The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-06 00:00:00

A Delicious Bit of Banter,

Referring to a leader in the Times of this day
week the Saturday Review remarks as follows :
" We all of us lose a great deal of enjoyment by the
gradual wearing out of our capacity for wonder.
There are few times in our lives when we can come
to the brow of the hill without knowing it, and catch
the full extent of the prospect in the first unprepared
glance. Generally speaking, we have been seeing it
bit by bit all the way up, and when we get to the top
the complete impression seems unsatisfactory, be-
cause it is only the aggregate of all the partial im-
pressions. which we. have been taking in during our
ascent. In the same way, inventions would be
much more imposing if success in them did not
so often come tentatively, by slow degrees, and
after many failures. We talk of the wonders
of steam and the revolution it has effected in tra-
velling, but our appreciation of the change is trifling
compared with what it would have been if we could
have jumped in one day from the old stage coach to
the Limited Irish Mail. Would it not have been
almost worth while to have gone into a monastery,
or hired an uninhabited island, 20 or 30 years ago,
just for the excitement of coming out of our seclu-
sion in 1866, and realising all at once the changes
that have happened during the interval ? It would
be wasting time, however, to speculate whether the
gain would be worth the sacrifice, because there is
now living on earth a man who has evidently made
the experiment, and who must therefore be in the
best possible position to determine whether it is
a paying one. The Times of last Monday contained
a leading article which was beyond dispute the
production of a writer who had only heard of the
electric telegraph. IVhether his retirement from
the world for the whole time during which this in-
vention has been in operation was voluntary or en-
forced, whether it is attributable to his own desire
to feel the sense of surprise iu its fullest perfection,
or to the foresight of an editor anxious to have such
a subject as the success of the Atlantic cable handled
after the most telling fashion, we have no means of
knowing. If it is to the latter cause that the article
in question is due, the whole arrangement does the
highest credit to the manner in which the Times
is conducted. To catch a promising writer, and
keep him locked up for twenty years or so in
order to secure a really fresh article at the end of
that time, is a trifle. But to feel conscious of pos-
sessing such a treasure somewhere about the office,
and to resist the temptation of bringing him out
on either of the two previous occasions when the
laying of the cable was under discussion, does cer-
tainly argue an admirable proficiency in editorial
self-control. There is a real pleasure in the acknow-
ledgment that the effort has met with all the success
which it deserved. The article of Monday is just
what might have been expected from so arduous a
course of preparation. Public curiosity may busy
itself with speculations as to where the writer has
been all this time, but at any rate it is quite clear
that he has not been living in the society of his
fellow-men. The great wonder of the age has re-
vealed itself to a virgin mind. Ho has never de-
graded science to every-day uses, nor made elec-
tricity minister to his commonplace wants. To
him the telegraph has "unveiled her awful face"
for the first time in the very moment of her supreme
triumph. We are happy to be able to add that
" the dauntless child" has " stretched forth his
little arms," and written a leader.

We have much pleasure in announcing that the
Lord Justiceship of Appeal in Ireland. will bo offered to
Mr. Brewster.

THE CHOLERA AT ST. PETERSBURGH.—Since the
beginning of the epidemic at St. Petersburgh (26th June),
up to the 31st of July last, 7,191 cases occurred, 2,194 of
which were fatal ; 2,856 persons have been cured, and
2,141 were in course of treatment on the same day, 31st of
July. Ou the 28th of last month the Emperor Alexander
11. visited the hospitals of St. Petersburgh and comforted
the patients affected with cholera by words and deeds.
On Wednesday last the Metropolitan of St. Potorsburgh
celebrated a Te Deum at the Vladimir Church on accov.ut
of the decroso el the plague.