The Sun.
London, England, 1869-03-20 00:00:00

WARMTH FROM THE STARS.

The Daily New has an article on the warmth from
the stars. "It would scarcely be thought by most
persons (says our contemporary) that the stars
supply the earth with an appreciable amount of
heat. Even on the darkest and clearest night, when the
whole heavens seem lit up by a multitude of sparkling
orbs, the idea of heat is not suggested by their splendour.
It will, therefore, seem surprising to many that
men of science should assign no inconsiderable
portion of our terrestrial heat supply to those
distant twinkling lamps. It is not many years
since Professor Hopkins, of Cambridge, went even
farther, and expressed his belief that if the earth's atmo-
sphere were but increased some 13,000 yards in height, so
as to have an increased power of retaining the warmth
poured upon it from outer space, we might do without the
sun altogether so far as our heat supply is concerned. As
a glass-house collects the sun's heat, and renders it avail-
able durj„ the time that the sun is below the horizon, so
he held that the additional layer of air would serve to
garner the warmth of the stars in quantities sufficient for
all our requirements. But until lately all these views,
however plausible they might have seemed, had not been
founded upon facts actually observed. It has been
reserved for these days in which discoveries of the
most unexpected kind are daily rewarding the labours of
our physicists, to see that established as a certainty which
lid before been founded merely upon considerations of
pro' ability. Mr. Huggins, the physicist and astronomer,
has just published the results of a series of inquiries
addressed to the actual measurement of the heat which we
receive from the leading brilliants of the nocturnal sky.
The instrument called the galvanometer, which has been
made more or less familiar to many of us by the
researches and lectures of Mr. Tyndall, was made
use of by Mr. Huggins in these investigations.
The instrument was fixed to Mr. Huggins's large
refractor, so that the image of a star formed by the
8-inch object-glass might fall upon the surface of the ther-
mopile. It will give some token of the care required in
researches of the sort to mention that the apparatus had
to be left attached to the telescope for hours, sometimes
for days, until the needle whose motion marks the action
of heat had come to perfect rest. When the time came
for making an observation, the shutter of the dome which
covers the telescope was opened, and the telescope was
turned upon a part of the sky near to some bright star,
but not actually upon the star. Then the needle was
watched to determine whether the change of position
had produced any effect. If in four or five minutes no
signs of change were shewn, the telescope was moved over
the small distance necessary to bring the image of the star
directly on the face of the pole. Almost always the needle
began to move as soon as the image of the star fell upon
it. The telescope was then moved slightly away
again from the star ; the needle was then seen
to return to its place. In this way from twelve
to twenty observations would be made upon the same
star, so that no doubt might remain as to the motion of
the needle being really due to the star's heat. In this
way it was found that the bright Arcturus moved the
needle three degrees in about a quarter of an hour. So
did Regulus, the leading brilliant of Leo, the constella-
tion at present adorned by the splendour of ruddy Mars.
Pollux gave a deflection of 1. degree ; but, singularly
enough, his twin brother Castor produced no effect at all
upon the needle. The splendid Sirius gave a deflection of
only two degrees; but as this star is always low down,
and so shines through a greater proportion of the denser
atmospheric strata, it is not suprising that its heat should
not be proportioned to its brilliancy."

AIR. ROEBUCK AND HIS LATE CON-

STII'UENTS.

