The Sun.
London, England, 1858-12-20 00:00:00

suspended works upon the different railways had
- -

been resumed," adding, " that it was fair to con-
clude they would now be -pushed forward
with vigour" under the auspices of the re•or-
ganised Government. Speaking of tLe :railways
I &c., now advancing towards completion in the
1 Southern Hemisphere, the Report gives the moss

satisfactory particulars of the progress made in the
engineering works latterly constructed in the
Colony of Victoria. There, it says, " undertakings
of considerable magnitude had been designed, some

were in progress, and a few were completed. The,
most prominent of these were macadamised roads,
railways, water-works, shipping wharfs, piers, and
slips for heaving ships out of the water. The: rail-
way from Yarra Yarra Bridge to Sandhurst, with
a deep water pier in Robson's Bay, for ships of 500
tons burden, was completed, and in full activity ;
although as costly, mile for mile, as the London
and Greenwich railway, it yielded a profit on
the capital of 10 per cent. per annum. From this
line a branch had been opened to St. Kilda,
which was found to be of great convenience to the
suburban and residential traffic, and a prolongation
was about to be made to the Sandhurst railway.
The Geelong railway had been opened to Williams-
town, and had only been delayed from reaching
Melbourne by the non-completion of the Govern•
ment line to Williamstown. The Government
lines, required to maintain the intercourse -with the
distant parts of the Colony, were in progress, large
contracts having already been let. The Yan Yean
waterworks, for supplying the town of Melbourne,
were finished ; the water was collected in artificial
reservoirs, and was conveyed through a. system of
pipes, 40 miles in length, to the town. As the
town was not subdrained, the disposal of the waste
water was even now a serious question, there being
only four feet tide in the Yarra-Yarra River, -which
drained into Hobson's. Bay, an almost tideless lake.
At some future, and probably not very dis-
tant period, this would render the question of
dealing with the sewerage as difficult as that of
London. The deep water piers and slips at Wil-
liamstown were in an advanced state of completion
and would be useful auxiliaries to the commercial
marine resorting to Hobsons Bay. The system of
macadamised roads, leading to Maryborough,
Sandhurst, Castlemaine, B allarat, and other impor-
tant places, had been completed, in many cases
under very difficult circumstances, but were now so
efficient, that travelling was almost as rapid and
as convenient as on the English roads before the
introduction of railways." So much for engineer.
ing enterprises at our antipodes.. Now for one at
leastof immediate interest to the metropolis-the
Victoria Station, Grosvenor Basin. Pimlico! The
engineering works connected with this, including
among them a railway bridge across the river
Thames, - -a. bridge consisting -of four _ arched
spans of wrought iron, of 175 feet each, are an-
nouneed by the report as "now in progress," and
the-site selected for the terminus is especially come►
mended as one in various ways combining a variety
of peculiar advantages.
Due reference is of course made by the Report to
the magnificent but unfortunate enterprise of the
Sub-Atlantic Cable—the history of its marvellous
success and lamentable failure constituting the
most remarkable item of that important section of
the report relating to the engineering labours of
1858 in communication with the extension of elec-
tric telegraphs. One most encouraging fact re-
corded in this section, however, we would
here especially particularise, namely, the suc-
cessful " fishing up" of no less than 228 miles
of cable laid down between Candia and Alexandria.
It should be borne in mind, moreover, that this is
no solitary incident of that kind—the cable lost in
1845, and-a fragment of that lost in 1856 off. Cape
Spartivento, Sardinia, having both been recovered !
Altogether this remarkable engineering report for
1858 is one of the most inspiriting and memorable
ever submitted:to the institution of Civil Engineers.
It affords a brilliant illustration of the mercantile
enterprise and mechanical genius of Englishmen, in
an age the scientific chiefs of which include among
them a BRUNEL, a LOCKE, a STEPHENSON, and a
WHEATSTONE—and the scientific achievements of
which comprise the twin systems, of railroads and
electric telegraphs. •. -

" The- Franchise, what shall we do with it ?"
is the title of a small pamphlet of rather consider-
able pretensions, just published by Mr. RIDGWAY..
The subject is a taking one, and heartily glad would
all the parties practically occupied in manufacturing
Reform Bills be, could any one point out to them a
solution of the proposed problem. " What to do
with the Franchise," in. general, terms, every one
knows. All grades of politieans reply, "It must
be extended." The only question is, " How to
extend it?" That question has hitherto received
but a very partial answer. The Conservatives are
necessarily silent. They are in office and cannot
speak till her MAJESTY has spoken; and doubtless
they are very thankful for such a .constitutional
excuse for taciturnity. ;The Whigs are out off-office ;
but they are doubly fettered : they want to get into

office, and they dare not riLtk.a a bidding, which
their clever antagonists would be sure to outbid ;
while they are also deterred by their own disincli-
nation to hazard one inch more than the interests
of Whiggism imperatively require. Indeed, 't
present, the Whigs are the most silent of all the
parties. We have heard nothing from them, un-
less we must suppose the standstill programme of
Mr. LOWE and the Times, with the Conservative
warnings of the Whir, Lord Chief Justice, to be
Whig deliverances. The Birmingham Reform Bill
maker is the only one who has approached to any-
thing definite—and his rate-book suffrage may
be a thoroughly democratic one, or one not s eri
ouslv in advance of Lord JOIIN RUSSELL'S last
rating suffrages, according to the plan on which
the rate-book is made up.
When we turn to the pamphlet adverted to, from
which we had expected some special help on the
question—how we are to extcnd the suffrage—we
find, on the contrary, an answer only to the ques-
tion—How shall we divide those who possess the
franchise ?--that is, in what kind of constituencies
shall they be arranged. Our author prefers the
more liberal view of every question. Manhood
suffrage and the ballot will, he thinks, be more
satisfactory ; but his plan will apply, he says, to
any suffrage, provided it be, as he assumes that it
must, made equal for all kinds of constituencies.
If so, why, he asks, retain any longer the useless
division of borough and county electors ; since the
vote of a man possessing the same franchise is as
good in the county as in the borough P We should
say better. The ten-pound householder in the
county is, as the rule, a decidedly superior man to
the possessor of the same franchise in the borough.
His chief proposals are two—first, having abo-
lished the distinction between boroughs and COUR-
ties, to take the counties as the basis of rearrange-
ment, and to divide and arrange them so that each
member shall represent about forty thousand of the
population, and that each constituency should
return not more than six or seven members. This
would require that Lancashire should have ten
such divisions, Middlesex and York, nine, returning
five or six members each ; while Northampton and
Rutland, Cumberland and Westmoreland, must be