The Sun.
London, England, 1858-07-05 00:00:00

FATHER THAMES ON TRIAL.

( Front the Money Bag.)
Last week a very old and foul offender was
brought before the police court of Westminster.
He was charged with being a public nuisance.
He was by trade a nightwan and general scavenger.
But it was urged against him, that he exercised his
functions solely as a pretext, carrying to t,nd fro
beneAh the noes of his neighbours all -ors of
foetid, noxious ordures, without ever practically
removing them, or even seriously atl;empting to do
so. That he made a show of spreading the filth on
flats by way of drying it up ; and then, with the
most flagrant inconsistency, would dilute it again
with water—That when the police questioned him,
he said "he mean: •to wash it away." Bat when
they asked him " Where to ?" he could give no
satisfactory reply ; and mumbled something about
" Mucking flats." To this the police had very pro-
perly replied that " they -were not such flats as to
allow any more of his mucking," and had accord-
ingly taken him into custody.
His worship ordered the prisoner to be brought
in. His appearance excited the most unbounded
disgust; while the effluvia ho exhaled was revolting
in the extreme. His worship called loudly for
aromatic salts, and several persons in court fainted.
During the confusion we had full leisure to note
the culprit's bearing and exterior.

He appeared to be of great age ; his countenance
wore a smooth, treacherous, hypocritical expression,
which he attempted to disguise under the affecta-
tion of helpless imbecility. His long hair and
beard, 'matted with filth, hung about him in ouzy
tags and clots, some of which proved on nearer in-
spection to be the corpses of drowned kittens.
What clothes he wore, if any, must remain in mys-
tery ; he was so thickly smeared with the blackest
slime, wet and reeking, as if he had been recently
dragged out of the mud. In his hands he bore a
large cracked crockery-ware bowl, half filled with
semi-liquid fmcal matter, which slowly subsided
through a round aperture iu the bottom of the
bowl, and streamed down his thighs. Under his
arm he carried the carcass of a drowned dog, seem-
ingly much distended with decomposing gases.
Inspector Y, 4, said the prisoner had first given
his name as Mr. Lambeth Reach, but he had seve-
ral aliases. In the City, and especially about the
docks, he had gone by the name of « Pool ;" some
of the journals had mentioned him as "Coss Pool,"
but Cess did not appear to be a Christian name.
He was best known by the nickname of "Father
Thames," but it did not seem he had any children
—though many wished him farther. He was
strongly suspected to be a wholesale poisooer. A
lighterman of his acquaintance had recently died
under the most suspicious 6: cuwstances, laying
his death at the prisoner's door. The prisoner had
long beau in very bad odour, and whether guilty of
crimes or not, was at any rate a public nuisane.
He was moreover full of turns and windings, had
nothing straightfor tvaid about him, and was to be
considered a dangerous character.

His worship said this was a very serious case, and
ordered the prisoner to give an account of himself,
and name Ins parish.
Father Thames•said he came originally from the
Cotswold hills, in Wiltshire ; that he was a scion
of the noble family of Rivers.
_ _

His worship observed that the family name of
Lord Rivers was Pitt, and if he had such a dist-c-
-olt:title conot-etion h s It,d,hip was very touch to
be pitio i (nobo.ly iu cour however, pe ceived the
joke). The prisoner said his 1.1.1110 was Lo Pitt,
but that Le himself was more to be pat& d than con-
demned. He had seen better days, and never
thought he should crane to thi?. He had pisF.ed
through Oxford with credi and an unsullied name.
He had on leaviug the University allied himself
with a young lady of good family (her Chris!lian
name was Isis), who did not long survive their
union. He had been presented to her Majesty at
Windsor. Indeed there had never been a word
mosty unwillingly.
against him till he came to town, when lie had
jfoalblsenthirnotwon lowco ' and had all sorts of dirty
upon him
He replied, he had from Ills youth upward
His worship asked what was the use of the pierced
an urn, and this was
gat present.
iefthfaobriotnoef
hcaerhryaidn
bowl Did he eaen his living with it ? He said it was a
been
the
necessary part of his accoutrement. He had no
hest st hh
original aptitude for his present trade as a night-
man, which had been t thrus upon him by the
Sewage Commissioners. His tastes were all natu-
rally pure and innocent. His
conduct was or-
derly. He appealed to the
Metropolitan Police to
bear him out when he asserted that he had never
been drunk for
• ears. He had done his best to
carry his nightsoil to the sea.
His worship asked him what sea, whether be al-
luded to the Bishop of London's see.
No, the sea at the Nore, which threw up all he
could carry down. It was a TTV'St IJII3I-
- an i hr.: believed that the Sewage Commis-
sioners, the Metropolitan Board, and the Board of
Works were the real culprits, while he, with the
best intentions, got all the abuse. The Court
should appeal to the Privy Council to enforce the
necessary steps. There should be pipes and cul-
verts to take the sewage under ground to at least
twenty miles from Loudon. He himself could
force it along the culverts by flushing.
His worship said no one could flush these pipes
unless he was very flush of money, and that it was a
question who would pay the piper. The court hav-
ing become most oppressive, the prisoner was dis-
charged with an injunction to behave better for the
future. The prisoner sail he would do his best,
but unless he had a weir or dam below London,
the sewage must come back. His worship, as he
left his seat, made some scarce audible observation,
which seemed to have reference to the scheme of
seeing the Thames dammed at the most convenier.is
locality, but no fatfinite arrangement was come to.

