The Sun.
London, England, 1867-07-17 00:00:00

SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH.

A special general meeting of this company was
held yesterday at the London Tavern ; Sir J. Car-
michael in the chair.
Mr. S. M. Clare, the secretary, having read the
notice convening the meeting,
The CHAIRMAN said the object of the meeting
was to authorise the directors to lay down a new
line of telegraphic communication between England
and Belgium, in accordance with the convention
entered into with the Belgian Government on the
6th of November, 1861 ; and for this purpose they
proposed to raise a further sum of £35,000 in
addition to the present capital of £265,000, making
together £300,000. The £35,000 was to be issued
as a 7 per cent. preference stock ; and if in any year
the profits applicable for dividend should be in-
sufficient to pay the full dividend of 7 per cent., the
deficiency would be paid out of the profits of any
subsequent year. The:stock would be offered pro
rata to the shareholders at the rate of £lOO for £9O
in cash, payable in three instalments on allot-
ment, and in September and November. A sum
not exceeding £1,250 half-yearly was to be set
aside out of the reserve fund to pay off the £35,000
stock at par, by half-yearly drawings. He explained

that the new communication would be a great ad-
vantage to the company, for whenever the Ostend
cable was broken the company's direct communica-
tion with Germany and the northern part of Europe
was suspended ; the traffic lost to the company
thereby was estimated at not less than from £3,000
to £4,000 a year. In consideration of the liberal
terms granted by the Belgian Government, in con-
cert with the Prussian Government, the directors
had agreed to lay down the intended cable as soon
as practicable. The Prussian Government had un-
dertaken to give a direct wire to the Belgian fron-
tier, from Hamburg, Berlin, and Frankfort, with

the best known insulation, and to devote those
wires to the use of the company, so that a direct and

instantaneous communication between London and
each of those cities might be established. The cost
of a cable having four conducting wires would not
exceed £30,000, and if the receipts were increased
by no more than the £3,000 or £4,000 a year now
annually lost, it would afford a good dividend upon
the new capital. A further increase of traffic might
reasonably be expected from the direct wires with
Berlin and the other places. In Belgium there was
a uniform rate of about sd. per message, and he
believed it was the most advanced State in Europe
in that respect. He concluded by moving a formal
resolution authorising the issue of the preference
stock on the terms and for the purpose stated.
Mr. MAXWELL seconded the motion, which, after
a short discussion, was unanimously adopted ; and
a vote of thanks to the chairman and directors
concluded the proceedings.

A NEW SYSTEM OF WEIGHTS AND

MEASURES.

Mr. MOSES B. Buss, of Pittston, Maine, has in-
vented a decimal scale of weights, measures, and
currency, which has been favourably considered by
the Legislature of his State. He claims for his
proposed plan a general superiority over that of
France, insomuch that it secures the advantages
of the metric system, with the additional re-
commendation of a decimal calculation, involv-
ing no very violent change in existing usage,
being grounded on the measure used by the people
from time immemorial. In discussing this system,
the Springfield Republican very clearly shows that
it has not the advantages claimed for it by its
author, while it disputes the utility of adhering to
the ancient custom. If a nation attempts a change
so material as the alteration of its weights and
measures it should substitute not only the best, but
the best without regard to the magnitude of the
revolution forced on the domestic calculation of
every household of the country. No nation should
attempt this, except in consultation with others,
the object being not merely to simplify the
system, but to make it universal. Adopt no
half measures, no patching expedient ; but if you
throw the people out of joint by an alteration,
which all will feel at once—do so radically,
and secure a result worth having. What the British
weights and measures sprang from is, as we lately
observed, sufficiently indicated by the nomencla-
ture. They arose from the rudest expedients—the
standards each man carried with him, in his own
person. The commercial and scientific progress of
England necessitated its linear unit to be exactly
defined, and savans accomplished this. Given a
pendulum vibrating seconds in the latitude of
Greenwich, moving in vacuo at the level of the sea,
at the temperature of 62 deg. Fah. ; and the yard
is to that as 36 is to 39.1393. That is the English
idea of the linear unit! which requires the tested
measure to be brought to London—a given tem-
perature, a given level, a space in vacuum, and an
exact measure of time. This is what comes of ad-
hering to the expedients handed down to us from
barbarians. The French linear measure has an in-
variable natural unit in the metre, which is one
forty-millionth part of the circumference of the
earth, determined by measurement and computation.
It is but natural that mankind should adopt the unit
f the grandest line on earth, and bring it into uni-
versal application as the test of all measure of length.
In maintaining the English yard in preference to the
French metre Mr. BLISS is in error, and the advantage
it undoubtedly has, having been used from time im-
memorial by the people, is outweighed by the dis-
advantage inherent in the unit itself, being a section
of nothing, for which even science failed in esta-
blishing a clear and easily obtained definition. Al-
though he rejects the French measure in favour of
that in universal use by the Anglo-Saxon race, he
adopts the metric nomenclature in forming his deci-
mal table, substituting yards for metres, as fol-
, lows :

