The Sun.
London, England, 1851-08-28 00:00:00

AUGUST 28 1851.,._

have tala n place, in honour of the successful achieve • i
meats of the most intrinsic and gigantic task ever
presented to modern engineer, has given an impetus
to science, such as has been rarely felt. In throwing
a line of communication across the Straits, the first
difficulty which presented itself was that in the coa-
struction of the bridge no obstacle should be offered to
the usual navigation, thus preventing the use of cen-
terings, &c., generally adopted by engineers in the
construction of arches. The first design, therefore,
was a bridge consisting of two cast-iron arches of 350
feet span each, the centre pier resting on the Britannia
Rock, which lies exactly in the middle of the Straits,
and which is the chief reason why that particular site
was chosen for crossing ; centerings being out of the
question, it was intended to erect the arches on a
plan adopted some years since by Sir Isambart
Brune!, in the construction of brick arches without
centerings; in the case of the Britannia-bridge, it
was proposed to place the voussoirs on each side of
the pier simultaneously, and tie them together, the
arches gradually spreading out like wings on each
side of the pier, keeping each other in equilibrium.
The same thing would have gone on from the abut-
ments, until the arches bad been joined at the apex.
These designs were presented to the Board of Admi-
ralty for their approval, but they did not meet their
requirements. The conditions imposed on Mr. Ste-
phenson were, to maintain a clear space of 103 feet
throughout two spans of 450 feet each, the pier on the
Britannia Rock not to be more than 50 feet square at
the base, because according to the Admiralty not only
was there to be sufficient heights allowed for ships'
masts to pass, but the structure must be limited in
certain parts, to interfere as little as possible with the
effects of the wind. Mr. Stephenson's real difficul-
ties had, indeed, now commenced; the suspension
principle was thought of, but the tendency of the
platform to undulation by the weight of the trains
was a serious objection. It was then proposed to
stiffen the platform by means of boiler plate rivatted
together ; the idea gradually developed itself until the
bridge assumed the form of a huge wrought-iron
tube of sufficient size to allow of the passage of trains
through it, having chains on each side to act as auxi-
liaries ; in fact, the Ltube was supposed to be like a
huge beam, the top and bottom of which acted like
the top and bottom of any girder, that is, the top sub-
ject to compression and the bottom to extension; here
Mr. Stephenson set Messrs. Fairbairn and Hodgkinson
to institute experiments on the strength of tubular
structures. Mr. Stephenson at first thought that a cir-
cular form would he the most suitable; but in the course
of experiments the rectangular form was found the
strongest. It was also found that a rectangular beam
could be made sufficiently strong, and of the neces-
sary length, without requiring the assistance of chains ;
the top and bottom of the tubes, upon which depended
their strength, were composed of series of cells ; in
the course of experiment also it was found that
wrought iron could not resist compression so well as
extension ; there are, therefore, eight rectangular
cells in the top and six in the bottom of the tubes. Mr.
Stephenson wished to have chains, which would allow
of the tubes being erected in their permanent posi-
tion. It was known that Mr. Stephenson was averse
to floating the tubes.
Mr. Edwin Clarke, however, proposed a feasible
plan of raising the tubes, Mr. Stephenson's floating
scruples were overcome, and it was decided to erect
the tubes for the large span on shore, to float them
to the base of the piers, and raise them to their
permanent height by means of hydraulic presses.
The land tubes were erected in their present position
on scaffolding. This bridge, therefore, has two cen-
tral spans of 460 feet each, and two of 250 feet. All
these were ultimately joined together when in their
respective places. The same spot in which were wit-
nessed the first formation, floating, and completion of
this wonderful bridge, has been rendered finally cele-
brated by the due glorification of its originator and
completer, Mr. Robert Stephenson.

MR. TYRWHITT, THE MAGISTRATE; THOMAS
LEDGER, THE SCHOOLMASTER; AN!) THE
LITTLE BOY, PHILLIP WHEATON," WHOSE
BACK WAS BARED IN COURT, AND EXHI-
BITED FROM THIRTY TO FORTY BLACK
AND BLUE &LARKS."

