The Sun.
London, England, 1860-09-27 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 27, DM

---
Warsaw conspirators, conspirators, will at least put Prussia on
ther guard. She must be warned that Hungary
\ and Venetia are not to be intermeddled with by
a Power that wishes to be on good terms with
L , England.

The advertisement of the Atlantic and Great
Western Railway Company announces that de-
bentures will be issued, bearing 7 per cent. in-
terest with dividends, from the Ist of July last,
at the price of 80. The line possesses peculiar
interest. Already the New York and Erie Rail-
way forms a highway on a broad gauge from the
great commercial port to the western boun-
dary of New York. The Ohio and Mis-
sissippi Railway, from Cincinnatti to the
banks of the great river opposite the juin•
tion of the Missouri and St. Louis presents a simi-
lar highway, on the broad gauge, to the extreme
west ; but in the interval there is a network of
smaller railways running in various directions. By
the formation of the Atlantic and Great Western,

which joins the New York and Erie at Salamanca
and connect with the Mississippi and Ohio at Day
ton, a grand trunk line is formed 1,200 miles in
length, across the entire breadth of the United
States between the Atlantic and the Mississippi.
The new line is in three sections, passing through
the States of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
The first section has been completed, and the works
have been constructed with a solidity unusual in
American railways, This is important,—new lines
in the Republic being chargeable with the cost of
reconstruction after the first provisional building
of the line ; while of course the present undertaking
will be free from that abstraction from dividends
Two facts show the great value of the junc-
tion line ; the quotations of the Erie Company
have risen immensely, for the simple reason that
heretofore the change of gauge has been a great
obstruction upon the " through " traffic of that
line; and, indeed, the Erie Company is so sensible
of its interest in the junction, that it has under-
taken to give a bonus of 10 per cent. on the gross
traffic arising from the junction during the five
years after completion, and five per cent. for five
years afterwards. London capitalists, who own
largely in the New York and Erie, have
also, after personal enquiry, taken a large
interest in the new line. The names
in the aVertisement of the new company, including
that of SALAMANCA, the great Spanish contractor,
are a guarantee for the solidity of the whole under.
taking, in a commercial as well as an engineering
sense. The project is pronounced in the City to be
one of " the most legitimate" that could be brought
forward, and, although so recently brought out,
it has already attracted a very general attention.

THE TRANSPORT SERVIOE.

Mr. T. M. Mackay, in a letter to a contemporary

says :

I have just seen the blue-book containing the
evidence given before the Select Committee on
Transport Service, and beg leave to call attention
to the remarkable testimony of Capt. Eden, R.N.,
C. 8., one of the Lords of the Admiralty, who, in
reply to Question No, 51—
. . . .

IMPROVEMENT IN REAPING MACHINES,

A NEW REAPER-THE LITTLE BRITAIN,

aan you furnish a return showing the cost per head to
the country of sending oat 1,000 soldiers from England to
Malta in one of her Majesty's transports ?"

Says,—
" I had a calculation made of the cost of carrying two
regiments from England to Malta. They had to be taken
from Malta to the West Indies, and then brought from the
West Indies to England. The Himalaya and the Persever-
ance were the only two vessels available in England at the
time. The Himalaya was able to carry one regiment, but
the Perseverance could only take 560 men. It therefore be-
came necessary to take up freight for 350 men. The In-
diana was taken up at £15,000, and the cost of the coals,
which Government had to supply, was £l,BBO, making a
total of £16,880. That was for carrying 350. The Himalaya
took 850 men; the cost of the crew's wages and victuals,
calculating a voyage of 74 days, was £2,619; the cost of
victualling the troops was £2,691; the wear and tear of the
Himalaya, calculating at 8 per cent. on the original cost,
was £3,132 ; and the cost of the coals was £3,760. The total
of that is £12,202 for carrying 850 men."

Now, it would appear from the above figures that
the number of men requiring to be moved amounted
to 1,750, and on referring to pp. 239 and 328 I find
that the Himalaya has capacity for 994 men, or
1,030 if women are not carried ; while Capt. Lecke,
the Superintendent of Marine under the Indian
Council, states, in reply to Question 1,637, that "he
once put 1,300 men on board of her." The Perse-
verance also measures for 605 men, or 639 without
women, while the Indiana carried 775 men besides
15 officers to India.
From these authentic data I learn that the Govern-
ment transports Himalaya and Perseverance could
have taken 1,669 men without crowding, and for the
sake of carrying a surplus of 81 men the nation seems
to have been put to an outlay of £16,880, or above
£2lB per head, a result obtained by no flexible ar-
rangement of arithmetic.
Again, Captain Eden states that the Indiana was
paid £15,000, independent of coals, for a 74 days'
voyage, or say two months and a half, while at page
240 I learn that the average rate for the steam
transports to China is under 355. per ton per month ;
and, assuming this as a fair estimate of monthly
pay, it would on the Indiana's tonnage, 2,364, yield
£10,342 for the above period, whereas about one
third additional is stated to have been paid. Were
there no tenders for this service ?

Captain Eden advocates a proposal for the Go-
vernment to have 8 or 10 such transports as the
Himalaya, and the statement referred to was, no
doubt, meant to convince the committee that such a
system would be more economical for the country ;
but in his calculations (which some members of the
committee discovered) there was nothing charged
for interest or insurance, and the expenses assumed
that no one had been on pay prior to or after the
lapse of the 74 days. Next Session some member
will, no doubt, move for a return of the cost of the
existing troopships, as well as the work done for
the money ; and, if the return be satisfactory, let
us have a fleet of them without delay.

My object in addressing you has been to rectify
a serious error which I saw had been already
adopted by an influential military paper, and also
to convince the public that if they have not got
value for their money, the blame should not be as-
cribed to private transports.

A novelty in the construction of this class of machinery,
so beneficial to the agricultural interest, was exhibited at
work on Friday, at Eltham, on the Middle Park Farm, in
the occupation of J. Blenkiron, Esq. The peculiarity of
this machine consists in the delivery of the corn, the light-
ness of draught, and simplicity in construction, the plat-
form being rotary in its action, while all others we have yet
seen are stationary, with the single exception of the tipping
board, which was used on }lussey's reaper when it was first
brought to this country. The rotary motion is produced
by means of a bevel wheel, working on a pinion, both being
An the centre underneath the platform, and in communicad
lion with the driving wheel. This is the leading and pro-
minent feature of the now reaper, and we are disposed to
think that, upon principle, it is right. The reaper, in fact,
was merely put together to show the principle, with the
knives behind the driving wheel instead of the front ; other
parts also seemed improved for the occasion ; although in
an unfinished state it did some good work, and with a few
alterations and adjustments, it promises to become a stan-
dard machine. The means it has of discharging the cut
corn are not only simple, but ingenious, as the delivery can
be obtained either by the corn falling off in swarthe or in
compact bundles, ready for the binders, leaving a clear
space, 5 feet wide, for the horse and machine to pass round
again. The inventor of this new reaper, is Mr. W. Ste-
vens, who has had great experience in agricultural machi-
nery, particularly implements intended for field opera-
tions ; it was manufactured by Messrs. Dray, Taylor, and
Co., under the superintendence of the inventor. The expe-
riment was made on a crop of wheat, and gave general
satisfaction. There were some leading farmers and others
interested in aitriculture in the field, amongst them we
may cite It. Russell, Esq., J. Blenkiron, Esq., and some
American gentlemen from Chicago, engineers, who ex-
pressed their approbation with the work done, saying that
the new reaper—the Little Britain—will take its place
Amon the best leading agricultural implements of the day