The Sun.
London, England, 1866-09-20 00:00:00

The Atlantic Telegraph Expedition.

LIVERPOOL, Wednesday Night.
The Atlantic Telegraph expedition is a thing of
the past. The good it has accomplished lives after
it; but its existence as a separate entity is at an end,
and its chief actors are already distributed over the
country. Capt. Anderson brought the Great Eastern
from Crookhaven "by the lead," and timed her arri-
val off Holyhead to a couple of minutes of her sight-
ing its light. She reached her mooring-ground be-
tween 9 and 10 this morning, and in less than an
hour afterwards parted company with some of her
chief guests. Departures have continued rapidly
through the day, and at this time Mr. Gooch is in
Berkshire, Professor Thomson in Scotland, Mr. Can-
ning and Mr. Willoughby Smith in London, and Mr.
J. Deane and Capt. Hamilton on their way thither.
Mr. Clifford remains at Liverpool until to-morrow,
and Captain Anderson is expected on shore this
evening. To-morrow the cable hands and a great
portion of the crew are to be paid off, from £B,OOO
to £9,000 being disbursed in theprocess ; after which
the Great Eastern will be probably handed over to
the painters and cleaners, while the several directors
settle upon her future use. The Chamber of Com-
merce here had determined to invite the chiefs of
the enterprise to a banquet, and a deputation was,
it was said, to have waited on them to-day ; but a
strong posse of custom-house officers, who rigidly
examined all luggage about to leave the ship, was
the only visitation made before the party broke up,
and however full of. hospitable, good intentions
Liverpool may have been, it is certain the Great
Eastern has been allowed to glide quietly up the
Mersey to her resting-place without the slightest
demonstration in her favour.
This morning at 5 a.m. a small party consisting
of Mr. Barber, one of the principal proprietors of
the greatship ; Mr. Yates, her secretary; Mr. Shuter,
the Telegraph Construction secretary ; the bearer
of a special despatch from Mr. Glass, and half a
dozen other gentlemen left in the steam tug Victoria
to meet the Great Eastern. By half-past seven they
were on board exchanging congratulations and hear-
ing the news. So quietly was this done, that Mr.
Canning and others were still in their cabins, and
unaware that a tug was in sight, when the sounds
of hearty congratulation told them of the arrival of
their friends. Mr. Glass's letter was addressed to
the practical scientific men on board, and the follow-
ing reply was sent :

Groat Eastern, Liverpool, Sept. 19.
Dear Sir,—ln acknowledging your kind congratulations
we must ask you to share our gratification at the success
we have accomplished.
The electric communication between Europe and Ame-
rica, now happily secured, is the ripened fruit of years of
costly experimentalising, during which your special know-
ledge, wide experience, and unflinching confidence, have
largely contributed to the perfection of the work ; and the
expeditions both of this year and last have been greatly
indebted to your encouragement and care.

We heartily reciprocate your good wishes, and fervently
hope your health may be speedily restored, and that you
may enjoy with us for many years the honours legitimately
pertaining to this gratifying success.—We are, dear sir,
yours faithfully,
SAMUEL CANNING, WILLOUGHBY SMITH,
JAMES ANDERSON, W1T.T.701 THOMSON.
HENRY CLIFFORD,
R. A. Glass, Esq.
It will be seen from Mr. Deane's diary that a
fault was discovered in the cable of 1865 when the
ship was some dozen miles from Heart's Content at
termination of the second laying. The rapid detec-
tion and remedy of this fault proved Mr. Willoughby
Smith's invention to possess all the merits claimed
for it while the character of the injury, and the
shape of the bit of broken wire inflicting it, were
precisely similar to those of last year. The outside
of the cable had nothing to betray the existence of
the fault. It was smooth to the touch and uniform
to the eye ; even where the peccant piece of wire
lurked, and the coil containing it has lain untouched
in the Great Eastern tank ever since it was placed

there last year. Repeated electrical tests have
proved the cable to be absolutely perfect during this