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
Sra,—lf I write incoherently, let your readers at-
tribute it to the indignation with which I seize the
pen to send you a few hurried remarks on the above
brutal case and brutal judicial treatment of it, as re-

ported in your paper of last evening :
" A little boy snapped his fingers in school hours, and
for so doing the master gave him two cuts across the
hand, and afterwards, when no one was present, caned
him till the weapon split. He then got another cane,
and held the face of the boy downwards by putting his
foot upon him, and flogged him thus till a gentleman
heard his screams, when the little boy was permitted to
crawl away."
Sir, in the name of common humanity, such half
butchery of little boys ought to call down the execra-
tion of every man who was once a boy. In the name
of Christianity, of his religion who said, " Suffer little
children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom
of Heaven," such barbarous attacks upon God's own
pure and tender workmanship ought to arouse the
loudest remonstrance from all hearts that beat in

unison with the gentle Nazarene's, or who possess
one spark ofjealousy for " God's own image."
Bat, Sir, it is not the brute who beat the boy, it
is not the accursed case itself, on which I would
bestow now one single word; it is the magistrate
whose ear I claim, it is he that I would address

through your pages.
Is Mr. Tyrwhitt not aware that his cruel and
antiquated barbarism has been long exploded from
every system of education enlightened by moral
philosophy and experience, and adopted under the
guidance and graces of a Divine religion ? Is the
bench, Sir, the place from which 4 to pronounce notions
on education which have long been condemned by
religion, philosophy, and common sense ? Take Mr.
Tyrwhitt's remarks seriatim, and they begin and end
in absurdity and cruelty. But your pages will not
allow me to more than enumerate them.
Firstly. He tells the parents that " no great harm
has been done to their child !" Is the man that says
this a father f If he be, and his own child " crawls"
home some night escaped from the highwayman's
cudgel with forty black bruises on his back, will
he repeat the inhuman words, " no harm is
done ?" But, Sir, he must be better acquainted
not only with our physical system but with our
moral nature, and our being's end and aim, than he
evidently is, before he can be capable of understand-
ing what harm has been done. I will leave medical
men to say what internal injuries have been caused,
or how lasting in its effects is an injured vertebrae, or
what shock to a nervous temperament• may have been
produced. But I can say myself imagine a far more
serious harm inflicted on the mind, the memory, the
affections. Into these things Mr. 'Tyrwhitt is in-
capable of entering' ,or of understanding, for he was
brought up (aceoveling to his own acknowledgement)
under the disadvantages of the truel find inhumanizing
system. Had ‘he possessed 'the advantages of a good
education, had the heart's natural sympathies not have
been stunted or destroyed by the mode in which he
was brought up, he would have felt what a " harm,"
what a foul blot on the mind and affections of a
child bad been perpetrated by such cruelty, associated
with the aged, such oppression with the preceptor,
such pain and suffering with learning and a school.
Ile goes on to say that, " far heavier punishments
were inflicted in the school wherein he was brought
up." The very strongest argument, Sir, that could
possibly be used against such punishment, if we judge
by the best of all tests—is the consequences. But he
further tells us that he has seen it inflicted on those
who are our nobles and naval and military officers,
wbo took it manfully and in good part, and that the
punishment was necessary to keep up the dignity of
the establishment. Does Mr. Tyrwhitt think that
such twaddling sophistry will really be received as
anything but nonsense, or treated with anything
but scorn ? The punishment in those cases was
either deserved or not. If deserved, it only evi-
dences the badness of an educational system that
did not better train the boys, and preserve them
from such deserts. If undeserved, it shows that
the boys must have been made cowards who did
not resist the injustice, and must have possessed
little sense of real dignity or manliness to think that the
dignity of an establishment could be upholden by
oppression.
But this sapient judge goes on to recommend that
" all schoolmasters should have painted in the school-
room rules for modes and extent of punishment for
offences, to which all parents should consent."
•Really, Sir, are not such ideas of offences and punish-
ments too monstrously ignorant and absurd for com-
ment? No difference to be made for the age of a
child, its previous training, and knowledge of right
and wrong, good and evil; no difference for acci-
dent or design; no careful investigation whether the
deed result from good or bad motive, or from no mo-
tive at all; but for each offence u certain cruel pu-
nishment. The inkstand fell—it matters not whether
from the feeble hand of an infant or dashed from the
fist of an angv youth. The slate was broken, but it
matters not whether it was broken by the little phi-
losopher trying the resisting power of the blue stone,
or by the pugilist pummelling therewith his neigh-
hour's head. boy "snapped his fingers" (Oh,
A
horrible crime !), but it matters nut whether it was
the little token of triumph and glee from the young..
ater who had just conquered a difficulty, or of the boy
Iwho had broken his playmate's nose.
An inkstand was broken, a slate did crack, and a
finger was really snapped, and there tire the painted
e rules ;" by them must the offender be butchered.
This is a mere half of the infamy and evil that
of
attaches to Mr. Tyrwhitt's systemeducation. In
indignation at such systems and with commiseration
for their victims, I remain yours truly,
Cheltenham, Aug. 26, 1851.

