The Sun.
London, England, 1858-09-03 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 3, 1858.

IRELAND.

DUBLIN, THURSDAY MORNING.
CELEBRATION OF THE LAYING OF THE CABLE.
The banquet of the Lord Mayor to celebrate the
greatest triumph of modern science, which came off
last night, and which was to have gathered round
the civic board men of all creeds and parties, has,
for very simple reasons, upset Lord Egliuton's
popularity with the Roman Catholic party. Car-
dinal Wiseman has done it all. His untimely ar-
rival in Dublin has been the herald of a politico-
religious storm, of which, now that it has been
raised after a long lull, no one can foresee the end.
In order to understand clearly the situation of the
belligerents it is better to let the casus belli be
narrated by the Freeman's Journal, up to this very
morning a generally.warm and disinterested sup-
porter of the policy of the Vieeroy since his arrival
in Ireland :
" During the past few 'days we have observed a scrupu-
lous silence regarding the various rumours . that. were afloat
with reference to the strange course. which it was said
Lord Derby's representative in Ireland was about to adopt
with reference to the Mansion-house 'banquet. It will be
remembered that the fashionable announcements' some
weeks agd informed the public that his Excellency had
fixed the Ist of September as the day on which it would be
most convenient for him to be present at the banquet de-
signed by the. Lord Mayor as a just tribute to the genius
and perseverance of Mr. Bright. His Excellency had; in
fact, fixed the day. Rumour within the past week hinted
that because the Lord Mayor had extended his hospitalities
to a man whose genius and acquirements have achieved for
him as high a position in the world of letters and of arts as
his virtues and learning have marked him out as fit to hold
in the Church of which he is so distinguished an orna-
ment, the Tory Viceroy would decline an invitation. No
question was in issue as to precedence, as to the order of
the toasts, or aslto the character of the toasts. If there was,
some excuse might be made for the over-sensitiveness of
Lord Eglinton. But no such point was even hinted at.
The judgment and discretion of the Lord Mayor were
ample security against any cause being given even for doubt
on such matters. Indeed, it is but right to say that no
doubt was even suggested, and the sole cause given for the
studied and ostentatious absence of Lord Eglinton was the
presence of the Cardinal, and the unwillingness of a mem-
ber of Lord Derby's Government to sit publicly at the same
board with a Prince of the Chi”-ch, because he also hap-
penedto be the Archbishop of Westminster. Webelieve there
is not on record an instance of such paltry bigotry as this.
It is said that Lora Eglinton was not personally afraid to
encounter the red cloak,' and that he wrote for orders to
the other side. It is also said that the orders were of the
most peremptory character. But, whatever may be the
truth of these rumours, the fact is, that immediately after
his arrival from the north, Lord Eglinton intimated to the
Lord Mayor his determination to be absent in a manner
that left no doubt as to the real notive ; audit is also equally
clear that this procedure was perfectly in keeping with the
whole tenour of his political career. It will be remembered
that when a Bill was introduced by the Marquis of Lans-
downe in 1848, to enable the Queen to carry on diplomatic
relations with the Court of Rome as with all other foreign
Courts, Lord Eglinton took a prominent part in defeating
that rational measure, which would hr;ve substituted open
dealing for the base intrigues alleged to be carried on by
English agents for the purpose of misleading opinion at
Rome. The manner in which Lord Eglinton defeated the
bill showed at once his dexterity and his early hatred to-
wards ecclesiastics of the Church of Rome."
The banquet, the source of so much discord, was
nevertheless well attended by men of all parties,
the Cardinal being, of course, the undisputed lion
of the evening. It is, however, stated that, in
addition to the Lord-Lieutenant, the Chancellor,
the Lord Justice of Appeal, and many other pub-
lic functionaries, as well as many gentlemen of
high social position, who had accepted the Lord
Mayor's invitation, felt constrained to absent
themselves in consequence of the expected presence
of Cardinal Wiseman. After the preliminary loyal
toasts had been drunk, the Lord Mayor—himself a
zealous but extremely moderate Roman Catholic—
rose to propose the health of .the Lord-Lieutenant.
. -
He said :

" I have the honour of proposing The Health of his
Excellency the Lord Lieutenant,' whose absence this even-
ing I exceedingly regret. (Hear.) On a former occasion
it was also my good fortune to have to propose the health of
his Excellency's predecessor, and to refer to the many claims
upon the people of Ireland which the Earl of Carlisle pos-
sessed for the warm-hearted zeal and untiring ability with
which he studied to promote the prosperity of this country
—(loud applause)—and I cannot more adequately or more
sincerely express the sentiments of respect and esteem
which we must all entertain for his Excellency the Earl •f
Eglinton: than by saying that since his accession to his
present high office he has exhibited no less warm a zeal,
and no less earnest a desire to promote every useful and
practical undertaking which can conduce to the general
good and prosperity of Ireland." (Renewed applause.)
The health of Mr. Charles Bright and his sci-
entific associates having been given amid loud
cheers, and responded to by Mr. Bright,