time ; and the broken wire only became an active
instead of a passive instrument of evil within a
few minutes of its discovery. The explanation of
this apparent anomaly is, that the wire, which is
sharp as a needle at one end,lad notpierced through
the gutta percha coating to the copper conductor,
and was so laid that its head did not penetrate the
manilla-twist outer covering. So long as the thinnest
stratum of gutta percha remains intact between the
assailing iron and the all-important copper-wire,
insulation is preserved ; but when by the footsteps
of the cable-men, or in the shifting the cable, the
gutta percha was pierced, an electrical "fault" was
the instantaneous consequence. The result satisfac-

torily proved the exquisite sensitiveness of the electri-
cal instruments, and Mr. Canning retains the ble-
mished part of the cable, with the wire still sticking
in it, for comparison with the " faults" cut out last
year. Whether these injuries have been malicious,
or whether the cable of 1865 was less carefully
watched than its successor, and more prone to acci-
dents, is a point which it would be unprofitable to
discuss. The staff themselves are divided in opinion,
and this morning, a few minutes after I had,learnt
from one eminent man on board that " the last fault
set at rest the question of malice, and proved the in-
juries to have been accidental." I was told by an-
other, and even more eminent man, that the shape of
the wire and its position proved beyond a doubt that
the flaw made by it, as well, as those of last year,
were the base handiwork of some cable assassin.
Another point eagerly discussed on board is the
piece of granite brought up by the grapnel from the
Atlantic's bottom. It if quite clear that this was
not broken by a larger mass by the irons,- but was
lying loosely, and was so caught in the interstices
of the claws. For it was not brought up by what
we may call the grip of the grapnel, but was jammed
between two of its claws, much as a grapestone oc-
casionally sticks in the teeth. It is, moreover, com-
paratively smooth and polished, as if by the action of
the sea, and in no one part shows such a surface as
might be looked for in a recently fractured rock.
One authority pronounces it to be Labrador granite,
and Mr. Clifford, who was in command during the
watch in which it was brought to the surface, and
who retains possession of the stone, proposes to sub-
mit it to the Geological Society for a trustworthy
opinion as to its character. That such a stone should
come from what is officially certified as a sand and

ooze bottom suggests doubts as to the present method
of sounding being well adapted to its purpose.
Those interested in submarine telegraphy maintain
that it should be literally more sweeping than at
present, and be made to test a larger surface than is
ever done now. There is no sort of doubt that the
Great Eastern, when picking up the broken cable of
last year, encountered rough and broken ground,
where the chart had led her to expect sand and ooze,
and this fact alone, now that cable-laying in ocean
depths promises to become an every-day matter,
seriously impairs the value of the Government
soundings. One suggestion, jestingly made, is that
the bit of granite is, after all, part of the spare bal-
last of some ship ; and that its appearance in the
grapnel is no proof of similar stones being plentiful
at the bottom.

ft is interesting to know that a couple of hours
after the splice of the picked-up cable was effected
the weather became unfavourable, and that its
recovery might have been indefinitely delayed had
it not taken place when it did. The Great Eastern
came back with some two thousand tons of coal on
board, so that the search might have continued
some time longer ; but all agree that both in
weather, in the change from one part of the line

:o another eighty miles from it, and in the fina]

triumph, the soundest skill and judgment waited
upon good fortune. One day during the search Mr.
Canning was startled by Captain Moriarty quietly
whispering, " I'm sorry to disappoint- you ; but
what you're doing now's no use.'.' A strong current
had set in, and the buoys placed to mark the cable
for grappling had drifted 17 miles, and on observa-
tions being taken the Great Eastern was shown to
be this distance from what she was vaguely seeking.
The announcement of this mishap was of course fol-
lowed by an instant change of spot, and added one
more illustration of the extreme delicacy of the
work.

When all was successfully accomplished, and the
great ship was homeward bound, the prevalent
light-hearteduess found vent in private theatricals,
and a pointed burlesque by Mr. J. C. Deane and
Mr. Poore was written, lithographed, and acted on
board. " Coutentina " was the title of this produc-
tion, and the whole strength of the company was en-
listed to insure its success. The jokes and skits at
the peculiarities of the leading people on board were
plentiful and humorous, and the following extracts
show the character of the songs :

Air—" Let the toast pass."
Here's to the Cable of dear fifty-eight,
Hero's to the one sixty-five, sir,
That we left in the sea in a critical state,
For which we intend to go dive, sir.
Chorus—Let the toast pass,
Long life to our Glass,
His cables are good, be they hemp, wire, or
grass.
The picking up itself was complimented thus :

Air, 95.

