The Sun.
London, England, 1861-10-10 00:00:00

absurd, the more so after the acts of the King of
HUNGARY himself had just practically acknow-
ledged that the constitution remained entire, and
that the Pragmatic Sanction was his point
of departure. But M. SCHMERLING himself
could find no such pretext even, against the
Croatians. Their fault, on the contrary, was
that they had allowed themselves to be misled by
the infamous JELLACHICH to fight for the HAPS-
BURGS against the Hungarians. If deposing a per-
fidious tyrant was ground sufficient against the
Hungarians to cancel the constitution which that
tyrant had 'violated then, a fortiori, fighting for
that tyrant was a ground for retaining the similar
Croatian constitution, and for bestowing on them
favours in addition. SCHMERLING is in a perfect cleft
stick. He has treated alike those who deposed the
HAPSBURGS in 1849, and those who fought for
them. Croatia demands what Hungary demands,
but Croatia tells him to his face, that it has most
assuredly incurred no forfeiture. In such a predi-
cament has political dishonesty placed one of the
biggest political rogues in Europe. He has verified
the proverb, and hung himself with his own ample
rope.

It is worthy of remark that the Croatians are
especially firm on the point of not uniting to what
is now termed the Rump Reichsrath. A second and
very clever address was proposed in their Diet. It
went on till Aust the close in a well argued national
spirit, which was even applauded; at the close,
however, a clause turned up which revealed the
cunning purpose of the first part, to serve as a blind
to concession of the substance of the dispute—it
was to the effect that the Diet would " not refuse
to unite with the rest of the Empire in such a manner
as to preserve unprejudiced its own laws, rights,
and privileges." When this clause was read it was
received with a perfect hurricane of disapproba-
tion! The cleverest pretended patriotism could not
cajole the Croatians into taking part in the Rump
Reichsrath at Vienna. Croat politicians seem
likely to trouble the Austrians as much as their
rude soldiers have helped them.

The successful submersion of the electric cable
now connecting Matta with Alexandria is like the
recommencement of ocean telegraphy. It is a melan-
choly reflection that it should be so. Yet, that it
is so, there cannot unhappily be any doubt. The
labour is forced upon us, by a sad experience, of
demonstrating the feasibility of carrying out the
very enterprise that for one brief and magnificent
interval appeared to have been triumphantly accom-
plished. Who does not remember it ? -What future
historian of this nineteenth century but will record
that first momentary realisation of one of the sub-
limest day-dreams ever indulged in by poet or
philosopher ? Supposing the feat should never
be accomplished, or even attempted again, it will
be borne in the world's remembrance how in our
own time, about midway in this nineteenth cen-
tury, the magic core of a submarine telegraphic
cable brought for a while the New and the Old
World into instantaneous communication. " ONE
TOUCH OF NATURE"—there, in truth—" MADE THE
WHOLE WORLD KIN!" And— " though broad
ocean rolled between them"—the East and the
West conversed with the rapidity of thought—
their words borne to each other, to and fro, upon
the wings of the lightning. The first words
flashed under the depths of the Atlantic, from
Europe to America—History will attest this not
without emotion—being words of Adoration and
Thanksgiving: Gloria in excelais Deo—et in terra
pax hominibus bones voluntatia. So that literally
—after this—mankind could say, in the awful lan-
guage of the Psalmist, " From the Depths I have
cried unto Thee"—De Profundis clamavi ad Te !
Yet, scarcely had this extraordinary work been
completed—hardly had the shores of Ireland and
those of Newfonndland been linked together with

;hat wonderful sympathetic nerve of the Electric

Cable—when the Beautiful Vision that had been
conjured up before us suddenly began to pale and
fade out, and in a few brief hours had utterly

vanished.

The disappointment caused by the failure of the
Giant Telegraph, submerged under the waters of
the Atlantic, is hardly to be exaggerated. A re-
action at once grew out of it. From believing
everything in regard to the possibility of bringing
the ends of the earth together by means of ocean
Telegraphy, people forthwith dropped to the other
extreme, and believed just nothing at all about it.
So many thousands of pounds sterling had been sunk
beyond redemption, in the form of capper wire and
gutta percha covering into the abyss of the Atlan-
tic, that the repetition of the costly experiment was
not only deprecated as injudicious, but loudly and
generally scouted as nothing less than an egregious
Folly.

