The Sun.
London, England, 1867-04-29 00:00:00

THE CASE OF WILLIAM 11. WEBB.

There is an article in Wilkes' Spirit qf the Times
entitled " now Great Men are Made to Order," in
which Mr. William H. Webb, the well-known ship-
builder of New York, obtains an unenviable promi-
nence. It appears that sonic ill-advised friends of
this gentleman wrote a panegyric on him in a
withal
l thet h
earticle
w a y
down o n ➢Ai
two
w Webb,
weekly paper, never before seen by the Spirit, but
which was
columns. Mr. Webb is characterised by his bio-
grapher as of almost superhuman abilities. " Such
men," he says, " are the very pillars of the State ;
the foundation upon which the nation depends.
Indeed," he exclaims, vaulting to his climax by a
marked,
with
ink
few more phrases like the above, "the value of such
a man to the country it is impossible to estimate."
Now, says the Spirit, all this froth is harmless
enough, except to this man of very moderate abili-
ties, whom it makes egregiously ridiculous. But it
is not harmless, and therefore not excusable, that
his spurious glory should be supported by preten-
sions to inventions which belong to others (such as
the invention of ironclad war steamers) ; nor is it a
matter of indifference to the country that the man
who built the lie de Italia, which was sunk at the
first broadside by an Austrian ship ; who con-
structed the Japanese steamer, for whose manifest
defects the unhappy native agent was consigned by
his Government to death ; who built the General
Admiral, which has beery an incubus upon the Rus-
sian navy ever since, and upon whose hands even
this Dunderberg lies as a dead weight—we say that
it is not a matter of indifference that the man who
has made all these deplorable failures, should be put
forward as the great American mechanic.
Mr. Webb's biographer claims that in shipbuild-
ing "America has won, and has triumphantly main-
tained, the first place," and that " Mr. Webb is the
man who has borne the American standard to this
victory." Now, it is notorious to every American
of experience that the once undisputed superiority
of America vessels upon the ocean, has yi,,lded
of late years to the superiority of the ships
of England, and particularly the steamships of
the Clyde ; and every intelligent American
also knows, that this decadence of our naval archi-
tecture, as compared with that of Great Britain, has
taken place during the very period through which
Mr. Webb has figured as the most prominent ship.
builder in the United States. If this melancholy
fact is to prove his title to be one of the most ex-
traordinary men of the country, we can only agree
to the proposition with a reservation, which must be
far from gratifying to his worshippers. A great
man impresses himself upon his period by lifting it
forward in the path of progress • not bysymbolismg
a grade of its decline. Mr. Webb will certainly
prove himself a great man, if he gets that failure,
the Dunderberg, off upon the Government fog, two
or three millions of dollars ' • but to do that he will
have to have great luck, and several relays of patent
biographical paint.
Following the assertions of Mr. Webb's genius
in the way of shipbuilding, of which the unbought
Duriderberg is made the great example, a claim is
put in .for " abilities of the highest order," in the
masterly manner in which he has managed, and is
managing, the affairs of the Nicaragua Transit
Company, whose steamers purport to run between
New -York and California. Now, it is notorious

PRICE
STAMPED 'id.

that the " Nicaragua line," so called, is the most
wretchedly conducted line of steamers that. ever ran
out of the port of New York. Indeed, the line is
a proverb of inefficiency and failure; and many a
family has a deplorable recollection of its short
cotning.s and delays, by the (Lath of Some of their
best members, while abandoned by the compt•ny
on the pestilential isthmus. Only a few months
ago 300 United States soldiers, and as many more
general passengers, were abandoned there, to do-
mesticate themselves, half-starved, among the half-
breeds of the Isthmus for a period of over 30 days,
during which time, through the stupidity of a
management, that had no steamer to tranship them,
a large number of them miserably perished from
the fevers of the country. To be the President of
this company, the stock of which stands at 15 cents
on the dollar (in contrast to the 50 and 60 cents
under its previous President), and which has no
credit or character of any sort whatever, is claimed
by Mr. Webb's biographer to be one of the highest
of human dignities, and he exclaims with conscious
pride and irrepressible enthusiasm " that all the
abilities of Mr. Webb are centred upon the duties
of that station."

It is admitted that Mr. Webb has been successful
in making money, but if he has any ideas, and they
have impressed themselves upon his business, NV'?
know exactly how to measure them, by the results
they have produced. The deaths upon the Isthmus,
and the melancholy fate of the Re de Italia, are the
exemplars of them all.

INTENSITY OF BEAT G.ENE4AZED-4BY
PEAT.