_ .
1100
emeniltliiyyaarrdd: equal" 1 to
11
dceecnityiyaradrd:
10 dcciyards 66 1 yard.
10 yards " 1 dekayard.
10 dek ayards " 1 hectoyard.
10 hectoyards
10 kiloyards myriayard.oyard.
In a similar way he establishes gallons for litres,
kil
and pounds for grams. But though he retains the
name, his system alters the measure, and thus he
forces on the people the radical change, without
giving them the full benefit of the well-defined
unit from which to start. The Springfield Republi-
can says intelligent people concede that " the sys-
tem at present in use is unnatural, complicated, in-
convenient, reducible with difficulty to the denomi-
nations of other nations with .which we have deal-
ings through custom-houses; in short, having no-
thing in its favour, except that the people have got
used to it. It is neither decimal nor duodecimal, it
has no common units, it begins nowhere and ends
at the same place, and can only be described as an
arbitrary, haphazard, straggling set of tables,
convenient only for cheating. A great many
people think with Congress that the substitution in
place of this crazy system, or rather want of system,
of the simple, decimal, metric system of the French,
would be a vast national and individual gain. This
system, as a suitable one for us, finds powerful
advocates outside of Congress, particularly in
SAMUEL B. RUGGLES, of New York, who is our
foremost man in all such matters."

The XXXIX. Congress recommended and
legalised the use of the French metric system at its
first Session, which it was empowered to do in
the Bth section of the Ist Article of the Consti-
tution, which enables it to fix the stapdard of

weights and measures. The French plan has been
in operation for 70 years, and is obtaining general
adoption, which it is desirable, unless something
better be soon discovered, may become universal,
though it has the disadvantage of not being deci-
mal. We may now look for a full report from
the Commission lately sitting in Paris. That the
United States will throw the whole force of its
influence into the scale with France we believe
to be nearly certain ; but whether the preponderat-
ing numbers, whether the dictates of common
sense, whether the expediency of the change, will
not be outweighed iu England by the leaden
weight of British prejudice and detestation of change,
arc questions time only can solve. Eventually
England must give way if France and the United
States cordially act together, but the struggle will
be long, and the necessity paramount, ere JOHN
BULL abandons the time-honoured customs of his
painted progenitors. We know that he does not
run about now in ochre, with a wild beast's skin
around his loins, and a club in his hand. We know
that he is never seen in the typical dress in which
he is always arrayed on the French stage, though
we suppose he must once have been dressed in that
fashion ; and from these changes we argue, that it is
possible to introduce a measure of utility which may
sweep away even time-honoured custom. It is not
from the commercial community, that the opposition
may be expected, but from the lower classes. The
man who has mastered the English system by a
great strain on his intellectual capacity will feel
himself defrauded of a hardly-gained knowledge if that
system be abolished, and he will see in the change but
a renewed call on the already exhausted intellectual
capacity. If the good man resists this—what will be
the action of the housewife? Is she who has calculated
to a fraction the value per yard of everything she
requires to be thrown back to a worse position than
that of a school girl who has, at least, not a great
deal to unlearn before she recommences her tables
of weights and measures ? No ; let the people begin
to comprehend even that such an idea is entertained,
and an indignant howl will be heard all over the
land. Among the measures of bulk we are sur-
prised that there was no entry of a " mouth."
Probably our ancestors found it impossible to strike
an average in " capacity," and substituted some-
thing else. But JOHN BULL is still content to open
his mouth and shut his eyes, and to take what his
mother gives him. lie does not care to inquire
what it is, or whether something more palatable, more
nutritious, and easy of digestion might be substi-
tuted. It is thus that the BULLS have been fed from
a time beyond memory and record, and it is pro-
bable that the BULLS will continue so to be fed until
theyrionu s, whichu n-
th
they
openl theirsta n d eyes on a c
isolated
na n
tgheedi
rw
co:11nd
br,
asto ma sa,s
ewi
tlendc ht allthe other
ef
aqmu
iili,esa nhda
vien e
lisation of the age.—Anglo-American Times.
xabpaedndieonntedcus,

LOUIS VEUILLOT'S FOURTH LETTER
FROM ROME.

Three or four times a day I have desired to de-
scribe Rome to you—or, rather, it is a constant
desire. At this moment it attracts me more than
ever, and yet I give it up. Where am Ito com-
mence ?—with the sun, the place, or people ?

