The Sun.
London, England, 1858-09-07 00:00:00

exact rules, and under what circumstances.

ferred against them.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE declares that " as early as
the fourth day after the landing of the cable
at Valentia he felt it his diity to urge in the
strongest manner upon the directors the imme-
diate necessity for protecting the home end of our
light and fragile cable, warning them of impend-
ing injury, and of the certain interruption of
communication which would ensue therefrom. Of
this no notice was taken by the directors. That a
few days later he again brought the subject to their
attention in the most forcible manner, both by post
and telegraph. The injury which he had foreseen,
and of which he had forewarned them, had -then
commenced close to the shore; he had detected and
proved its existence, and for some considerable time
all communications hence to Newfoundland ceased,
though, from obvious causes, their signals to us were
not equally embarrassed."
Although totally unassisted, he had completely
remedied the evil by his own skill and activity.
The suspended communications were completely
restored, and the PRESIDENT'S Message, in answer
to that of her MAJESTY, reached the Irish shore,
and occasioned the manifestations of delight that
took place. He then, again, 's in language as forci-
ble as he could command, declared to the directors
his conviction that this interruption might
be expected to occur again at any
time, and that they could not depend upon our
cable for a single day so long as the slender part,
prepared and fitted for deep sea use only, remained
unprotected and exposed to the full force of the
Atlantic swell on the Irish coast lie felt it his
duty to point out, in unmistakeable language, the
necessity for the presence of some part of the exe-
cutive body at the seat of operations. Up to this
period—the fourteenth day after the landing of the
cable—neither chairman, vice-chairman, director, nor
secretary had visited Valentia. Professor THOMSON,
who had supplied his place during the expedi-
tion (which he was peremptorily forbidden by his
ph` ician to join), and also Mr. BRIGHT, who had
both landed there from the Agamemnon, having
left, the one very shortly for London, the other a
day or two afterwards for Glasgow."
grave charges, which should be fully
and fairly
alerlyet. We shall not enter into the personal
quarrel between Mr. WHITEHOmiUSgEhatnd tthheaß.eocaorudld;
but whatever annoyances there be,
be no
•
ruse for neglecting such salutary caution

A definitive movement to this end has at length,
we conceive, become absolutely requisite. And
this simply because of the fatal cases referred to,
cases recently recounted in our columns with pain-
ful exactitude. It was only a few days since, within
the last fortnight, that there was related that me-
lancholy instance at Epsom where a fine young
woman, the servant-maid of a resident physician of
the town, died under the influence of chloroform
while having a tooth extracted. Yesterday there
was given in our journal the still more detailed
narrative of the death of a little boy eleven years
of age, while under the same deadly influence, when
having a diseased or broken foot examined. A
coroner's inquest of course followed upon each cala-
mity—the former holden at Epsom, the latter at
the scene of the more agonising example referred
to, namely, Heathencote, near Towcester. The
verdict in both instances acquitted the admini-
strators of the chloroform of any blame whatsoever.
And certainly, from the evidence brought before
the juries in each case, they had, no option apa-
rently in arriving at that deliberate conclusion. In
the case which occurred at Epsom the dentist was
empowered to administer the chloroform to the
young servant girl by a written certificate autho-
rising him to do so—a certificate penned by her
*taster, a local physician, as before-mentioned. In
the miserable case at Heathencote the administrator
of the chloroform was a surgeon duly qualified, and
from the very manner as well as from the purport
of his evidence, manifestly a man of considerable
intelligence. The dentist of Epsom had often
before (and hitherto always successfully) employed
chloroform as an anaesthetic in the regular practice
of his profession. The surgeon of Heathencote had
witnessed the happy effects, never previously the
fatal effects of the use of chloroform during the
late war—an opportunity enabling him to comprise
within a very brief interval of time a very large
amount of experience. Yet, in both cases, the un-
fortunate patient expires in spite of every effort to
secure a recovery. Respiration ceases, the heart
pauses in its action, the pulse stops, the skin be-
comes cold and livid, a small quantity of frothy
mucus oozes from between the lips—and all is over
—hardly more, we may rest perfectly assured, to
the anguish of the friends and relatives of the
hapless deceased, than to the dismay of the startled
and astonished practitioner.
It becomes advisable then, to say the least of it,
to decide as swiftly as may be, upon this moment-
ous question, whether the practice of using chloro-
form as an anesthetic shall be persevered- in under
some new and rigid arrangements, or altogether
discontinued. The abandonment of so wonderful a
boon (where it might be successfully employed)
would be nothing short of a calamity. Its indiscri-
minate application as at present—ls a calamity'
Midway between these two courses the true path
lies undoubtedly. How that intermediate path
might run, how it should be carefully fenced in—
the Commission we have suggested might decide.
The Commissioners—if we might presume to offer
anything like distinct suggestions to what is, of
course, at present a purely hypothetical body—
would, in the event of their arriving at a favour-
able decision in the matter of this important ques-
tion as to the use of chloroform, the commissioners
would, we say, in that contingency, restrict the
power of employing it to physicians, surgeons, or
even surgeon-dentists properly qualified for that
precise purpose—besides marking out as plainly as
written language can do, the manner of the admi-
nistration. The suggestions of such a Commission
might be embodied in a proper act of Parliament
and then, but hardly till then, sufferers might, with
something like a sense of security, fly for relief in
great emergencies of bodily pain, to the beneficent,
but now most perilous influence of chloroform.

