Chapter XVIII, of Cassells Illustrated History of England, Volume 9 page 2

Mr. Walpole, the new Home Secretary, a man of remarkable humanity and gentleness, was afflicted beyond measure by the turn which matters had taken. He received a deputation of the Leaguers at the Home Office two days afterwards, and in conversation with them actually shed tears, and came to the somewhat ignominious understanding with them, that the Government would cause the police and the military to be withdrawn from the park, until the question as to the legal right of the people to claim admission to it had been decided, the League meantime undertaking to do its best to prevent any breach of the peace or other misconduct within the park enclosure! The consequence of such deplorable weakness may be conceived. In a London paper of the following week, it was stated: " The park is still infested, night after night, by numerous bands of thieves and ruffians, who are left to prey on defenceless passengers or unwary loungers after dusk, without the slightest interference of the park-keepers or the police. Several gross outrages, perpetrated in Hyde Park, about eight or nine o'clock in the evening, since the enclosure was destroyed last week, have been narrated by the sufferers themselves, or by witnesses to the fact, in letters to the daily papers.... A herd of men and boys, estimated at 300 or 400, of the worst class of habitual malefactors, are permitted to assemble and prowl about the ground, waiting for an opportunity of plunder."

In Parliament the conduct of the Government in prohibiting the meeting was much canvassed, and, by some speakers, severely censured. Mr. Ayrton said, that instead of appealing at once to force, the Home Secretary ought to have met the people in a conciliatory spirit on the matter of right, and should have issued a temperate notification explaining how the case really stood. Mr. Mill declared that if the people had not a right to meet in the parks they ought to have it. He added that, as the Government seemed inclined to enrol their names on the list of those who could do more mischief in an hour than others could repair in years, he exhorted them to consider seriously the gravity of what they had done on this occasion. But the majority of speakers, including all statesmen of long experience, on both sides of the House, were of opinion that the Government, though perhaps every step taken by Mr. Walpole might not have been judicious, were substantially justified in what they had done; and Mr. Disraeli struck precisely the right chord, when he declared that " it had never entered the minds of ministers that the real working man, whose general orderly conduct he cordially acknowledged, would commit acts of riot, but they believed that the scum of the great city would take advantage of such an assemblage, and the justice of their apprehensions was proved by the event."

The Queen's speech at the close of the session was read by the new Lord Chancellor (Lord Chelmsford), on the 10th August. It contained several paragraphs on the Fenian conspiracy, and the doings of the Fenians both in Ireland and in Canada, recording in terms of grateful acknowledgment the good faith and promptitude of the United States Government in checking at the outset " any attempted invasion of a friendly state." It alluded with satisfaction to the fact that, although the late Ministry, in the presence of a financial crisis of almost unexampled severity, had authorised the Bank of England to infringe the letter of the Bank Charter Act of 1844, if such a step were required for the accommodation of their customers, yet no such infringement had actually taken place, the Bank having been able to weather the storm without it. It spoke of the gradual mitigation of the cattle-plague, of the late visitation of cholera, and of the successful laying of the Atlantic cable. The murrain had, indeed, continued its ravages during the earlier half of the year; but, fortunately, as time went on, the stringent precautions which had been enforced by the Privy Council produced the desired effect: the cases showed a progressive reduction in number; and by the end of the year the plague, though not extinct, was in a material degree abated. Wales continued almost wholly exempt from the disease; in the south of England its virulence was continually on the decline; only in the north-western counties it seemed to hold its ground tenaciously, and in the dairy farms of Cheshire many ancient pastures were given up in despair to the plough. The total loss to the country from the disease, even in this year of improvement, was computed at not less than £3,500,000 in money.

The visitation of the cholera this year was light in comparison with what it was in some foreign cities, and with what it had been in former years in London. The deaths from cholera did not materially affect the returns of mortality for the year; they certainly fell short of eight thousand. In Austria, it was computed that at least 100,000 persons were carried off by cholera in this year, and there was hardly a week in which the deaths in London were not exceeded by those in some continental cities with scarce a tenth of its population. This result was certainly owing in great part to the sanitary precautions and improvements carried out by the Cholera Committee. A curious phenomenon connected with this visitation of cholera was the appearance of a peculiar blue mist, thus described by Mr. Glaisher, the meteorologist, writing on the 30th July: - " On looking from the grounds of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, under the trees towards the boundary walls of the park, I saw the same dense blue mist, which has continued without intermission to the present time, though somewhat less in density this morning. Ordinary mists pass away when the wind blows with a pressure of half a pound on the square foot. Since last Monday we have had pressure of the wind varying from a quarter of a pound to nine pounds, blowing continually for from sixty to seventy hours, yet there has been no change in this blue appearance. I have examined the atmosphere daily for this blueness, particularly during the last twelve months, and have never seen anything like it since 1854. This blue mist is apparent on all sides; it extends fully to the tops of the trees, though it is not then so easy to distinguish. It is most easily discernible through as much atmosphere as possible, viewed from under a tree, looking under other trees. Thus seen, the boundary walls of Greenwich Park, and all objects near them are coloured blue; or through gaps in trees, if there are others at a sufficient distance to form a background, when it resembles thin smoke from a wood fire. The intensity of the blue is increased when seen through a telescope with a low power.... The only other tint of mist I know connected with the prevalence of epidemic is that of a yellow mist, perceptible in like manner when scarlatina is prevalent; in neither case is there any excess of humidity in the air."