" His Eminence Qardinal WISEMAN, who on rising was
received with loud and protracted cheering, said,—My Lord
Mayor and Gentlemen,—.-I have presumed to rise almost
against the remonstrance of my Lord Mayor, assuming to
myself the privilege of propdsing to you his health, which I
think should take precedence now of every other considera-
tion. (Applause.) It would ill become me to expatiate
upon his excellent qualities or his civic virtues, because I
have had such comparatively slender opportunities of be-
coming acquainted with them compared with those which
you who surround me enjoy, that the most I could have
done would have been to endeavour to echo those sentiments

which you already entertain from what some of you may
in your kindness have communicated to me. I consider
that the fact of his presiding this evening, and of his hav-
ing been raised by his fellow-citizens to the very highest
civic position which could be the object of ambition to any
one in his position to attain—the fact of his having been
raised to the chief magistracy of the capital city of this
portion of the empire, speaks forcibly as to his merits, and
at once proclaims your high opinion of him. (Loud ap-
plause.) At the same time, lam glad to find, since I en-
tered this room, that our acquaintance is not merely of this
evening. Though he has entertained me this evening in
common with many others with so much splendour, it ap-
pears that many years ago I had the advantage of being
his host. Among the Tusculam hills, in a sweet and lovely
[ recess, which many who are near me have often enjoyed,
he was good enough to be as one of our own little coramu
nity—a youth himself, mingling among the youth of that
day (I am sorry to say that we are no longer such)--and
he reminds me that he was then associated within our
humble collegiate walls with two men that I consider it a
pride to have been at any time connected with—the two
illustrious cardinals, Pacca and Gregorio. (Applause.) I
therefore feel that I have this evening renewed that loving
bond of
.hospitality, and that familier tie which in ancient
times was indissoluble, and which, once enjoyed, was ex-
pected to continue through life ; and I think myself happy
in having the opportunity of renewing those early relations
of friendship. (Hear, hear.) If it would be presumptuous
in me to speak of those personal qualities that belong to your
estimable chairman, there can be no impropriety in my
alluding to those more public and general circumstances
which I think we may well congratulate ourselves on being
probably the future characteristics of this his civic reign.
(Hear, hear.) I have been travelling—not indeed through
the whole length, but at any rate through the entire
breadth of this island, and I think this year we shall be
especially blessed by the hand of Providence with what
must be considered among the greatest of the wants
and the blessings of this island—an abundant harvest
and an untainted nourishment. (Hear, hear.) This
will, I trust, be one happy retrospect of his mayoralty in
Dublin. And further, I have approached sufficiently near
the shores of the West to have almost caught distant sight
of the steamer which, parting from this coast, went forth as
another of those messengers which have been despatched
with such enterprise, and I trust with such success, to vin-
dicate the geographical place of Ireland on the map of the
world. (Applause.) For if in the olden time she was
considered the Ultima Thule,' as the last place in the
race of nations, she is now the foremost, the avant garde
of Europe, in its advancement towards the great continent
of the West ; and if her craggy shores have been the very
spur and buttress which Europe has thrown out against the
roaring Atlantic Ocean, it is likewise the nearest point from
which Europe can stretch across to grasp the hand of
friendship with that great and increasing world. (Great
applause.) But still more has his Lordship reason to con-
gratulate himself that his year of office has been signalised
by the accomplishment of that great enterprise of which he
has so admirably spoken, and which has procured for us
this evening one of the m(aopsptiaklmiansorb _atlheastpreacailmlyenuns
aosf simple
amning
e— which has told us so much that we
andand modesttrutmta elnoaqrrauenticve
were unacquainted with, at the same time that it has been
disencumbered of all that could be personal or presumptu-
ous—(hear)—and has advanced tenfold in our estimation—
that which we had in our hearts allotted to Mr. Bright.
(Applause.) It is difficult, after what has been said, to
return again to the subject; but you will pardon me if I
indulge in a few reflections suggested by this wonderful
work. Hitherto there seems to have been above earth but
little or no obstacle to the enterprise of man; and yet
man has often been baulked in his attempts to pass