The banqueting room of the Cutlers' Hall, Sheffield, was
crowded on Friday, on the occasion of the presentation to
Mr. Roebuck, the late member for the borough, of an ele-
gantly bound volume containing a highly complimentary
address, and he was asked at the same time to accept, on
the part of his daughter, Miss Roebuck, the sum of X 3,000
invested in Three per Cent. Consols. Mr. Mark Firth,
Master Cutler, occupied the chair, and the presentation
was made by Mr. Alderman Fisher.
Mr. ROEBUCK, on mounting a table to address the meet-
ing, was hailed with loud and oft-repeated cheers. "There
are times," said he, "when emotion chokes utterance, and I
at once confess that at the present moment that.is my case.
I have received such a warm reception, I have received so
much eulogy—which I do assure you is to me very rare—
that lam overcome. It is a new phase in my life, and
this day is to me a great day. Well, sir, I feel myself now
as if, in going along the journey of life, I approached
pretty near to its end. I have arrived at a hill top from
which turning round I look backward. To every mar.
that sort of retrospect is a bitter thing—hopes disap-
pointed, wishes unfulfi.led, motives misinterpreted,
calumny used. But still, in every desert they say there
is an oasis, and I, looking back, see that bright spot in my
career, my connection with Sheffield. That has been a
bright spot, not simply by my act, but by yours. I came
among you with a perfectly candid, explicit statement of
what I intended to do—namely, to follow the dictates of
my own conscience. That has been my rule through life ;
and how have you responded to it? Why, for twenty
years you did what the world, I have heard, calls bear-
ing with me.' People say you bore my eccentricities. I
told the truth ; you bore with me in that. That was
rather an honour to you. I truckled to neither party in
the State, I was therefore hated by both. I have
not changei through twenty years of political
life. My views probably have been expanded by exile•
rience, but is there anything wrong in that? I have
not gained by my actions. I have sever allowed personal
interests to triumph. My life has been dedicated to my
country. I have gained nothing for myself. I hope I
have won a-name—but what is in a name? In a few
short years I shall disappear. The chances are that my
name will be forgotten. In this rush and hurry of the
world, in the great mass of the people who come before
the world's eyes, there are ten thousand chances to one
that I shall be forgotten. But until Ido die I shall
have the cheering spirit within me that through
my life I have done my duty, and, doing my
duty have won the applause and, I believe,
the support of the best thinking of my countrymen.
I may say, sir, that lam accused of being an egotist. I
want to know on this occasion upon what I am to talk, if
Ido not talk about myself? Mr. Roebuck then went on
to justify his conduct with his constituents. I brought a
trained intellect to a business that required a trained in-
tellect. I brought, as I have often heard it said, a fear-
less spirit. I feared nothing. I had no other expectation
than the good approval of my countrymen if I did
right. Well, then, I believe upon the whole,
taken as whole, that my life has been a success.
Though a defeated candidate I believe yet that I represent
the thinking part of Sheffield. My mind is now attuned,
I must say it, to a much calmer way of thinking. lam
very happy, and I am very well. And although I have
lost the seat for Sheffield, I do not think I have been
degraded in the eyes of my fellow-countrymen. There
are bright times in every man's life. However humble a
man may be, there are times in which his heart bounds
and springs, and he says to himself lam a
man.' Well, that is exactly my present condition.
I feel that though I have suffered defeat, yet this
is a glorious reward for a life spent in your service."
Mr. Roebuck concluded by saying that he was hardly so
great a man as he had been drawn by the speakers who
had eulogised him. Referring again to his defeat, he
said : " When last year I contributed a humble part, but
still I did contribute, to bring into the electoral
body of Sheffield something like 10,000 or 12,000
persons I struck a nail into my own coffin.
The very men for whom I struggled, the very
men who got a power they never had before, used that
power against me. I believe that as time goes on, and
they become more learned as voters, they will find out
that they made a mistake. The time will come when they
will say, That old man was not so bad a fellow as we
thought him.' "

A report that the South Warwickshire election
petition would be withdrawn is authoritatively contradicted
by the Birmingham Gazette.
MAGISTRATES' CLERKS.—The office of clerk to the
Liverpool borough magistrates is now vacant, and among
the applicants are several gentlemen who are not lawyers.
At a meeting of the Liverpool Law Society, it has been
resolved---" That, without any disparagement to the non-
professional candidates for the office of clerk to the borough
magistrates, this society is of opinion that such office ought
to be filled by an attorney, not only as a guarantee of legal
attainments and social standing, but also because attorneys
as officers of the courts of law arc amenable to a summary
jurisdiction in case of misconduct."

THE DONEGAL MURDER.—The Daily Erpress
Publishes the following particulars, the first which have yet
appeared, of the recent outrage in Donegal.—" On Friday
night last two of Lord Leitrim's bailiffs were riding on one
horse in the neighbourhood of Eallyheirnan Cottage.
Three shots were fired at them from the roadside. The
first shot took effect, and dismounted one of the men,
named Murphy, who was seated behind his companion, and,
in the act of falling, dragged down the foremost rider with
him. The horse galloped off riderless, which, it is
supposed, led the assassins to believe that they had killed
both. Murphy is the only man woundel ; the other
escaped completely. Three slugs were lodged in Murphy's
head, but his life is not in danger. A gun was left at the
scene of the outrage not discharged. On Sunday night
another outrage was committed on Lord Leitrim's property
beyond Kilmacrenan. A house was fired into, and several
slugs ly.lged in tie wall and bedstead, whereon the
inmates were