Since the period we are here referring to, a suffi•

cient time has elapsed to enable even the most
cautious amongst us to awaken from this new hal-
lucination. Between an extravagance of belief
and an extravagance of incredulity, we are begin-
ning to recognise the wisdom yet again of looking
for the only path that leads securely to Truth of
any kind, the path trodden only by those who love
the juste milieu. Nay, a long enough interval has
elapsed since the Failure of the Atalantic Telegraph
even for the timidity of the Government itself to be
overruled. And so—cautiously—feeling every step
as we advanced, a new submarine cable has been
manufactured and submerged. It lies now, this
new electric cable, at the bottom of the Mediterra-
nean. It connects the island of Malta with the
Egyptian seaport of Alexandria_ As the crow flies
—the distance thus spanned by the cable is one of

850 nautical miles. As the cable itself coils and
winds there along the trough of the sea—the
number of miles traversed by it may be stated, on
the contrary, at somewhere about 1,300. For, judi-
ciously enough, we cannot but think the cable here
and there makes a circumbencil bus. Starting from
Marsa Scirocco harbour, at the eastern extremity of
the island of Malta, it is trailed thence to Tripoli
(where there is a station) ; from Tripoli it is
carried on to Benghazi (where there is another
station) : and from Benghazi it proceeds direct to
its farthermost destination—Alexandria. It is
curious to recollect in regard to the cable now
connecting
,Malta with Alexandria, that it had
previously assigned to it two wholely different
destinations. It was first of all proposed to be
laid down between Falmouth and Gibraltar. It
was then designed to connect Rangoon with Sin-
gapore. Circumstances have led at last, however,
to its being laid down where it now reposes
between Malta and Alexandria. Remembering
that every care a--Pea
the successive stages of
t
fs
this
haveisgre beatwen taken in
orkinthe
original designing of the cable, in the cautious
manufacture of it, in the tests to been subjected, and in t which it has
he delicate process of its
submersion we are sanguine that the result of the
whole enterprise will prove in all essential par-
tijulars as satisfactory as we could reasenably
wish. One precaution that has been taken is
especially worthy of note in regard to this sub-
marine telegraph—viz., that during the last two
years it has been lying constantly immersed in
water—it has been lying all that while, as the
historian of its submersion facetiously observes, in
"its native slement," 'speaking Eguratiyely, That is

' after the fashion in which Mr. 808 SAWYER, in
Piekwick, expresses his predilection for beer in
" its native pewter." Another instance of the ex-
traordinary caution observed in reference to the
carrying out of this new enterprise in submarine
telegraphy is noticeable in the fact that at one
point of the track followed in the submergence
of the cable, " It was deemed prudent to deviate
a little from the course in the form of the letter 5,
so that in case of future repairs the cable might be
grapnelled for and, with plenty of slack, easily
brought to the surface." There is every reasonable
hope, in fact before us that the laying of this electric
cable between. Malta and Alexandria will mark the
commencement of a new and happier epoch in the
annals of Submarine Telegraphy.

Mr. SMITH O'BRIEN has been again on his
travels, and, in some parts of them, to good pur-
pose. He had two objects in view—one to see the
Camp at Chalons, and to make acquaintance with
Marshal M`MAHON, Duke of MAGENTA, whose
illustrious career is a source of pride to every Irish-
man, and especially to his kinsmen of the county of
Clare, which county was the habitation of his ances-
tors during 30 centuries. The second object of his
excursion was to study the " Hungarian question,"
in Hungary itself, and to witness a sitting of the
Hungarian Diet, at Pesth. Three days sufficed for
the Camp, but much as he was interested in all that
he saw, there was something, or some one, more
interesting still. The French Irishman was some-
thing for the land of ST. PATRICK to be proud of,
for he says, " Much as I was interested by all that
I saw in the camp, I was not less interested by the
martial demeanour, manly frankness, dignified sim-
plicity, and intellectual ability of the Duke himself.
I also enjoyed the gratification of making acquaint-
ance with the amiable family of the Marshal, and I
obtained permission from the Duchess to tell my
fellow-countrymen that her eldest son, PATRICK,
possesses all the qualities of a native-born Irishman.
I have, therefore, not been disappointed with regard
to the first of the objects which I proposed to my.
self in this excursion."