It is an acknowledged fact that peat produces an
intense heat, a feature of so much importance as
to entitle it to prominent mention and careful
consideration. Its virtue in this respect is much
increased, when properly prepared, solidified, and
dried, and it reaches its maximum of heating power
when solidified and charred or coked. Mention has
often been made of its peculiar qualities in this
respect, but their importance will be more clearly
comprehended when taken in connection with the
facts in an interesting article on the " Calorific
Value of Fuel," which we find in the American
Railway linies, and which contains remarks so
pertinent on this point that we quote as follows:—
"There are, in all, five important kinds 'of fuel
only : these are wood, peat, coal, charcoal, and
coke—the first three being natural, and the last
two artificial fuels. The elements of which each
of these is composed are practically identical, the
difference of character being due 'to the proportion
of those elements entering into the composition of
each kind of fuel; and, according to those pro-
portions, each fuel takes its relative position in
the scale of value. Taking the comparative
chemical composition of the various kinds of fuel,
according to Dr. Machaltie, their percentage stands
thus :

Carb. Hyd. Oxy. Nit. Sul. Ash.
Wood (dried at 280 deg. F.) 50.0 6.0 42.9 1.0 1.0
Peat (dried at 220 deg. F.) 57.0 5.5 31.0 1.5 5.0
Coal 85.0 5.0 4.0 1.0 4.0
Charcoal
Coke 92.0 1.5 6.6
The amount of heat produced by fuels in their
combustion does not always constitute their rela-
tive value. For some purposes, it is apparent that
this would be the best criterion ; but, as a rule, in
metallurgic processes, the quantity of heat is of far
less importance than the intensity or power to
raise substances to the highest temperature—and
the fuel which affords the greatest quantity of heat
is sometimes incapable of producing the greatest
intensity.
" In determining the intensity of the heat pro-
duced, it is necessary to know the available quan-
tity of heat produced in the combustion of a pound
of fuel, the weight of the products of combustion,
and the quantity or number of units of heat re-
quired to raise the products of the combustion of a
pound of fuel, one degree Fahrenheit.
Where very high temperatures are required the
fuel which should be selected ought to approach as
near as possible to pure carbon, in its composition,
and for thc ,:e.a.4on that carbon Li tho best r,abstanec
for the purpose.
" We now see the reasons for making coal into
coke, and wood into charcoal. Coal cannot pro-
duce a temperature equal to that obtained from
coke, neither can the temperature of wood be com-
pared with that of charcoal. And this results from
the relative accession of carbon, and reduction of
oxygen and hydrogen in them. This must be re-
ferred to the great difference between quantity and
intensity of heat. If we cannot raise sufficient
steam from a boiler by the use of one ton of coal,
we can easily meet the point by burning two tons ;
but, if the fusing point of metal cannot be attained
with one ton of coal, it by no means follows that
any additional amount of fuel will insure the re-
quired result. The great distinction to be observed
is between quantity and intensity of heat. The
first of these two conditions depends upon the
quantity of fuel, but the last is referred entirely to
the qullity of fuel.
" Twenty tons of coal will not give a temperature
so great as that afforded by one ton of coke."
It should be observed that in the above state-
ment of comparative composition of fuels no men-
tion is made of peat charcoal. Now, it is an
established fact that peat charcoal is of greater
density and calorific power than the best wood
charcoal, and, calculating the amount of carbon in
peat charcoal at no more than the relative amount
as between wood and charcoal in the above table,
exceeds
eaet
edceh aarncyoal w
of
thilel f
abeel
mentioned
ee representedtieeed i
nby
Dr. 9 Bm,
awehhihaci.
tie's table.
The intense heat generated by peat fuel is a sub-
ject of frequent remark, and will eventually be
dwelt upon, we think, as a very important con-
sideration in estimating its value.—Leavites Peat
rournal.

The New York Tribune says :—" A crowd of
journalists, representing many sections of the country,
have sailed for Paris ; and the Great World's Fair, shortly
to bo held,. will therefore have no want of historio-
graphers. From this city, Mr. Daniel B. Seymour, the
dramatic editor of The Times, and Mr. Remack, the
musical connoisseur of the German press, have gone to-
gether; and Mr. George Alfred Townsend, one of the
most brilliant of the newspaper men who hold roving
commissions, has followed. Mr. E. 0. Haile, of the Ne w
Orleans Crescent, another journeyer to the Great Exposi-
tion, has sot " the first thousand ems," typographically,.
towards the printers' fund for a monument to their bril-
liant fellow printer and benefactor, Artemus Ward. Mr.
Hall, of the Crescent, travelled to New York to organise
societies of printers to secure this monument. Each
printer is to contribute the worth of a thousand ems,
which is about 45 cents.
A correspondent of the Springfield Republican
gives the following instances of the feuds of literary
people:—" In a recent letter something was said of the
vindictiveness of literary people. Pages might be written
on this subject with illustrations.. Two young poets, one
resident in New York and ono in Boston, and both of no
inconsiderable reputation, hate each other with the fury
of a scorned woman, lose no opportunity of procuring the
publication of sneers and slurs upon each other, and won-
der, in presence of their friends, why So and So is so
bitter. A reverend author of this city spends a good deal
of his time in abusing a popular monthly magazine,
simply because his contributions thereto have been " de-
clined, with thanks." But one of the most remarkable
evidences of this literary eccentricity appears in a
recent New York case. A divine of that city wrote
and published a volume of essays not long ago. It
was received with general favour by the critics ; but one
"leading journal" devoted an editorial column to its anni-
hilation. The review was one of the finest specimens of
the slaughtering style of review I ever saw, but its ani-
mus was plain enough. The writer of it came to New
York some yours ago, unknown and unfriended. By the
kindness of the reverend author, he was put upon his f
To
eet
and given an opportunity to display his gr powers.
put it mildly, his moral nature was weaker than his intel-
lectual, and his clerical friend found it necessary to warn
the members of a family into which he had introduced the
young man, against the latter's dangerous wiles.
E. P. Whipple has written, at the request of Mr.
Fields, an essay on Dickens, which will probably appear
in the next number of the Atlantic. It is said to be one of
his finest productions. The preparation and publication of
this essay in view of the publishing enterprise which now
Mainly engrosses Messrs. Ticknor and Field's
attentionatton,
must be regarded as specially timely. Partou's
sowing machines will also, 1 believe, make a part of the
May Atlantic, having boon "unavoidably postponed"
the April number.

