Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1857-04-09
Selett 8taonlg,
From the Carolina Times.
EUROPEAN CORRESPONDENCE.
LONDON, Feb. 1857.

you are lar lTolu 'celnS dl tuat ID uufel vi
striking. You must not leave, however, un.
til you have visited what is to be the marine
wonder of the WORLD There is building
near the Docks, the mammoth ship to be cal
led the Great Eastern. 1t is of two hundred
and twenty-five thousad five hundred tons
burden. When you remember that the Per-
sia and Adriatic, the two largest steamers
afoat, do not exceed four thousand tons, you
have small data upon which to base your
ideas of this wonderful conception. Her
length is more than the eighth of a mile
being six hundred and eighty feet, her
breadth eighty-thrce, and her depth of hold
sixty feet. AS she stands on the stocks, so
great is the elevation of her decks, that a
fine view is afforded from them of the sur
rounding country and city. Her engines are
of three thousand horse power. One thous-
and horse power will be provided for theside
paddle wheels and the remainder for the
screws. The paddle wheels themselves make
a respectable sized amphitheatrc, being one
hundred and twenty feet in circumference.
One hundred furnaces are required to heat
the ten boilers that will generate the steam
necessary to drive her through the water
Beside her engines she will have seven masts,
several of them square rugged. She is CAL
culated to carry ten thousand persons, but
the company hope to clear expenses if they
can average four thousand. She will carry
ten life boats, but each of them are to be
complete screw steamers. If she is safely
launched it will be as great wonder as her
erection. Her entire weight is to rest upon
two immense cradles, upon which she is to
be lowered to low water mark by hydraulic
pressure, and then at Ugh tide she is to float
away, the queen of the seas. Her speed is
estimated at an average of fifteen miles an
hour, which will take her to America in four
days, and India, by the Cape, in thirty, or
to Australia in thirty-fve days. Her first
trip is to be to America, where the directors
expect to make speculation by making her
spectacle. But what does this conception
necessitate on the seas? Already it is de-:
termined to issue daily paper on board,
and will there not be necessity fora police,
lawyers, doctors, and may be hangmen p
Will it not necessitate Mayor and Alder
men to issue tavern licenses and an armed
force to put down rebellion? If she will
not carry steam cars she will carry steam
boats, and telegraphs are necessity, for it
is arranged that her officers will communicate
by telegraph. Her launch is expected to
take place in the coming fall. An old lady
once, in taking passage across the ocean,
was very careful to ascertain the thickness of
the ships planks, and this has been omitted
above. The Great Eastern has no plank a.
bout her, is entirely of iron, the sheets of
which are all three, quarters of an inch thick,
and as she is double cased, ship within
ship, in case of accident to the outer shell
she is still safe with the inner
But you will be getting tired Of London,
so let us hasten to leave it, at least, for the
present. But great placards are stuck over
the streets this morning, announcing mass
meeting of the unemployed, at Smithfeld,
and you must attend that before you 60, and
the meeting at night at Exeter Hall, called
to consider the oppressed condition of dress
makers and milline,s, because through these,
London is presented quite in contrast with
itself as a City of Palaces, Bridges and
splendid Churches. Empty your pockets
before you 60 to Smithfcld, unless you wish
to bcstow aims, and let neither right or left
hand know it. As you get near it you see
crowds of rough looking men and women
hanging about the streets, and when you reach
this spot 50 famous for chartists and riots and
other uproars, you sec hundreds of men,
some ragged and filthy, others cleanly and
we'll dressed, many of them looking gaunt
and hungry, but all of them wandering a.
bout with threatening discontcnted air
You feel some doubt about your safety in
such a crowd, when you observe them scan
you from head to foot with savage criticism,
which seems to say 'you are able-give me
something to eat" After while, their
speakers begin to haranguc them, and after
rcciting their distrcsses to each other, they
dispcrse quietly, but with grum despair,
that is narrowing, to behold. Over seven
thousand laborers are now idle in London,
and you see them 60 from door to door in
vain, seeking for any employment that will
bring them few pence to keep them from
starving.
Though an "outside barbarian" from the
land of negroes and the ''horrors of slavery"
yet strange to say, you arc SO unaccustomed
to witness starvation and misery, that your
heart bleeds over these hel pless multtudes
and you have to hasten away out of sight,
lest you be tempted to give away to them
every cent you possess. But this is only one
chapter Go at night to Exeter Hall. Here
arc gathered four thousand people to wall in
sympathy over the Dress Makers and Milli-
ners in their oppression. Amember of Par
Lament presides and the Lord Bishop Of
London, Mr.. Archer and Lord SALISBURY,
with others, address the meeting. But what
tale of horrors arc detailed in their speech
es proven by facts ard figures, then and there
produced. 1t was shown that females from
fourteen years upwards were commonly en-
ployed, fifteen, sixteen and often twenty
hours day, at the lowest possible rates.
This employment too, lasting without inter-
ruption, for weeks and months. Many of
them engaged on slop work, get six pence