The grappling rope at length has come,
Winding slowly round the drum ;
And on its end as I'm alive,
Hangs the rope of '65.
For Anderson who guides the ship,
Let's shout and cheor with a hip, hip, hip.
Moriarty, too, who straight did dive,
At the dear old rope of '65.

Experience has done the trick,
And solved the question double quick.
What pleasure Canning must derive,
From a sight of the rope of '65.

The Bishop of Newfoundland joined the party
at Newfoundland, and arrived here in the Great
Eastern.

SIR S. BAKER ON MR. EYRE.—Sit Samuel B aker,
the well-known traveller, writes to the Times in de-
'once of Mr. Eyre. He says :—" In times of great danger
and excitement, not only in the instance of Jamaica, but
on all occasions where brute force is resorted to, acts are
committed that will not bear the calm scrutiny of those
who judge the events far from the actual scene and in
perfoot safety; but such events are seldom or never
paraded before the public for the purpose of defaming a
man who has conscientiously acted for the best under the
most trying circumstances, and who is considered by
those most capable of judging (the English in-
habitants of Jamaica) to have saved the colony. From
my experience of negroes, I believe that Mr. Eyre did
undoubtedly save the white inhabitants of Jamaica by a
stern exercise of force that cowed those who would have
excited the population, as Gordon, and which prevented the
general organisation of the negroes throughout the island
It was necessary to paralyse the outbreak at one blow.
Legal or illegal, it was life or death. A severity that
would have been ridiculous towards a white population
was the only course to crush a rising of the blacks. This
many people in England will not understand ; it is the
popular belief that the negro differs from us only in the
colour of the skin ; the tiger and the horse are not more
widely different in their natures. I do not pretend
to assume that the execution of Gordon was legal,
neither do I attempt to justify certain acts com-
mitted in great excitement during the operation of martial
law ; but I contend that during a struggle for life and
death the acts of individuals should not be scrutinised
with undue severity, still less should the Governor of the
colony, who has established martial law aso.the law,' be
held responsible for the verdicts of courts-martial, or for
the individual acts of the military. The removal of Mr.
Eyre is a hard example; let us hope it is simplyproA'7
to uphold the actual letter of the law, and that his e
prospect may be less dark than the governmdenctoonfuacb futuret thehtck
population ; but it is hardly possible
ntsoult is
to the whole
dismissal of Governor Eyro from an i
of
fellhioen a r,
s every Majesty's
act forcesecomplained
mtphlaati
newered
of
was
engagedn omdzitntegdtlutendreer-
bthe operation of military
law. Deplorable as those acts
were, if contrary to the
law
r
nev
I shouldertheless,jusntiofit h justified byve theml vof England, they were,
do dire
these necessity
remarks
had m
occa-
sion.ther.
hands
refrain
noffrot hme
callingG o er nfmo
re n,
ft
a;
rbpulta
playas'
aEnyErenbgleieenh
msoelnelf
nianntnhoet
when I see a sectionheofis woduorfn.,
countrymen ernemsoovuancoEf
Aingrl.isEhyares
to 'hit a man whoa
from his post was a blow that hE s been keenly felt by all
who knew and admired his character, but the cowardly
and uncalled-for attacks made upon him since his return
to England, when every honourable spirit must have sym-
pathised with his position, will rally around him a dif-
ferent ;class to the Guy Fawkes-burning philanthropists
of Clerkenwell Green. I am not a subscriber to the
Eyre Defence and Aid Fuud,' as I cannot believe that
any class of Englishmen will commit themselves to an
attack so degrading and contemptible as the criminal
prosecution threatened against Mr. Eyre ; but should
such a vindictive course cf persecution bo possible, I
shall immediately, with doubtless many thousand others,
add my name to the list of his supporters." In another
part of his letter, Sir Samuel says :—" I believe the negro
to have little in common with the white man beyond the
simple instincts of human nature. There is a limit to his
intellectual capacity, so rapidly attained that at the age of
14 the mind has reached the maximum of its power. As
the intelligence of animals is developed at an earlier age,
than that of a human being, but quickly reaches its limit,
beyond which it cannot proceed, so is the mind of the
negro inferior to that of the white man. Indolence is a
vice inherited by the entire negro race. Unless subjected
to conditions that necessitate labour they will avoid work
and if left to themselves they will relapse into the natural
savagedom of Africa, no matter in what country they may
be placed."

