Читать книгу: «Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456», страница 6
THINGS TALKED OF IN LONDON
September 1852.
Progress, in one or other of the many forms in which it has of late presented itself, is now the prime subject of talk; and if the progress be real, it would not be easy to find a more satisfactory cause of conversation. Go-ahead people take much interest in the ocean steam-boat question; and now that the Collins line of steamers is supported by a grant from the United States government, double the amount of that paid to the British line, it is said that we are to be irrecoverably beaten in the passage of the 'ferry,' as Jonathan calls it, between Liverpool and New York. East sailing is no doubt an essential desideratum in these days—but what a price to pay for it! A quarter of a million on one side the Atlantic, and half a million on the other: as though there were not enterprise enough in either land to undertake the work—and do it well too—without a subsidy. One result may be safely predicated—that the winner will be the first to give in; and the timid may comfort themselves with the assurance, that neither national prosperity nor 'decadence' depends on the issue. A line to run from Liverpool to Portland, in the state of Maine, is in contemplation; and the Cunard Company are building four screw-steamers—the Andes, Alps, Jura, and Etna—which are to carry the mails to Chagres, as well as New York.
The first steam-collier has come into the Thames, having run the distance from Newcastle in forty-eight hours. Forty hours, we are told, will surface in future, when the stiffness of the new machinery shall have worked off. She consumed eight tons of coal on the voyage, and brought 600 tons as cargo, the whole of which was discharged in the day, and the vessel went back for a further supply. Apart from the facilities for loading and unloading, the certainty with which these steamers will make the passage, will benefit the citizens of London, by saving them from the rise in price which inevitably follows the fall of the thermometer in December.
But with all this, our already crowded river is becoming overcrowded, to remedy which a promising project is afoot for a new dock at Plaistow Marshes, a few miles below London Bridge, where a fleet or two of the ever-multiplying ships may find accommodation. The extent is to be ninety acres, with a mile of wharfage, and nearly 200,000 feet of fireproof warehouse-room. How far this will meet the want, may be inferred from the fact, that the tonnage of the port of London has increased from 990,110 tons in 1828, to 2,170,322 tons in 1852. And if an experience of three years may be relied on, the increase is to be progressive; for of new British-built ships in 1849, the amount was 121,266 tons; in 1850, 137,530 tons; in 1851, 152,563 tons. Such an augmentation shews, that we have nothing to fear from repeal of the Navigation Laws; and the fruits of unrestriction are shewn in the increased size of ships, in their improved external form, and interior accommodation. It may be mentioned here, that the Lords of the Admiralty have ordered that all ships' log-books sent to their department shall be true and faithful copies, with a track-chart of the winds experienced on the outward and homeward voyage, in addition to the usual information. Steam-vessels are to keep a record of the quantity of coal on board at noon each day—of the time it is estimated to last—and of the number of miles steamed in the previous twenty-four hours.
Railways, too, exhibit signs of progress. The gross proceeds of the traffic for the first seven months of 1851 amounted to L.8,254,303, while for the same portion of the present year the sum is L.8,504,002; a result the more striking when it is remembered that last year we had the Exhibition. The new lines opened in 1851 comprised not more than 269 miles—the smallest amount in any year since 1848—so that, at the end of December, we had 6890 miles of railway actually opened, and 5101 miles authorised and still to be made. It is clear that the greater portion of the latter will never be attempted, seeing that people have really found out that railways are not exempt from the operation of the great natural laws of supply and demand. Some of the facts of last year's traffic are astounding: the total number of passengers conveyed was 85,391,095—twelve millions more than in the preceding year; and the aggregate returns amounted to L.14,997,459. What a difference when compared with the sum paid for travel and transport twenty years ago! In the United States, the number of miles of railway actually open is 13,200, which, by the end of 1855, it is expected will be increased to 18,000 or 20,000. There are 27,000 miles of electric telegraphs, but in this estimate the five or six lines between any two places are all counted. On one of the lines from New York to Washington, 253,857 messages were sent in the year ending last July, the toll for which amounted to 103,232 dollars—over L.20,000.
Notwithstanding all this material development, in some respects there is no advance—except it be of fares, which on some lines running out of London have been increased in accordance with 'arrangements' between companies who seem desirous of substituting wholesale monopoly for wholesome competition. Murmurs on every side already attest the effects of such a change of system, and it is to be hoped that imperative means will be found of insuring more attention than at present to the comfort and safety of passengers. No one out of the position of a director or shareholder can see any good reason why English railway carriages should be less comfortably fitted up than those of the continent. How is it that second-class carriages are to be seen abroad with stuffed seats and padded backs, and never in England? It cannot be that we do not pay enough for the accommodation. We pay too much—a fact worth remembering with railway amalgamation looming in the future; an event which must not take place without the public coming in demonstrably as third party.