DALETH.

WHAT SHALL BE DONE WIT

OUIt CONVICTS ?

LE r /ER 11.

TO THE RIGHT LION. sia GEOLGII GAY, BART., M.P.
&C. &C. &C.

Sir,—Having shown that the intrinsic properties
of Lord Grey's plan are opposed to the reclamation
of the convict, let me nuw examine it in relation to
the published opinion of one of acknowledged sagacity
and wisdom—l allude to the Archbishop of Dublin,
who thus laid down a proposition which for
clear-headed truthfulness cannot be excelled.
In a letter addressed to the late Earl Grey, the
Archbishop says—" The very system of a penal colony
contains in itself, considered as a mode of punishment,
a principle of self destruction, because it not only aims
at two objects especially at variance with each other,
but also has a constant tendency in practice to sacrifice
the most important of the two objects to the incidental
and subordinate one-1 mean the efficacy of the pe-
nalty to the prosperity of the colony."
This sentence, which ought to be inscribed in let-
ters of gold for the instruction of the Colonial Se-
cretary for the time being, the present Lord Grey
treats as worthless, for he rejoices in his plan, which
avowedly has for its principal end, not the punish-
ment of the convict, but the benefit of the settler, who
wants shepherds, although the employment contains
within itself elements essentially opposed both to the
punishment and to the reclamation of the convict, who
ought to have steady and constant work, and not that
given by his Lordship's plan, which is employment of
the most idle character.

And;eT;h-a-ta-singular combination of important
elements renders the opinion of a Wbately most valu-
able upon such a social question. The disciplined
mind of the logician resolved to detect the real cause
of the acknowledged evils—the sagacity of the states-
man desirous that a punishment should be adopted
most likely to deter parties from criminal pursits—
and the philanthropy
of the Christian bishop anxious
for the reclamation of the convict; yet Lord Grey
pays no attention to the opinion of such a man, and
pursues a plan in direct contradiction to the principle
it denounced.
Although it must surely be a work of supereroga-
tion, let me now show that Lord Grey's plan is also
bad in relation to the knowledge we have acquired
from experience. it is simply an extension of the as-
signment system. Now, if there is one point on this sub-
ject on which there is greater uniformity of opinion
than another, it is the baneful effect of the assign-
ment system upon the convict, and upon the colony
although, no doubt, often useful and profitable to the
individual settler; and if such have been the results
in assignment to farmers in the neighbourhood of
other settlers, must not such evils be increased when
the convict is assigned to the remote wilds of a pas-
toral district with none but associates of his own cha-
racter ?

