The Sun.
London, England, 1859-03-02 00:00:00

SUBMARINE TELEGRAPHS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Sir,—My attention has been called to a para
graph in the letter of your Naples correspondent,
and which appeared recently in the Times, relative
to the late accident to this company's Malta cable.
It ran as follows :
"The line from Malta to Cagliari has been re-
paired, the cable lying in shoal water ; bat, from
representations which have been made to me, it
rests in some parts on a bad bottom, that accidents
from time to time are not at all improbable."
Your correspondent has, however, been misin-
formed. So far from the accident having occurred
in shoal water, it was in the great depth of 165
fathoms, or 230 yards ; and, although the bottom
in some places was rocky, there did not appear to
be any great inequalities which would endanger the
safety of a cable ; it would, therefore, lie there in
perfect security. The accident did not arise from
abrasion on the bottom, as was abundantly clear
from the fact that no previous weakness or deterio-
ration of signals took place, and the batter power
used at Cagliari up to the time when the accident
occurred was extremely small. Moreover, any
motion of the sea at this great depth is out of the
question. The cable does not lie anywhere in shoal
water; the shallowest soundings obtained were
about 40 fathoms,—a much greater depth than is
met with between Dover and Calais and Ostend.
The Adventure bank commences at about 120
nautical miles from Valetta, and extends for a dis-
tance of 55 miles in the direction of Cagliari (Sar-
dinia). Upwards of 20 nautical miles of cable were
picked up from the bank without the least diffi-
culty, which would not have been the case had the
bottom been rocky, and the whole of it was in the
best possible condition.
It had been represented to us on good authority
that the bank consisted chiefly of masses of coral,
and that grappling would consequently be impos-
sible. So far was this from being the cas a that in
all the soundings and dredFings that took place.the
bottom was found to be uniformly soft and to con-
sist of sand, gravel, and shells. A dredge of four
miles in length was frequently made without meet-
ing anything in the shape of a rock, or, indeed,
any obstruction whatever.
Had the accident occurred in summer time, it
might have been easily repaired in two or three
days.—l am, sir, your obedient servant,

THOMAS ANDREWS,
Engineer and General Superintendent
Mediterranean Extension Telegraph Company,
Valetta, Malta, Feb. 23.

SIR W. G. ARMSTRONG AND HIS

WORKMEN.

On Monday afternoon, on the first occasion of the
visit of Sir W. G. Armstrong to his works at Els-
wick, Newcastle-on-Tyne, after receiving the honour
of knighthood by her Majesty, he was presented
with the following address by his workmen :—To
Sir William George Armstrong. " Dear Sir Wil-
liam,—We, the officials and workmen in the Elswick
engine-works, do ourselves the honour to congratu-
late you upon the great distinction that has been con-
ferred upon you by her Majesty on account of the
security you have given to her Throne and the bene-
fit you have conferred upon the nation bythe construc-
tion of your improved cannon, the powers of which
have not only excited the surprise and wonder of
the British people and the British army and navy,
but of the Governments of all the Powers of Europe
and all other civilised nations on the globe, where-
ever the knowledge of its astonishing powers has
been spread. We feel proud and highly honoured
in being connected with an establishment one of the
proprietors of which is a gentleman whose name
will be handed down to posterity as one of the great
men of the age, raised up by an over-ruling Provi-
dence to meet the exigencies of the times ; and the
town of Newcastle-upon-Tyne will from this time
and throughout all succeeding generations boast of
having been the honoured place of your nativity,
We who have occasionally been permitted to wit-
ness your indomitable perseverance in pursuing
your experiments under the most perplex-
ing circumstances, with the most extraordinary
zeal and energy, and have observed how frequently
your disappointments and failures have been made
the key to the successful attainment of !your pur-
poses, have become involuntarily interested in your
most triumphant success, and do most sincerely
rejoice that to some extent the value of your inven-
tion and service is recognised by the Government
of our country. It is our earnest prayer that you
may be blessed with health to carry out your im-
portant schemes, and that Lady Armstrong and
yourself may be long spared to enjoy those honour-
able distinctions which you have so justly merited."
Sir Wm. Armstrong made a suitable reply At a
meeting of the Whittle Dean Water Company, of
which Sir Wm. Armstrong is chairman, held the
same afternoon, he was congratulated on the honour
conferred upon him. He replied that " Perhaps
the chief ground of congratulation was to be found,
not so much in the fact of any personal aggrandise-
ment of himself, as in the additional employment
which would be given to the skilled artisans of the
district." From these observations it may be in-
ferred that the manufacture of the rifle-cannon will
be extensively earned out at the Elswick works.