The British Association have met, and gone through their usual routine of business, with what results—beyond the reports in the public prints—will be best shewn by the movement of science for the next few months. It is always something that knowledge is increased; but whether the accumulating of fact on fact, to the neglect of generalising those facts, be the true means thereunto, remains to be proved. Science has been soaring in search of facts; for the committee appointed to manage the Kew Observatory, thinking that the phenomena of meteorology would answer further questioning, have sent up a balloon, with instruments and observers, to make a series of observations. The temperature was read off from highly sensitive thermometers at each minute during the ascent, so as to ascertain the difference of the heat of successive strata of the atmosphere, and the rate of variation. In the first flight, the party reached the height of 19,500 feet, and came to a temperature of 7 degrees, or 25 degrees below the freezing-point, which, considering the state of the temperature at the surface, was an unexpected result—in fact, an abnormal one; and not dissimilar to that which so much astonished our neighbours across the Channel when Barral and Bixio went up. But if it be abnormal, as is said, it is remarkable that precisely the same temperature was met with at about the same height on the second ascent. Another object was, to bring down specimens of air from different altitudes, for analysis; to try the effect of the actinometer at great elevations; and to note the hygrometric condition. There are to be four ascents, so as, if possible, to obtain something like satisfactory data by repetition; and in due time, detailed reports of the whole of the observations will be made public.
As ozone is at present attracting attention, it might have been worth while to ascertain the proportion of this constituent in the higher regions of the atmosphere. According to Messrs Frémy and Becquerel, the term ozone ought to be abandoned; for, after a series of careful experiments, they have come to the conclusion, that there is no real transformation of matter in the production of ozone, but that it is nothing more than 'electrified oxygen,' or oxygen in a particular state of chemical affinity. Further research will perhaps show us whether they or Schoenbein are in the right. At all events, the inquiry is interesting, particularly at this time, when cholera—to which ozone is antagonistic—is said to be again about to pay us a visit; and seeing that the doctrine of non-contagion, put forth so authoritatively by our General Board of Health, is disputed; and that a certain morbific influence can be conveyed and imparted, is shewn by abundant evidence to be alike probable and possible. What took place lately in Poland is cited as a case in point. Excavations were being made at Lask, near Kalisch, which laid open the cemetery where the bodies of those who died of cholera in 1832 had been buried. All who were engaged in the work died, and the disease spread fatally throughout the neighbourhood. What an important question here remains to be settled! and how is it to be settled while people are unclean and towns undrained?
Astronomers have given good proof of activity during the present year, by the discovery of four new planets and one new comet—two of them by Mr Hind, who has now the merit of having discovered half a dozen of these minor members of our planetary system. Fifty years ago, such an achievement would have made an exalted reputation; but in these days of keen enterprise in science, as well as in commerce, we do not think much of finding such little worlds as those in question. If nothing short of the marvellous is to satisfy us, who shall say that even this will not present itself to the far-piercing ken of the new monster telescope—refracting, not reflecting—established on Wandsworth Common, at the cost of an amateur astronomer, for the promotion of the celestial science? Lord Rosse has now a competitor; and with a tube of eighty feet in length, and the power of looking direct at the distant object, may we not hope to hear of great discoveries by means of the new instrument? Photographers will be able to obtain what has long been a desideratum—a large image of the moon; and the sun will doubtless have to reveal a few more secrets concerning his physical constitution, to say nothing of the remote and mysterious nebulæ. Apropos of the sun, Father Secchi, of the observatory at Rome, has been questioning the great luminary with philosophical apparatus, to ascertain whether any difference could be detected in the heat from different parts of its surface, and the proportion lost in its passage through the atmosphere. He finds that the equatorial region is the hottest; and that, as on our earth, the temperature diminishes towards the poles: it is in the central region that spots most frequently appear. The result of the investigations is that, after allowing for absorption, the heat which comes to the earth corresponds in amount to that inferred from photometric experiments, whereby the experiments made at Paris and at Rome confirm each other.
Now that Mr Fox Talbot has so praiseworthily given up his patent right to Talbotypes, except in the matter of portraits, the art of photography will find itself stimulated to yet further developments; and with free practice, many new applications of it will be discovered. Magic-lantern slides, for instance, obtained from the negative image, are already lowered in price, while their style and finish are singularly beautiful. The architect of the bridge now being built over the Neva, at St Petersburg, is turning it to account in a very practical manner. Being an Englishman, he has had to endure much jealousy and misrepresentation, and attempts have been made to prejudice the authorities against him. To counteract these designs, he takes every week photographs of the work, which distinctly shew its progress, and these he sends to the emperor, who looks at them in a stereoscope of the largest size, and can thus satisfy himself of the actual condition of the bridge by means which malice or envy would not easily falsify. If the photograph shews finished arches, of what use will it be to deny their existence? People out of Russia may perhaps find it worth while to try the same experiment; and before long, a new order of 'detectives' on elevated stations, will be taking photographs of all that passes in the streets, and pickpockets in delicto will find their offence and their likeness imprinted by one and the same process. With such a means of detection, and all the police stations connected by telegraphic wires, what are the thieves to do?
