The Sun.
London, England, 1846-12-22 00:00:00

GUN COTTON

ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, SITTING OF DE

CEMBER 13.
Although the French Government has fulminated its
decree against the fulminating cotton, it cannot prevent
the experiments of scientific men, or the publication of
them in the sittings of the AcadeMy. As many counnu-
nmations on this subject are sent in as if the Government
had declared the manufacture and sale of this substance
free. We do not, however, find any thing in the last
papers n orthy of notice except an estimate by M.
1 elcuze of the coast of manufacture. According to this
gentleman, 170 kilogrammes (about 3801 b. English) will
cost, exclusive of labour, which is not an important item
considering how little of it is required, .317 fr., being Less
than lfr. per French pound. It is easy to conceive, there-
fore, that if gunpowder can be advantageously replaced
by explosive cotton, and the Government were to permit
the free sale of the substitute, it would lose an important
source of revenue, as the price of gunpowder, the
manufacture and sale of which is a Government mono-
poly, is so much superior to that at which the cotton
could be sold. We are not to suppose, however, that
' this consideration has had any weight with the Ministry
as regards the recent prt.hibiti. n of explosive evt ton.
If this new discovery would replace gunpowder, the
Government would, as a matter of course, take the
manufacture and sale into its own hands, giving an in-
demnity to the persons who may have taken out patents in
France for different modes of preparing the substance.
We have heard ofonly one patent having been taken out,
but it is probable that there are several. If it be declared
illegal to make and sell explosive cotton, all that can
be said is, that it is a strange inconsistency for a Go-
vernment
to grant a patent right where no right can
be exercised, and we think the Minister of Commerce
would have done well if he had refused to sign the
patents for this manufacture ; but this is a point upon
which we shall not enlarge, particularly as, subsequent
to the order for the prohibition, the Moniteur published a
sort of explanation of the motives which induced it. We
learn from this explanation that the prohibition is not a
final one, and are warranted in believing that if experience
sheuld show the properties cf explosive cotton to be
better than those of gunpowder, and the dangers attend-
ing the preparation to be comparatively small, the
prohibition will be withdrawn. The objections at
present are, that the preparation is dangerous, and
that the properties of the new substance are now suffi-
ciently known. On the first point we must be permitted
to observe that the danger is much smaller than with
gunpowder. It is no argument to say that some acci-
dents have taken place. If gunpowder were an inven-
tion of the present day, and as many unskilful and care-
less hands had been engaged in the preparation of it as
has been the case with the explosive cotton, the accidents
would have been much more numerous and far more
calamitous than anything that has been authenticated in
the accounts which have appeared of explosions during
the preparation of the cotton. On the second point,
however, the reason assigned by the Government for
the prohibition is good. It has not yet been proved
that the fulminating or explosive cotton is a perfect sub•
stitute for gunpowdr. Many inconveniences have been
pointed out by scientific and practical men, and its ex-
plosive power is unknown. In one case several' grains
have been fired in a pocket pistol, without the slightest
indication of danger to the person using the article ; in
another a quantity of cotton, equal only in weight to the
hundredth part of the ordinary charge of gunpowder,
burst a proof mortar. With such facts before it, the
Government is wise to pause.— Galignani.

FORTUNES MADE BY ADVER-

TISIN G.

From a small pamphlet, entitled "The Art of Making
Money," an extract has been taken, and is going the
round of the provincial press, pointing out the facility of
making immense sums by the simple process of con-
tinuous advertising. Doubtless large sums have been,
are, and will be made by such a system by certain per-
sons of ability, who no doubt would make their way in
the wet ld if called upon to play different parts on the
great stage of life • but to suppose that men in general
must as a matter of course acquire wealth by such means
is as absurd as to imagine that all the penniless and shoe-
less of London are capable of rising to the dignity and
wealth of an alderman or the Lord Mayor of London,
simply by reading the " Young Man's Best Com
panion." Money is not so easily made as the writer of
the article referred to would lead people to suppose ; if
it be so, few need be poor. But to our text : fortunes
made by advertising. Undoubtedly the greatest man
of the day as an advertiser is Holloway, who
expends the enormous sum of twenty thousand
pounds annually in advertisements alone ;
name is not only to be seen in nearly every paper
and periodically published in the British isles, but as if
this country was too small for this individual's exploits,
he stretches over the whole of India, having agents it
all the different parts of the upper, central, and lower
provinces of that immense country, publishing his medi-
caments in the Hindoo, Oordoo, Goozratee, Persian, and
other native languages, so that the Indian public can
take the pills and use his ointment, according to general
directions, as a Cockney would do within the sound of
Bow bells. We find him again at Hong Kong and Can-
ton, making his medicines known to the Celestial by
means of Chinese translation. We trace him from thence to
he Philippine Islands, where he is circulating his preps
rations in the native languages. At Singsp. re he has a
large depot his agents tht re supply all the islands in
the Indian seas. His advertisements are publish( d in
moat of the papers at Sydney, Hobart Town, Launceston,
Adelaide, Port Philip, and indeed in almost ...very town
of that vast portion of the British empire. Returning
homewards, we find his pills and ointment selling
at Va'paraiso, Litna, Callao, and other ports in the
Pacific. Doubling the Horn, we track him in the
Atlantic—at Monte Video, Buenos Ayres, Santos, Rio
.le Janeiro, Bahia, and Pernainbuco : he is advertising