In Hungary he was quite as fortunate. His name
was his only letter of introduction, but it was
enough. He easily made the ready acquaintance
of the leading members of the Hungarian Diet,
and was present at its dissolution. He spent nine
days at Pesth, and subsequently he accompanied one
of the most prominent members of the Lower
House, Count THEODORE CSAKY, to his home near
the Carpathian Mountains, where he spent several
days. Altogether he really seems to have enjoyed
considerable opportunities of intercourse with the
educated inhabitants; if, indeed, he did not ascer-
tai❑ their minds it was not from deficiency on their
part in knowledge of languages. Perhaps some of
our readers may be as surprised as he Was with what
he can tell them on this point. " I confess," he
says, " that I entered Hungary with a strong pre-
possession in favour of the Hungarians and of the
Hungarian cause. These prepossessions have been
confirmed by all that I witnessed during my recent
visit. I expected to find in the Hungarians a
manly and chivalrous spirit, but .1 was not dis-
posed to expect a very high degree of intellec-
tual cultivation. To my surprise, I discovered an
extent of intellectual culture which is not surpassed
in any part of Europe. Not only at Pesth, but also
in the most remote parts of Northern Hungary, I
met with many persons who could speak Latin
with as much fluency as they speak their mother
tongue. A knowledge of French is almost univer-
sal among the educated classes, and in travelling
on the Continent I have nowhere found so many
persons who speak English as in Hungary. I
found the Hungarians to be frank, generous, hos-
pitable, and affectionate. They possess in an emi-
nent degree the characteristics which are expressed
by the word gentleman.' " Their facility in Latin
conversation is accounted for by the fact that, till a
recent date, the debates in the Diet were in that
language ; and many Hungarians still doubt whether
the substitution of the Hungarian language was a
wise step, since all the nationalities had a common
language in the Latin, and the necessity of
acquaintance with it, insured that representatives
from all must be men of education. The study of
Latin has very much declined in Hungary since
that time.

Mr. O'BRIEN has come back from Hungary with
impressions directly the reverse of those of the
hon. member for Sheffield strongly confirmed. Pos-
sibly the latter will attribute Mr. O'BnlEN's im-
pressions to a reason which, he will say, shows
itself sufficiently when he says—" I feel that
I should not do justice to the Hungarian
cause if I were to attempt to set forth all the
grievances of which they complain. They very
much resemble those which have afflicted Ire-
land, but it is due to the Austrian Govern-
ment to say that it has not yet systematised the
confiscation of property with the same skill which
has been employed in Ireland by the British Govern -
ment during seven centuries; nor has Hungary,
like Ireland, lost by misgovernment one-third of its
population within fifteen years. Nevertheless,
their grievances and their claims are such as to
entitle them to demand the restitution of the right
of self-government, which they enjoyed during
several centuries. They, therefore, are fully justi-
fied in refusing to subject the interests of Hungary
to the control of the Austrian Reichsrath—an as-
sembly in which they place no confidence, and in
which, even if it deserved confidence, they would
be overruled by adverse majorities, even as the
voice of the representatives of Ireland is overruled
by the English majorities in the British Parlia-
ment."

Mr. O'BRIEN attests the correctness of the de-
scription we have so uniformly heard of the perfect
unanimity of feeling in Hungary ; the complete
fusion of all sects or parties in a patriotic and de-
termined though passive resistance to the common
oppressor. He says that—" An attempt has been
made by the statesmen and newspapers of Austria
to produce an impression throughout Europe that
the Hungarian cause embodies the claims of only
a small section of the people—the pure Magyar
race—and that the Magyar nobles are the only
portion of the population whose voice is expressed
by the Diet. The most conclusive answer that
can be offered to this observation is the fact that
in several of the counties whose representatives
have taken a prominent part in opposition to the
Austrian Government there is scarcely to be
found a single Magyar elector." And again, in
regard to the refusal of illegal taxes, and adherence
to their Constitution—" They only demand the
restoration of the ancient constitution of Hungary,
subject to the improvements which were adopted in
1848. They are also justified in refusing to acknow-
ledge the legality of any laws other than those
which have been parsed by the Hungarian Diet,
and in refusing to pay the taxes which have not
been sanctioned by the representatives of the Hun-
garian people. These resolutions and these claims
have been adopted with wonderful unanimity by the
Diet and people of
an
se sps
re
edv in
ai ae
dp
ionl i tt ihc
ea I
Houseisusenmg baorlfyy
ieeplhr
eesnetni havert
ea ntuien:eaesnr
unanimity
when
wit-
in
adopted a Enal protest against the dissolution
of the Diet, and this protest was likewise adopted
without a dissentient vote by the Howe of Magnates