Manchester shews itself earnest in the cause of education, by having established a Free Library of 16,000 volumes for reference, and 5000 for lending, and paid for it by voluntary subscription—L.800 of which was contributed by 20,000 of the working-classes. To their honour be it recorded! But the inhabitants have done yet more; they have made over the library to the town-council, that it may become one of their public institutions, and have agreed to pay a half-penny rate to provide the necessary funds for its perpetual maintenance. May they have their reward!
Considering that educational reform or renovation may erelong be looked for at Oxford, in accordance with the recommendations of the University Commission, it behoves other parts of the kingdom to be fully awake to the importance of the subject. 'There is a spreading conviction, that man was made for a higher purpose than to be a beast of burden, or a creature of sense;' and it will not do to stifle this conviction. Comprehensive endeavours must be made to educate and enlighten; to touch the heart as well as to train the intellect. And it must not be forgotten, that education involves very much besides mere book-learning—the mechanical duties, namely, of everyday life. Something of the latter is to be tried in the City Hospice and Soup-kitchen just opened near the foot of Holborn Hill. Though fitted up in an old house, it is a training institute of a new kind, where individuals of both sexes will acquire useful knowledge in a practical way, best explained by a passage from the report of the opening:
'In one portion of the educational department is an ironing-table, provided with the necessary utensils, for the purpose of instructing the women and girls in that necessary portion of domestic science, from the finest description of work down to the very coarsest. Adjoining this is a table laid out en famille; this also being considered, and justly so, no unimportant branch of knowledge. In another portion is a table prepared for a large party: every variety of glass likely to be required being properly placed, and every napkin being differently folded, so as to enable the ambitious neophyte to suit the taste of all mistresses. Beyond this is a small closet, with a window resembling those of an ordinary-sized house; and this the men and women are both taught to clean, while the closet itself serves as a cover for the simple operation of polishing boots and shoes. To this succeeds a table, upon which are placed the utensils for cleaning plate, and on another table the instruments for cleaning lamps.' Such an establishment ought to prosper; and perhaps this one will, if the giving away of soup for nothing, which is another part of its functions, does not kill it. There seems something incongruous in encouraging industry and self-reliance with one hand, and helplessness with the other.
On the whole, it must be admitted that we are making progress, and those who think so, may very properly talk about it. Among a large number, the Crystal Palace becomes daily a greater subject of importance. Soon the last portions of the famous structure will be removed from Hyde Park, to rise in renewed beauty on the hill-slope at Sydenham; where the restored edifice is to become a permanent object of interest, far transcending all previous achievements in the way of exhibitions.
Of foreign matters which have attracted attention, there is the remarkable fall of grain, not rain, in Belgium, a few weeks since, of a kind altogether unknown in that country. Some of it has been sown, with a view to judge of it by the plant; meanwhile, the learned are speculating as to its origin. The Dutch, pursuing their steady course of reclamation, have just added some hundreds of acres to their territory on the borders of the Scheldt; and it is said that the grand enterprise of draining the Haarlemmer-Meer is at last completed, there being nothing now left but a small running stream across the lowest part of the basin. The quantity pumped away in the last eight months of 1851, averaged a little over three inches per month, a small amount, apparently; but when it is known, that lowering the lake one inch only took away four million tons of water, we may form a fair idea of the importance of the work, and of the quantity lifted in the eight months. The depth at the beginning of this year was three feet eight inches, and this is now discharged. To have carried such a work to a successful issue, may be ranked among the greatest of engineering triumphs.
To turn to another part of the world: there is something interesting from the Sandwich Islands. The king wishes to assimilate his government to that of England, to guard against the casualty of a coup d'état, and a small military force has been organised for defence. The Report of the Minister of the Interior states, that 130 persons had taken the oath of allegiance within the year, of whom 66 were citizens of the United States; 31 British; 15 Chinese; and 18 of other countries. The foreign letters received and sent numbered 24,787—more than half to the United States; besides which 31,050 domestic letters were transmitted among the group of islands. There are 535 free-schools, of which 431 are Protestant, with 12,976 scholars, and 104 Roman Catholic, with 2056 scholars. There were 1171 marriages; and the population returns shew that the number of natives is still slowly on the decrease, the births among them having been 2424, while the deaths were 5792.