SWANSEA VALE and NEATH and BRECON
JUNCTION RAILWAY COMPANY.
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, That the ORDI-
NARY HALF-YEARLY GENERAL MEETING of
the above Company will be hold at their offices, 1, West-
minster Chambers, Victoria-streets Westminster S.W.
on SATURDAY, the 29th instant, at ono o'clock p.m.,
precisely, for the transaction of the general business of the
Company._

Aiid notice is also hereby given, that tho Transfer Books
of tho Company will be closed on the 15th inst., and will
remain so closed until tho termination of the above meet-
' ---

W. L. BANKS, Chairman.
D. HOWELL MORGAN, Secretary.
1, Westminster Chambers, Victoria-street, Westminster,
S.W., Sept. 12, 1866.

NA E TH AND BRECON RAILWAY COilA
PANY.

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, That the ORDINARY
HALF-YEARLY GENERAL MEETING of the above
Company, will be held at their offices, 1, Westminster
Chambers, Victoria-street, Westminster, S.W., on SA-
TURDAY, the 29th 't.at " 'CI ck p m ,'Two 00 , •
pre-
cisely, for the general.business of the Company.
Aud Notice is hereby given, That the Transfer Books
of the Company will be closed' from the 15th lust, and
will remain so closed until the termination of the said
meeting.

W. L. BANKS, Chairman.
D. HOWELL MORGAN, Secretary.
1, Westminster Chambers, Victoria- street, Westminster,
S.W., Sept. 12, 186 G.

THIRD EDITION.

SUN OFFICE, 7 o'CLocK.

Central Criminal Court—This Day.

OLD COURT.
(Before Mr. Justice Willes.)
THE ST. GILES'S MURDER.

John Richard Jeffery, 31, tailor, was indicted for the
wilful murder of his son, Richard Arthur Jeffery, on the
30th of July, in the parish of St. Giles's-in-the-Fields.

Mr. Poland and Air. Besley prosecuted; and Mr. Daly and
Mr. Straight defended the prisoner.
Mr. Poland opened the case, and detailed the circum-
stances of the alleged murder.

Winesses were then examined, whose evidence was
nearly identical with that given recently at Bow-street
Police-court, on the occasion of the prisoner being com-
mitted for trial. The circumstances then deposed to will.
be so fresh in the recollection of our readers that no reca-
pitulation of them is needed now.

The-learned Judge having summed up the evidence, the
jury, at a quarter-past six, after five minutes' deliberation,
found the prisoner GUILTY, and sentence of death was
passed in the usual form.

SPORTING INTELLIGENOE.—This Day.

BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.
HAMPTON RACES—Tins DAY.
NURSERY HANDICAP.

The HAMPTON NURSERY PLATE of 50 soy; added to a
Handicap of 10 Boys each, 3 ft (to the fund); winners of

any race after Sept. 14 (at ten a.m.) of the value of 100
sovs 31b, of two of 100 each, or ono of 2001 b 51b, of 300

together or separate 71b extra ; the second to sale his
stake ; three-quarters of a mile.

Mr. W. W. Baker's Merry Monarch (Wyatt) 1
Mr. Hodgman's Vice Versa.- )Bartholomew) 2

Mr. Alwyn's Bonnie Doon (lluxtable) 3

Milan, Gentian, end Miss Partridge also ran. Betting-
-6 to 4 agst Milan, 3 to 1 agst Merry Monarch, 5 to 1 agst
Vice Versa. Won by a neck ; neck between second and
third.