is becoming more "ev
more the tendency to assimilate all these foreiga
To
changes in one common European exchange'dg's
bring the centres of Indian commerce within
communication of London will soon be fount7ges
valent to rendering English and Indian ex,":lote
one and the same. But we need not go forge
these commercial calculations. By the IT -o-
no doubt see the telegraphic communication s°.tilio
?
tended that the Chinese trade will be brought
ne widi
the same compass as the Indian. simulta ast the
with the completion of this triumph in the
andE
Great Eastern is shipping her mighty cable, to.
may cherish the hope that before the corniiig,,,,,°At-
mer is over it will be successfully laid across y; the
lantic, and the New World be brought iin,`,!* If
same centripetal influence as the East Inawf,;mph
that attempt should be crowned with the tril be
that its supporters anticipate, the year 1865 fru- one
fairly classed as a new annus -Tistot
most important sense our scattered and hope
colonies will be brought around us ; and Wv.,tioa
that the closeness of their material corarallni -moot
will serve for a pledge of their internal h
with us.

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