•
The Duchess (Dowager) of Hamilton has not
been to Euston Hall, Suffolk, as erroneously stated ; but 1
instead has taken a mansion in the environs of the metro-
polis for the autumn.
The Duke and Duchess of Northumberland have
returned to Alnwick Castle from a tour of several weeks o
the lakes of Westmorland and Cumberland. .
The Earl and Countess of Chesterfield's party at
Brethby Park, Derbyshire, included Maria Marchioness of
Allesbury, the Count and Countess de Persigny, Lord
Henry Gordon Lennox, Colonel the Right Hon. Cecil W.
Forester, Colonel the Hon. James Macdonald, Colonel the
lion. R. and Mrs. Curzon, Hon. Ernest and 'Mrs. Dun-
combe,-
Mr. Savile, Mr. R. Sutton, Mr. Fitzroy, Sir James
Hawley, Capt. Little, &c.
The Earl and Countess Spencer are still on a tour
of the German Spas. The noble earl and countess do not
intend to return home for several weeks to come.
The Countess Fitzwilliam and her infant daughter
are, by the last accounts from Wentworth, progressing
favourably.
Count and Countess de Majlath and party have
left Claridge's Hotel for Paris.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer left town yes-
terday for Hughenden Manor, High Wycombe, Bucks.
Lady Wombwell has arrived in town from visit-
ing her son, Sir Geo. Wombwell, at his seat in Yorkshire.
Miss Boothby has arrived at Claridge's Hotel
from 011erton, Notts.
Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, • Bart., 'M.P., and
Lady Wynn returned to town last week, and have since
gone to Wales.
Mr. Henry and Lady Charlotte,Arbuthnot have
arrived at the Queen's Hotel, Upper Norwood, from Tun-
bridge Wells.
TIIE " FIRST OF w
SEPTE3thEn."—Partridge shoot-
ing began on Wednesday. There is every appearance of
good coveys and plenty of them, but the crops in
tricts will not be generally off the ground for a fortnight
yet, so that the birds will in most cases have a respite for
at least ten days.—.2.lyr Adrediser.
William Kennaway, Esq., our highly-respected
fellow-citizen and magistrate, is about to leave this city for
Canterbury, New Zealand. Two of Mr. Kennaway's sons
have been established in the colony for some time, where
their operations in agriculture have been most successful.
We cannot allow one of " Exeter's Worthies" to leave the
old city without expresSing our earnest hope that in the
land of his choice, surrounded by his family, he may expe-
rience all those blessings which conscious rectitude, high
integrity, and an untarnished name deserve. Mr. Kenna-
way has been twice chief magistrate of his native city, first
in 1832, when his able and assiduous labours in the dis-
charge of his onerous duties during the calamitous visita-
tion of the cholera were duly appreciated, and are recorded
in the archives of the city. At a subsequent period the
. iwhetherough
duration of his mayoralty was marked by his impartiality
and his sense of justice, which. won for him the general
teAsnno t s itdoer e
be d
. esteem of every party. A man who stands so deservedly
h
permitted a
inrtrcedhatontfeaavceithiziesnn,aotrivae
ma-
gistrate, sgthr,ath ,
for a distant clime without receiving •
some public recogni-
tion of the high esteem in which he is held by the inhabi-
tants of old 05'emper Fickeic—Exeter paper,-