SUBMARINE TELEORAPITS TO .7_Vbl.4 AND

ELSEWHERE.

Whatever may be the fate of the Atlantic cable,
with which the greatest experiment of the age is
now being performed, all doubt is dispelled respect-
ing two facts : first, that for intercommunication
between this sea-girt island and its colonies sub-
marine are far preferable to overland cables ; and,
secondly, that for submarine cables of great length
light ropes only should be employed. The first of
these facts needs no remark, arising as it does from
principles of economy, and from the manifest ad-
vaetsge of a kingdom like ours having no portion
of its means of communication unnecessarily sub-
ject to the control of foreign powers. On the
second point we desire to add a word or two.
During the last few months a great change has
taken place in the opinions of professional men and
of the public generally in reference to the desir-
ability of using weighty and cumbrous cables for
submarine telegraphic purposes. For short dis-
tances such cables are all that could be desired, as
experience has shown ; and, deciding with too little
discrimination, our telegraphic engineers proceeded
to apply similar cables for deep-sea purposes. It
is true that the Atlantic Company, before under-
taking their gigantic operations, so far suspected
their applicability to these purposes as to devise
and adopt a much lighter rope than was usual ;
but they still retained some of the worst features
of the old ropes, although in a modified form.
Now for years past Mr. Allan has urged the
s.doption of the direct contrary of the heavy cables ;
and it is only due to ourselves to say, that we have
uniformly supported blue iu his efforts. It is to
his feresight that the public are indebted even for
the first extensions of s ;r, riu hh g aphy.When
re ,t d setisfied with 25 miles of cable
between Dover and Calais, and thought a 50-mile
cable impopible, Le showed the feasibility of a
70-mile cable to Belgium, and subsequently of a
120-mile length to Holland, for which, so far back
as 1852, he procured the concession. In the very
early stages of the system he clearly set
forte the self-destructive character of the
heavy cables, should attempts be made to
submerge them in waters of great depth ' •
and, to obviate the evil, in the spring of 1853 ha
took out a patent for a rope, the mechanical con-
struction of which was the reverse of those in use,
having as its main feature an inextensible core.
Later in th 3 same year he pateßted another, Main-
taining the same principle of construction, but of
such an arrangement of parts as to produce a rope,
not only light per mile, but of such low specifici
gravity that it might be laid with facility across the
Atlantic, without risk of injuring itself by the
tension resulting from its own weight. With'
these improvements, and others comprising
the production of electricity in a manner suit-
able for the purpose, Mr. Allan enunciated, as was
stated in the Times, Oct., 1853, the project of an
Atlantic telegraph. He was suffered, however, to
stand alone, and even from the scientific press re-
ceived no other support than that afforded by our-
selves.

In March, 1856, undaunted by previous discou-
ragemeuts, Mr. Allan addressed a letter to the Rt.
Hon. H. Labouchere, Secretary of S t ate for the Colo-
nies, iu which not on!y was the Atlantic telegraph
pi opositiou revived, but the idea of the Great In-
dian Submarine Telegraph Company, now about,
we trust, to be carried out, was put forth in these
words :—" It is feasible to lay lines from this
country (say Plymouth) to Gibraltar and Malta,
and so on up the Mediterranean, en route to
India. Such a line would be conducive to
British governmental and mercantile interests,
and mare independent under many circum-
stances than transmitting through the pre-
sent foreign systems across Europe ; and which,
besides, would c eats a large tax or tollage on the
cost .:f a message to India and Australia."
The present Atlantic Company was shortly
afterwards started, and for a time monopolises that
particular field. In carrying out their plans, how-
ever, they have so far approximated towards Mr.
Allan's electrical sysLenes as to induce him to apply
for an iojuuction to restrain them from infringing
upon his patent rights, the application being now
pending.
Before the telegiaph squadron sailed last year
with the Atlautic cable, Mr. Allan stood almost
alone in predicting the failure which occurred, and
the scientific grounds for his prediction were made
public. These grounds were indeed clearly set
forth by him in a letter addressed to ourselves so
long ago as the 24th of Dec.:mber, 1855. After
last year's failure, men grew suddenly enlightened ;
and, after the able papers of Captain Blakely at
Dublin, and Messrs. Longridge and Brooks at the
Institution of Civil Engineers, the merits of light
ropes and the utter unfitness of heavy ropes for
deep-sea purposes became universally acknowledged.
Our readers will not be surprised to find that we
are indisposed to allow the man who has fought
the battle and won this victory to have his name
suppressed by the many advocates of light cables
who are now springing up into publicprominence,
and adroitly seeking to carry off the spoils of war.
Mr. Allan, and Mr. Allan alone, has the great merit
of introducing the light-rope system, which will now
become universal ; and they who have helped,
either early, as in our own case, or later, as in the
case of some others, to aid him in the undertaking,
are indebted to him for the first correct knowledge
possessed upon the subject. No man ever gained a
more complete or certain triumph iu the field of
practical science than he has achieved in this
matter.