Everything is different, everything is beautiful,
everything entrances. The shortest journey in this
city is a voyage across history in the fourquarters
of the globe. Here we see living and comming-
ling the past, the present, and the future ; nay,
the future still more than all the rest. This is
the grand reservoir whence the future flows and
spreads itself over the human race. We are con-
vinced of it, however little we may be able to see
and understand it. The destinies of the world are
centred here, now and for ever. I will explain it 11
in two words toeM. 'Paine, who alleges that Rome
" feels death." In Rome there are things for
which men die ; I believe that M. Taine can
understand that. If he does not understand it, he
is more untrue to his intelligence even than I had
thought.
Listen to this little history of an early morning:
—I went out about seven o'clock, and I entered a
church near my lodging. A hundred Masses had
already been said in that church. In Rome, at
this moment, about ten thousand Masses are cele-
brated every morning ; and where is the corner of
the earth which does not furnish its contribution

to this focus, to this vulcano of incense, for there
is scarcely a diocese or mission which has not sent
here its bishop or some one of its priests, to him
who is the universal bishop and priest ; or, as the
Bishop of Tulle has said, " the veritable prince
of the public soul"—an expression which Cicero
used, with far less reason, to describe the Roman
Senate.

I somehad sbishops.seen
en
French,
I went
threee n t th
hours visit
ne rd
of Masstw
theAfetrencAht,
German, Hungarian, Eglish, and Swiss
bishops,
missionaries from America and Asia, writers, doc-
tors, orators, above all apostles. I know things
about Japan which the Tycoon and his ambassa-
dor do not know. In making these • journeys I
have passed over different quarters of Rome, and
met in my passage the accumulated memories of
more than two thousand years of
history
; I
passed before the Chamber of the Conclave'where
Pius IX. was elected; before the Palace of the
Quirinal where he was prisoner; before the
Column of Trajan surmounted by the statue of
St. Peter ; before the Pantheon of Agrippa; at
the foot of the Column of Antonine ; I entered
the fine Convent of the Minerva, transformed into
soldier's quarters during the French protectorate
now rehabilitated, restored to its peace and to its
dignity, purged of the odour of the barrack, and
preserving nothing of this unhappy epoch save
some traces of the military spirit on the frescoes of
the cloister—painful evidences which the 1 • c iarity
of the monks would without doubt gladly efface.
My visits over, I made the round of the Ca-
pitol. One of its galleries is filled with busts of
the Emperors from Julius Cesar to Julian the
Apostate, the historic interest of which is in-
comparable. There we read, there we under-
stand, there we feel Roman history, and there
it is that we read what vice and pride can write
on the human countenance. The most revolting
face of this Museum is that of Julian the Apos-
tate ; it is more impudent than Caligula, who
says —" I have one quality—my impudence ;"
more cruel even than Nero turned into a beast ;
more vacant in its calculated carelessness than the
insufferable Lucius Verus. To what strange illu-
sions have not some of our'people yielded who have
a weakness for this abominable Trissotin. in
whom they have chosen to see a first instalment
of the reconcilers of the Church with modern so-
ciety. Julian is not the type of the erring man who
goes astray, and, with a remnant of good faith, seeks
after truth. He is the learned imposter of our
epoch, who studies in order not to know, who does
not wish to know in order not to believe—who
does not wish to believe in order not to obey. The
fool took it into his head to destroy Christianity,
knowing of no other means within his reach of
achieving something great. This is clearly
written on his vulgar countenance, full of stupid
self-satisfaction. The Julian of our day is a poli-
tical economist, a philosopher, a writer in the
Revue des deux-Motules, and, not to name anybody,
the most tedious of its writers, he is about to enter
the Acade'inie des Sciences, Morales, et Politiques. He
will be elected by the suffrage of Marcus Aurelius,
now ever so long the ruler of that assembly.
In the Capitol is the magnificent statue of the
dying Gladiv_tor. lie is wounded; he has sunk
upon the earth ; the arm on which he supports him-
self is still bent; he is about to stretch himself in
the dust ; iron crooks will soon bite his palpitating
body, and drag him out of the arena, where, if he
is not quite dead, some novice, in order to train
his hand, will put an end to him. In this face there
is an expression of dying pain, which makes the
heart bleed. We see the scene, we hear the cries
of the people applauding this graceful death, and
cheering the skilful stroke of the conqueror. This
was the civilization which Julian • wished to resus-
citate, the games which Marcus Aurelius, although
disapproving of them tolerated for the amusement
of Commodus. This civilization was eminently
favourable to the sculptor ; we have lovers of the
beautiful who regret it and speak of restoring it.
You cannot imagine how one despises these