, 1896-08-15
a GREAT EXPERIMENT.

lie naekeQ MS OPINIONS Win ms money and
he WAS among the glorious 345 who contri-
buled Ell 900 each for the first great expert
ment in sub-ooeanic biography between Eng
land and the United States. What is more.
lie was willing to make similar ventures, year
after year. in spite of the most distressing
and the most costly failures. The Atlantic
Company If which he was a director. came
almost to rniE when in 1865 the cable carried
by the Great Eastern failed in mid -ocean
This was not the first failure; two cables had
sunk within a few hundred miles Of the Irish
shore. Even the faithful were daunted bv the
disaster associated with the name Of the Great
Eastern. The general public had for the
moment utterly lost faith in all projects Of
the kind. Yet Sir John Ponder was as firm
a believer as ever in the possibilities of the
great scheme. He helped 10 form the Anglo
American Company, with capital of R600 900
and with admission TO lay a new cable, and to
recover the old one. This company was in
close connection not only of aims and pur-
poses, but of business relations, with the old
one. Glass, Elliott and Company and the
Gu'ta Percha Company were willing to under
take the material pant of the work, but at a
critical moment, the faith of the latter failed
them, and they required IA guarantee.
FAILURE AND D1sAPpoINrMExr.
Sir John gave them his personal guarantee
for a quarter of a million sterling. This was
the faith that moves mountains. The British
and American war vessels had failed to
lay the cable Of 1857. The cable was laid,
for a moment, in 1858, but the congratuIatory
messages between the Queen and President
had hardly been exchanged when it showed
signs Of faulty insulation and III a short
time became dumb. The Great Eastern
cable had failed III the same way. 1t must
have required heroic courage to send her out
again, and at the risk Of RAIN to one indiyi-
dual concerned III the venture. Yet this was
done, and on the %0th Jnly, 1866, the Queen
and the President were exclan eing con-
eratulatory messages once more. What is
more, the old cable was recovered and the
two companies, Atlantic and Anglo-Ameri-
can, became highly prosperous concerns.
After that the good old ship went on laying
cable after cable until she reached her sixth,
when she was superseded by the Faroddy.
1t would be unjust to deny that a large.
perhaps a supreme, share of the credit Of
these achievements belonged to an American.
Mr.. Cyrus Field. But Sir John Pender had
still larger views than the man who had, in
some sort. been his teacher. He gradually
became the moving spirit in every great
scheme OF ocean geography, anu organized
or developed lie Mediterranean, the India
and China. the Australian, and the South
African systems, which reduced the Atlantic
lines to a merely sectional Importance.
HIS Hour OF TRIUMPH
came when. at the opening of tie Colonial
and Indian Exhibition of 1886, the Viceroy
of India, the Governor-G General of the Domin-
ion of Canada, and the Governors Of every
British Colony and Dependency issued, by
request of the Prince of Wales, a special
gazette, containing a verbatim report OF Ills
Highness's address to the Queen, of her
Majesty's reply. and also of Lord Tennyson's
Ode, Two years later he received his knight
hood, and the occasion was celebrated Ivy a
great banquet. offered to him under the pre-
Sidency of the late Lord Derby.-Cksrch
Family Newspaper.