THE FIRE AND LOSS OF SIX LIVES
IN MARYLEBONE.

Yesterday afternoon, Mr. Wakley, the coroner
for West Middlesex, held an inquiry at the
Buffalo's Head Tavern, Marylebone-road, for the
purpose of investigating the circumstances attend-
ing the fire and loss of life which took place in
Great James-street, Lisson-grove, on the morning
of Saturday last.

The mines of the deceased were :—John Rufus
Reeves, 31 ; Jane Reeves, 4 years ; Frederick
Reeves, 2 years ; Emily Reeves, 6 months (his
children) ; and Plicebe Goddard, 70. Another
child, Christina Reeves, lies dead in St. Mary's
Hospital, Paddington. The jury viewed the bodies,
which lie at the dead house of St. Marylebone
Workhouse, but which were beyond identity, being
literally burnt to cinders.
The Coroner remarked that he believed there
was no impression on the mind of any one that
there had been anything wrong with regard
to this occurrence, or the origin of the fire.
The insurance offices, he understood, were quite
satisfied, and the insurance effected was small—
namely, £250 on furniture and stock, and £2OO on
the building. There was no suspicion that it was
other than accident.

A number of witnesses were examined, but no
additional facts were elicited than those which we
have already given. Some discrepancy appedred
in the evidence as to the time of the arrival of the
escape and engines, one of the witnesses stating
that a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes elapsed
before the arrival of the former, and half an hour
the latter.

Mr. James Braidwood, the superintendent of the
London Fire Brigade, was examined upon this
point, and said, when at a fire, if life was in danger,
it was the duty of the police, in the first instance,
to send for the fire escape, and then the engine.
He could only attribute, as in the late Bloomsbury
case, the loss of time in sending for the engine, to
the excessive anxiety of the police to save life,
that they all ran first for the escape.
The Coroner said the object of these inquiries was
to prevent a recurrence of such frightful calamities
in future, and it appeared to him that, in this in-
stance, there had been a frightful misapprehension
of duty on the part of the police..
Mr:lnspector Braddick said every policeman had
a card of his duty in cases of fire, and it was read
to the men on parade once a month. It was the
duty of the first man who discovered a fire to re-
main at the premises; of the second, when inha-
bited, to run for the escape ; and the third, to run
for the nearest engine.
In reference to the burning of the fire escape,
Mr. Sampson Low, the secretary to the Escape
Society, said, in answer to the coroner, that the
canvas of the escape was saturated in a solution of
alum and zinc, and cased with a lattice of copper
wire, but yet they would burn.
The Coroner having summed up,
The jury returned a verdict, to the effect that the
deceased persons lost their lives by the fire, but
how it originated there was no evidence to show.
The foreman expressed the opinion of the jury that
the fire escape reached the fire with all possible
promptitude ; and they concurred with the coroner
in suggesting that an efficient organisation of the
police should be effected as to the course they should
adopt in cases of fire.

DETERMINED SUlClDE.—Yesterday morning the
coroner for Southwark received information of the death of
Mr. James Burr, aged 40 years, who resided in Doctors'
Commons, St. Paul's Churchyard. His wife, on going into
his bedroom, found her husband lying in a pool of blood,
which was issuing from a frightful gash in his throat.
Medical assistance was sent for, and promptly arrived, but
the unfortunate man shortly expired. No cause is assigned
for the act.