from one land to another. In his panting impatience

to communicate with his fellow-man wherever he might
be found, or in obedience to that supreme law which
commands him to go forth and people the earth, he has
endeavoured to track his way to its remotest regions ; he
has dived into the darkest of its valleys, and there groped
his way amid the stones of the torrent to create a path be-
yond the chains of mountains that seemed to shut him in.
He has climbed as high as it was possible for all his breath-
less vigour to bear him, until at length he came to the snow-
built pyramids on the summit of the mountain or the im-
passable glacier, and then he turned his flank, and with
wonderful perseverance he made his way into the opposite
region ; but who ever thought till now of at once plunging
into the very depths of the ocean, without the power of
seeing a single step beyond him, almost beyond the power
of the fathoming line to reach, to a depth, as we have been
told, as great as the height of the highest mountains ex-
plored by a few above the earth ? And then he had ven-
tured to trace his path, and had stretched it, without de-
viation, and without yielding, to the most formidable
obstacles. He has made that path to bury itself deep into
the very undermost of the valleys of that unseen region ;
he has mude it to ascend its steepest paths—to cross its
highest mountains—to pass down again, and then, by an
effort of perseverance, the like of which the world has never
witnessed, the two continents have been moored safe to one
another—moored so safe by this little metallic hawser as no
other power—no amount of inky blots and rotten parchment
bonds, or protocols or treaties could ever have done. (Loud
cheers.) And what is the result of this ? Why, the Greek
used to boast of his fire, which wonlkburn under the sea,
and which, attached to the keel of a ship, would destroy
it in the midst of the ocean ; and we know how the power
of electricity has been similarly employed to explode mines
high into the air and cause the sacrifice of hundreds of
human lives. But this little spark which we are now send-
ing under the ocean—this flash of lightning which 'passes
from shore to shore—this fire which burns there inextin-
guishably, may be truly considered, if it were not too sacred
an expression to use—to be the bond of that love and that
charity between the two nations of which the sacred text
says, that Many waters shall not extinguish it, and many
floods shall not overwhelm it.' (Cheers.) Yes ; I have
no hesitation in saying that it is time now for the Ameri-
can eagle to let go those lightnings which it is repre-
sented as grasping in its talons, and let them drop into
the ocean, and they will cross it safely and come to us,
not accompanied with any manner of thunder, but speak-
ing the words of softness and of peace. (Hear, hear.)
While this graver aspect of things comes naturally to the
mind, there is one which presents itself to me that I cannot
forbear to linger on with more of tenderness and love. I
can imagine a poor mother in the west of Ireland—a poor
Galway or Mayo peasant, who had sent her stalwart sons,
the promise of her old age, far away as emigrants to those
distant regions to gather the gold, not what nature has cast
broadcast on the land, but that which honest industry reaps
from it ; and I can imagine her, when perhaps the day of
her widowhood has come, sitting on the farthest crag that
juts into the Atlantic, no longer contemplating that waste
of waters as a desolate wilderness which separates her from

those she loves, but as a means of instant communication
with them, as a way of making known to them her joys and
distresses, and of receiving back in a few hours words of
consolation and of promise. It will unite the hearts of
many now estranged, and, though it may look rather
chimerical to consider instances of this individual reciprocal
communication as of frequent or of common every-day oc-
currence, yet it will sweeten the bitterness of separation,
and make emigration no longer exile. (Applause.) It will
prevent the severing of one from the other resulting in a
loss of kindred feeling, and it will renew the affections of
life. (Applause.) When those who are in Canada, in the
wastes of the north, or buried in the forests of the west,
know day by day how the sun is shining or the earth is look-
ing in their own native land—when they know, as if they
were on the spot, what measures of improvement are before
the Legislature and before the people ; when they know, on
the other hand, that at home all the prospects of their
adopted country are known—the promises of the harvest, the
state of commerce, and the improvements of society, and
that, in fact, the communication between the two countries
is no longer a matter of weeks, or of months, as formerly,
but of days and hours—a much closer bond of union will be
formed than was imagined by those persons who believed
that, by looking at the same sun, or moon, or star at the
same hoar, they were brought into communicationwith one
another. It is therefore a matter of great pride that this
island has been chosen by Divine Providence as the means
of this most happy communication—of this binding of na-
tions and worlds in bonds which **may :trust will be of
irrevocable and indissoluble peace. It is no small pride for
it to have seen the most splendidly successful application of
the most magnificent of those gifts of science and genius
which God has given for a blessing and an honour to this
age ; that after so many years of sorrow and suffering, of
calamities of every sort, of famine and disease, this glory
should have been given as a recompense to this noble land.
(Cheers.) I congratulate you that you have this evening
united and associated with the noble engineer who has per-
for:med an act so truly honourable to the whole nation ; and
that this has been done under the auspices of your Lord
Mayor, to whom has been appropriately reserved the honour
of celebrating in a public manner this great achievement.
(Loud applause.) If this great and wonderful occurrence,
which has taken place under his civh magistracy, may be
considered accidental, the having united us here—the noble
and elevated thought of bringing so many gentlemen of
name, family, and high character to do homage to the
genius that has wrought this great work—is his own idea,
for which he is justly entitled to credit. (Hear.) I there-
fore propose his health, and, though I suppose one cannot
wish him a longer duration of his present honours—(a
laugh)—at least let us hope that he may have many years
to enjoy to look back upon the present time. (Loud and
protracted cheering.)
" The health of the Lord Mayor was drunk most cordially.
"The LORD MAYOR returned thanks.
"After a short pause,