For the future, heavy cables will be used in shal-
low waters only. For all deep waters the light
cable will be adopted ; and we very much doubt
whether any company whatever will be able to
construct these properly without license from Mr.
Allan, under his patents of 1853, which virtually
give him the monopoly of what, up to the present
time, are the only practical meats known of mas-
tering the difficulties attaudant upon the construc-
tion, submergence, and working of ocean tele-
graphs. •
We shall not enter into the rival schemes for tele-
graphs to India. The objections to .the Red Sea
Telegraph Company's plan and to the Euphrates
Valley line have been amply discussed in the news-
papers, and are now pretty well understood by the
public. It only remains for us to say that, while
these are fragmentary and uncertain, the new com-
pany's plan—the Great Indian Submarine Tele-
graph Company's—is complete and reliable, both
in construction and working. It is also essentially
national, giving us a direct communication with
India, independently of all foreign aid ; and, as the
number of its stations will be necessarily few, its
working cost, and therefore the cost of transmit-
ting messages by it, will be 50 per cent. less than
that of the competing lines.—Mechanics Magazine.

A GEOGRAPHICAL PARALLEL. - London on Thames
and Frankfort o n the Oder (our).
ROYAL FREE HOSPITAL, GRAY'S-INN-ROAD. —The
number of Patients relieved at this hospital during the
week ending July 3, was 2,357, of which 896 were new

ens or.
o„itn r
vi beel
se vi
h every
onetheirimpression
ARTISTIC TRAVEL —Murray is the tyrant of English
s
tourists. Not one of them would dare to experience a
f
where
rr
e
where
sensationcnhee: i
ve e
hce.t d
findsi
Ibie:
; o
the English
foretold n
retyra hisk an
e
takes
pleasure Murray
i is
said t.na
n Morrey found it.ha Whatever may be the age, the tem-
peraluent, the social pisition, or the specific weight of
au Englishman, he will ascend the Righi because be is
toll to ascend it. Lesbonnes figures ; les bowies touches;
comne nous disons a Paris. This oue, long, lean, clothed
in ennui, and dumb, his ahirtnollars like daggers
and his chamois whiskers like cutlets ; the other, short,
pudgy, red, puffed up, lustrous, full of wine, and joy,
and sell. He travels with a wife caparisoned with im-
possible trimmings, and flanked by seven children; who.
carry the tea-canister, the telescope, the camp-stool, an
atlas of the 13 canton., umbrellas in their cases, and
plaids in a strap. Upright, and his legs stretched out,
he completely blocks the way, and to everything that is
said to him he civilly answers, " no." We think his
name must be Sir Philadelphus Cochrane, or something
like it. He is going to ascend the Righi, and we do not
entertain a doubt Cut that he will expire on the summit
in the 14 arms of the seven children of his wife.—MM.
C. Blanc.
THE INDIAN MIITINIES.—Perbaps the most singular
his
p slt
ba
announced :
rnn
feature in the rebellion of 1857 (and there are many)
is, that while the whole of this side of India has been
fiir ten or twelve months past one vast scene of anarchy
and confusion, with the country overrun and planderd
by bands of men a thousand times more brutal and
rapacious than our Sepoys (bad enough in all co con-
science), with town fighting againgst town, tribe against
tribe, property a mire matter of might, and with
human life counting as next to nought ;—notwith-
standing all this, the poor rent of vu
scratching sTi sowieg airs just as he did, good
man, in 1855 56. Turn off the grand trunk road,
where there are too many proofs of 1857, get away
from the blackened walls of police stations, houses,
&c., and you will find it hard indeed, in a country!
so magnificently cultivated as that we have Puarlel
through since we first left Delhi, to belie; yourself
sti.l in the midst of revolted India. lack 2
Magazine. modification of the
A NEW DIVING APPARATUS.—A
water-tight Scaphander, a kind of helmet for divers,
has a
has been tried at the Pont royal.
the di
apparatus is of
metal, and provided with
eYelndiane s The
; ver is sup-
plied with air through a tube_ rubber, communi-
cating with a pomp worked bytwo men. The weight
of the helmet, including a leaden collar, which is added
to increase the diver's weight, is about 40 kilogrammes.
The man who tried this apparatus on Wednesday ex-
plored a considerable portion of the bed of the Seine, at
- l5 feet below the
about surface of the water, and brought
up several articles, including a stone weighing 50 kilo-
grammes. Being au expert swimmer he took off the
Apparatus under water, rose to the surface, then plunged
down, and put it on again under water, to the great
surprise of the assembled crowd.

THE DREADFUL BOILER EXPLOSION
AT MANCHESTER.

Owing to the confusion and excitement that pre-
vailed on Friday among the officials at the works
where this dreadful catastrophe occurred, we were
unable to ascertain the whole of the names of those
killed and injured. We now supply the list com-
plete and corrected.