in those parts in Spanish and Portuguese. In all the
British West Ind►a Islands, as also in the Upper and
Lower Canadas, and the neighbouring provinces of Nova
Scotia and New Brunswick, his medicines are us larni-

liarly known, and sold by every druggist, as they are at
nonae. In the Mediterranean we find them selling at
dalta, Corfu, Athens, and Alexandria, besides at Tunis
and other portions of the Barbary states. Any one taking
the trouble to look at the .‘ Journal" and " Couritr" of
Constantinople, may find in these, as well as other
papers, that Holloway's medicines are regularly adver-
.ised and selling throughout the Turkish empire ; and
even in Russia, where an almost insurmountable barrier
exists, the laws there prohibiting the entri3 of patent
Medicines, Holloway's ingenuity has been at work, and
obviates this difficulty by forwarding supplies to his
agent at Odessa, a port situated on the Black Sea, where
they filter themselves surreptitiously by various chan-
nels, into the very heart of the empire. Africa has
not been forgotten by this indefatigable man, who
has an agent on the River Gambia ; also at Sierra
Leone, the plague spot of the world, the
inhabitants readily avail themselves of the ointment and
pills ; thus we can show our readers that Holloway has
made the complete circuit of the globe, commencing with
India, and ending, as we now do, with the Cape of Good
Hope, where his medicines are published in the Dutch
and English languages ; and while speaking of Dutch,
we have heard that he has made large shipments to Hol-
land, and is about advertising in every paper or pet iodieal
published in that kingdom ; we might also add that he
has also started his medicine in t ome parts of France,
in some portions of Germany, as also in some of the
Italian states. We have been at some little trouble to
collect all these facts, because we fear that the article
before alluded to, " the Art of making Money," is cal-
culated to lead people to spend their means in the hope
(as the author states) of making a hundred thousand
pounds in six years for his pains, by holding up as an
easy example to follow such a man as Holloway, who
is really a Napoleon in his way. Many may
have the means, but have they the knowledge,
ability, energy, judgment, and prudence, neces-
sary ? Failing in any one of these requisites, a
total loss is certain. Holloway is a man calculated to
undertake any enterprise requiring immense energies of
body and mind. No doubt he has been well repaid for
all his labours, and is, we should suppose, in a fair way
of making a large fortune. Of course it is not to our
interest to deter the public from advertising; but, as
guardians of their interest, we think it our incumbent
duty to place a lighthouse upon what we consider a dan-
gerous shoal, which may perhaps sooner or later pre-
vent shipwreck and ruin to the sanguine and inexperi-
c enced about to navigate in such waters.

The Editor of the ‘. Edinburgh Review," in a num-
ber published about three years ago, stated that he con-
sidered he was making a desirable bequest to posterity,
by handing down to them the amount of talent and abi-
lity required by the present class of large advertisers.
At that period Holloway's mode of advertising was most
prominently set forth; and if these remarks, conjointly
with his, should descend to a generation to come, it
will be known to what extent the subject of this article
was able to carry out his views, together with the conse-
quent expenditure in making known the merits of his
preparations to nearly the whole world.—Pictorial
Times.

ALARMING FIRE AT THE PRIVATE RESIDENCE OF
MR. W. ELLIS, M.P. FOR LEICESTER.--On Sun-
day afternoon, shortly before one o'clock, an alarm-
ing fire broke out in the private residence of Mr.
Wynn Ellis, M.P. for Leicester, situate at 40, Cadogan-
place,. Cadogan-square, Chelsea. The flames were first
perceived by a groom, while passing through the square.
At that time they were raging in the second floor front.
An instantaneous alarm was raised, and by dint of great
perseverance, the firemen succeeded in getting the
flames extinguished, but not before a very considerable
deal of damage was done by fire and water, the third-
floor front rooms being extensively burned, and the fur-
niture therein destroyed. The fire originated through
the overheat of a stove belonging to Mr. Jacobs, the
owner of the adjoining house.
NOVEL AND EXPENSIVE Fuar.— The Tagus
steamer, on her last homeward voyage from the
. Penin-
sula, left Lisbon without having, fro some mischance,-
shipped
a ,
shipped her usual full supply
quently failing, some spars, &c., w
f,
coal.
are first resorted to,
and then, to make up the deficiency, two tons of ches-
nuts, part of her cargo, were sacrificed to the devouring
element, before reaching Plymouth. She called at that
port, and took in a supply of coals, to enable her to
complete her voyage to Southampton.—Hampshire
Independent.
FIRE AT PENTONVILLE CHAPEL.--0.1 Sund y
afternoon, between four and five o'clock, Pentonvilie
Chapel was discovered to be on fire. It appears that on
one of the pew openers going into the building, he found
the place so filled with smoke that he was obliged to
make a retreat. Having sent intelligence to the engine
stations, with all speed, the parish engines arrived, and
also the brigade engines with Mr. Colf, the chief officer
of the B section. Upon the firemen entering, they found
the flooring of the communion burning fiercely. By tear-
ing up the boards and cutting away the joistings, the
firemen happily succeeded in extinguishing the flames.
The fire originated from the overheating. of the furnace
used for warming tha building, which is immediately
wader the communion table.