The Kenilworth Advertiser. — 1890-02-22 (Kenilworth, Warwickshire, England)

GALS V. ELECTRICITY.  Councillor Carr, of that town, writes in a Cardiff paper as follows. Cardiff Corporation has on hand the question of purchasing the gasworks. According to Mr. Carr "the principal bogey" with the opponents of purchase is "the old electric light scare. People who know nothing at all about the principles on which the electric light is produced fancy that some new source of illumination has been discovered which may possibly supersede gas. They cannot realise that the more complex and artificial the process is which has to be gone through before the raw material is converted into light the more costly the result must necessarily be. The cheapest light that the world produces is supplied by those eruptions of mineral gas which are to be found in some parts of the Continent of America. This gas has been utilised for local purposes of light and heat, but in the nature of things it cannot be transported ftom one country to another. The next cheapest light is that obtained from petroleum. The rectification of this natural oil and the provision of a suitable lamp in which to burn it, raises the price but very slightly. If ever the gas monopoly in this country be destroyed it will be by the application of petroleum in some shape or other. After petroleum in point of cheapness comes gas manufactured from coal. In this country it would possibly be cheaper than petroleum itself if it were not for the costly nature of mains and pipes necessary to conduct it from the place of manufacture to the spot where it is to be consumed. Now, how can the electric light ever vie in cheapness with either of these illuminants ? For before you can get your electric current you must have costly machinery and motive power to work it. And even after its production the cost of leading it from one place to another and of adequately distributing it over a given area is in itself a most important item. Let me put the matter in a simple, if unscientific, way. A gallon of petroleum consumed in a lamp will produce a certain amount of light. If that gallon of petroleum be used for driving a Priestman's petroleum engine, and that engine be employed to drive a dynamo, and the current produced thereby be converted by the aid of an incandescent lamp into light,the light so produced will be incomparably less than the light given off by the sixpenny petroleum lamp. In like manner, if from a ton of coal be extracted the gas that it contains and that gas be ignited, it will give a vastly greater amount of light than can be produced by a dynamo driven by a steam engine comsuming the same equivalent of coal. All these assertions are more than confirmed by the results achieved by the. various electric light installations of which information has been obtained. At a recent meeting of the gas and elecrical committee we had before us a return obtained from a large number of corporations in respect of the achievements of the electric light in their respective towns. The story they told went to show that where the electric light was not a costly failure it was a costly success. For certain purposes the electric light will certainly come into general use, but will always be the 'light of luxury,' but, so far as can be seen at present, will never interfere with the steady and progressive increase in the use of gas."  Two men, found guilty of murdering a widow were executed at Sofia on Saturday in the presence of a large crowd. Earl Sydney died on Friday, at his residence, Frognal, Kent, at the age of 85. He had held offices in the Household under Mr. Gladstone's Ad rai nistration.