" The LORD MAYOR again rose, and in proposing the nex
toast said,—l have the honour to propose the health of a
distinguished guest whose name is inscribed upon the roll of
the illustrious celebrities of this age, and whose exertions
in the cause of science and progress have met with a
grateful recognition from men of all creeds in the country
of his adoption. (Cries of ' Hear, hear.') I consider
myself fortunate in having the honour of his presence on
an occasion like the present, which owes its origin to a
wonderful scientific triumph, which must materially assist
in advancing still more the great cause of civilisation, and
in promoting peace and goodwill among men, to the ad-
vancement of which so many years of his life have been
energetically devoted. (Applause.) I should be doing great
injustice, both to myself and the eminent Cardinal to whom
I refer, if I did not convey my sincere conviction that his
philanthropy embraces all mankind, and his great and suc-
cessful exertions in the cause of social improvement have
ever been directed toward the general public good. (Loud
applause.) Nearly a quarter of a century since he accorded
to me, in a foreign land, the rites of hospitality. I feel hon-
oured at seeing him here to-night, and of having this op-
portunity of paying my respect to the great talent which
produced that remarkable work, ' The Connexion between
Science and Revealed Religion.' I have the honour to
propose ' The Health of his Eminence, Cardinal Wiseman.'
(Loud applause.)
"The toast was received with cordial and prolonged
applause.
" His Eminence, the Cardinal, rose amid loud applause,
and said,—My Lord Mayor and Gentlemen, my first duty
is very simple, for I do not see that I can do more than
thank you with all my heart for your kindness in drinking
my health. Your Lord Mayor was kind enough to invite
me before I came to Ireland, understanding that I was
about to make a tour here, to partake of his hospitality to-
day, and I accepted the invitation with pleasure, because I
thought it was due to an invitation from one who repre-
sented so worthily a noble city, towards which I could not
but feel the greatest respect, and for the charities of which
it would be my anxious desire to labour. (Hear, hear.) I
accepted it, also, because my knowledge of him personally
showed he was deserving of any mark of regard it was
in my power to pay him.
(Applause.) I have no rea-
son to regret that on receiving it I at once cheerfully ac-
ceded to his invitation, and I can answer for myself that
it has procured for me an exceedingly interesting, and, I
hope, a profitable evening. (Hear, hear.) I have heard
with the greatest pleasure what has been said, and I shall
return, I am sure, deeply impressed with the noble manner
in which the duties of the Mansion-house are discharged in
this metropolis.
(Applause.) I have, of course, no preten-
sion to dive deeper into its mysteries than those which have
been unveiled to us—(cries of Hear,' and laughter)—but
I can truly say, and you will join me in the statement, that
if all the performances expected from the Lord Mayor are
conducted in the same agreeable and substantial manner as
those of this evening, I am sure he will be a most transcen-
dentally good chief magistrate. (Laughter and applause.) I
have nothing more to say than what the Lord Mayor has
been (good enough to say of me is true, as to the exist-
ence of my earnest wishes for the welfare of this country.
(Hear.) I have never had anything more at heart than to
exert whatever slender abilities or means of improvement
Providence has been pleased to bestow upon me for .the pur-
pose of vindicating the truth of His revelation, and of ap-
plying so much of science as came within my limited range
towards the defence of His most exalted truths. (Applause.)
If I have at all succeeded in this---if, through divine Provi-
dence, I can pretend to the accomplishment of good, how-
ever small, by means of my poor attaintments and limited
powers, as well as by the unmerited position I fill, I feel it
my duty to say that, whatsoever the advantages may be, I
lay them, after offering my tribute of them to the Almighty
Giver, at the feet of Ireland." (Loud and prolonged ap-
plause.)
A number of Other toasts—including the Trans-

atlantic-Packet-station in connection with the name
of Mr. Lever--were given and replied to. After
which the Lord Mayor, the Cardinal, and company
generally, left the banquet chamber and pro-
ceeded to the drawing-room, where several intro-
ductions to his Eminence took place. He was soon
after conducted by the Lord Mayor, Lord Bellew,
Si James Power, several members of the corpora-
tion, &e., to his carriage. His Eminence was
loudly cheered by a large crowd of persons who had
remained outside the Mansion-house till that time
(near midnight) in the hope of catching a glance of
him. A piece of the Atlantic cable, neatly bound
up with brass ferules; was laid on the tables beside

the plate of each guest, to whom it was presented
as an appropriate souvenir of this interesting fes-
tivity. On a small brass label fastened round the
cable were inscribed these words :—" Part of the
Atlantic Submarine Telegraph Cable, manufactured
by Messrs. Glass, Elliot, and Co."