The only possible way in which the assignment
system can be worked so as to effect both the punish-
ment and the reclamation of the convict is that which
was adopted in the earlier settlements of America,
when a convict was established in the house of the
settler—punished by constant work without wages--
and gradually reclaimed by the influence of the
virtuous habits with which he was surrounded. flow
essentially different from the mode of life which must
be pursued by Lord Grey's Arcadian convicts, living
together in a bothy, only occasionally visited by the
proprietor!
Surely the above facts are conclusive against the
probability of any good arising from the adoption of
Lord Grey's plan. Well, replies his Lordship, if it
does not work well let it be abandoned, as we have al-
ready abandoned every plan which has been tried by
our predecessors and ourselves ; there can be no harm in
trying it, for if it fails we are only where we were.
Indeed ! such may be the doctrine, and assuredly has
been the practice, of the Colonial-office on this ques-
tion, but experience teaches that on this, as on every
other subject of social importance, every step taken
in the wrong direction, necessarily involving great
delay, adds to the difficulty of establishing a proper
system.
After the exposure of the evils of the present sys-
tem by the Committee on Transportation, the colonists
would have cheerfully co-operated with the Colonial-
office in carrying into practical operation any well-
considered plan for punishing and reclaiming the con-
vict. A few short years only have elapsed, and they
have now united in a league to prevent the abolition of
convict transportation to any part of Australia—yet
the Colonial-office thinks there is no harm in delay ! !
Rusticus expectat, defluit amnis.
I am perfectly aware that there are seine who think
that the present agitation will soon pass away, because
it is for the pecuniary interest of the settler and of the
capitalist that the colony should be supplied with con-
vict labour. Whether Lord Grey himself entertains
such opinion, and bas therefore proposed his pre-
sent plan to pass away time, I have no means of know-
ing, but I firmly believe events will prove such an
opinion to be both absurd and wicked.
An absurd opinion, because there are some subjects
which never recede, among the foremost of which are
those deeply imbued with moral and Christian prin-
ciples. In the first discussion against slavery the
statesman could predicate its certain downfall, and
the Committee on Transportation have ensured the

abolition of the present system.
A wicked opinion, because it relies upon Mammon
in opposition to morality, and assumes that the settler
will, for the sake of lucre, be content to expose his
family to the contaminating influences of a convict
population. Instead of the Colonial-office being irri-
tated and angry at the conduct of the settlers in pro-
nouncing against the future transmission of convicts,

it ought-to -rejoice at the exhibition of such a proper
feeling as being the surest proof that the inhabitants
were rising in the moral scale ; but no, such conduct,
however gratifying to the philanthropist, gives trouble
to officials, and is therefore denounced and the colo-
nist insulted.

I have the honour to remain, &c.,
RIGBY WA SON.

Corwar, Aug. 26, 1851.

RAILWAY TRAFFIC RETURNS.
THE GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY.-- ( Miles in w0rk,2410
—Return of Traffic for the Week ending Aug. 17, 1851:
Passengers, parcels, carriages,
horses, dogs, and mails ....£10,553 19 2
Merchandise and minerals 3,533 3 6
Cattle ••• ... 691 4 9

Total .. £14,783 7 5
Corresponding week, Aug. 18, 1850 (236 miles) :
Passengers, parcels, &c. ... £4,299 18 2
Merchandise, Cattle, &c. 1.4C1 3 7

... £5,701 1 9
LANCASIHRE AND YORKSHIRE RAILWAY. (260 miles
open.)—Traffic for week ending Aug. 24—£19,128 7 8
Corresponding week in last year, (253;
miles open) .. ...£17,604 3 9
CHESTER AND HOLYHEAD RAILWAY.--TrAffiC for the
week ending Aug. `24:—.

Total ...

MAIN LINE.

Passengers
Parcels, H. C. and D.
Goods, cattle, &c.
Mails ...

... £2,952 6 5
••• 83 9 8
... 633 0 1
... 575 0 0

Total

~. £4,243 16 2

•••
MOLD.

Passengers '
Parcels, H. C. and D. --
Goods, cattle, &c.

Total

... £39 13 3
... 1 9 3
... 102 9 2

STEAM-BOATS.

Passengers ... ...
Parcels, H. C. and D. ...

... £143 11 8

... £53615 4
~. 22 19 0