At the Middlesex Sessions on Saturday, Mr. Frederick
Strange, the managing director of the Alhambra Palace,
appealed against a conviction of Mr. R. P. Tyrwhitt, dated
Jan. 22d, 1867, on a summons which averred that he did
"unlawfully keep a certain house or other place of public
resort in Great Britain—to wit, the Alhambra Palace,
Leicester-square, for the public performance of stage plays
without authority by virtue of letters from her MajAsty or
her predecessors, or license from the Lord Chamberlain of
her Majesty's household, or her llaj.+Aty's justices of the
peace for the s:tid county, within which the said house or
place is situate (the seine house or place not being a booth
or show excepted from the statute), as in the Act of the

Homos of Parliament, Gt.h itli years Of her
cap. 63, for regulating theatros, contrary to the statute iu
that case made and proviii,4l2,
hfr. Harding Giffard said he app,,arel in support of the
conviction, which was made under the fith and ith Viet.,
which regulated theatrical representations, and it prescribed.
certain licenses which should be granted for the perform-
ance Of stage plays; and the interpretation clause of that
act defined what should be considered a tragedy, comedy,

farce, burlesple, pantomime, or a part thettef. -fie should
al the attention of the court to what ho considered to be
a pantomime, or a part of a pantomime, which, if his inter-
pretation were correct, had been performed at the Alham-
bra without any license for such performance. The learned
counsel then proceeded to glance at the principal incidents
contained in the piece complained of, and when he proved
all these facts he should ask the court to confirm the con-
viction.

Mr. Geo. Frederick Leicester, an actor, said he witnessed
the performance of the piece entitled " Where's the Police"?
which was supported by the regular pantomimic charac-
ters, who wont through the usual business. There wore
tricks and changes.
Mr. Sergeant Ballantine addressed the court on behalf
of the appellant, and contended that no stage play could
exist without a consecutive plot, and without_ it csulatipt_
come within the statute, which being a pOnal one, thous
who promotcal_4lo prosecution wore. bound to prove 'the
whole of their case. The act of tlie 22d of George 11.,
under which these performances took place, licensed
places for "music, dancing, and public entertainments of
a like kind " Therefore it was quite clear that the Legis-
lature never intended to confine them to merely music or
dancing, without trenching upon what was understood as
a theatrical performance. lie contended that this case was
identical with that which had been decided in that court,
and one of the best judges who had ever sat in Westmin-
ster-hall had upheld their opinion by saying that they were
the proper persons to determine this question. Then it was
only a part of a pantomime, and he was sure his learned
friend would not say that a speech taken out of a play or a
part of a ballet taken from a theatre constituted a stage
play. Having alluded to the incidents of the ballet which
were mentioned at the hearing of the former case, the
learned sergeant said, if he was right in his view that dis-
joined incidents could not be considered a stage play, then
he was entitled to the judgment of the bench in his favour.
After some other observations, the learned sergeant said
that this was a question of law and not of sympathy; that
the other tide had failed to make out their case, and that
the conviction must be reversed.
The magistrates retired to consider their decision. On
their return,
The Assistant Judge said, considering the importance
of this question, and how much these places contributed
to the entertainment of the public, as the subject had
already been considered by a Parliamentary committee, it
would be desirable if there was some enactment upon it ;
but the Court had to give its opinion upon the question
raised, and deal with it as a matter of fact, independent of
any other considerations. The Court had been pressed
much by a former decision, and it would be unpleasant to
reverse its decision ; but there was a great distinction be-
tween this and the former case, and, taking all the facts
of the case into consideration, and what had even been
admitted by the learned counsel for the appellant, the
Court was unanimously of opinion that this representation
was part of a pantomime, and that the conviction must be
affirmed.
' Mr. Sergeant Ballantine asked the court to postpone the
enforcement of the penalties for three months, pending the
inquiry by Parliament, for if an act were passed no doubt
there would be a clause inserted to deal with pending
penalties.
The Assistant Judge said they had nothing to do with
that. He would make no order as to costs.

PIGEON SHOOTING.