The disease kept extending itself as the summer advanced, until it reached its culminating point in the fortnight between the 21st of July and the 4th of August; in the week ending on the last-named day 1,053 deaths from cholera were reported in London. Then all at once it began to subside, and before the month of August had passed, the Lord Mayor was enabled to suggest a large appropriation of the funds which had been liberally subscribed by charitable persons (the Queen sent £500) for the formation and support of cholera hospitals, to the assistance of those who had been left orphans by the epidemic.

The enterprise of laying an insulated electric cable at the bottom of the Atlantic, in order to secure instantaneous telegraphic communication between Europe and America - first attempted in 1857, crowned with a fleeting and illusory success in 1858, and partially accomplished hi 1865 - was in the summer of this year completely realised, not only by the successful laying of the cable of 1866, but by the recovery from the bottom of the sea of the cable of 1865, which was then pieced on to a new wire rope, and carried safely onward to the shore of Newfoundland. A brief survey of the previous unsuccessful attempts will not be uninstructive. In the first, that of 1857, the cable was of a clumsy and ponderous description, if compared with the lighter and relatively stronger ropes afterwards adopted. Two men-of-war, the Agamemnon and the Niagara, composed the expedition; the Niagara paying out the cable. When 380 miles had been paid out, the cable broke, and the ships returned to port. In 1858, the same ships were employed, and a new plan was tried. the ships proceeded to the middle of the Atlantic, each with 1,500 miles of cable on board; here they effected a splice of the two ends of their respective cargoes, and proceeded in different directions, the Agamemnon to the eastward, the Niagara to the westward, paying out as they went. Even to the uninitiated this plan would appear to expose the cable to a needless amount of additional strain, and therefore to increase the risk of fracture. Twice the cable broke after less than fifty miles had been paid out; each time the vessels retraced their course, found each other on the waste of waters, effected a fresh splice, and went on paying out as before. A third time the cable broke, when about 140 miles had been submerged; a third time the vessels returned to the watery rendezvous, but they now failed to meet, and each returned separately to Queenstown. A fourth attempt, at the end of July, was more successful; though the signalling was repeatedly interrupted during the paying-out process, the cable did not actually break, and the end was supposed to have been accomplished. The Niagara brought her end to Trinity Bay on the 5th August, and on the same day the Agamemnon brought hers to Valentia. Messages of congratulation were interchanged between the Queen and the President of the United States (Mr. Buchanan), and for a short time there was great exultation. But a suspiciously great expenditure of electricity was required on one side of the ocean in order to affect the instrument on the other, and the movements of the needle continually became more like those which are produced by the normal electric currents that course through land and sea - " ojpis haud ind-iga nostrœ " The indications became feebler and feebler, and before any commercial use had been made of the cable, they ceased entirely.

Great disappointment was felt in both continents, and for some years no fresh attempt was made. In 1864, a new company was formed, under the auspices of which a new cable was manufactured on a simpler and better plan, and in July, 1865, the Great Eastern, accompanied by the Sjphynx and the Terrible, men-of-war, commenced to lay it from Yalentia. 1,200 miles of cable had been paid out, and a distance of only 600 miles remained to be traversed, when, while engaged in hauling in upon the cable, in order to discover and remove a "fault" which had revealed itself, the adventurers had the mortification of seeing it suddenly part. All three ships then began to fish for the cable with the greatest diligence; but although repeatedly grappled, it always snapped before it could be raised to the surface, and, after losing an inconceivable amount of rope, and all to no purpose, the expedition returned to England.

From the diary kept by the Secretary of the Anglo- American Telegraph Construction Company on board the Great Eastern, we extract a few interesting particulars with reference to her successful voyage in 1866. She took her departure from Berehaven, Bantry Bay, on the 12th July, having the cable stowed away in large coils in two immense tanks, one forward, the other aft. The ship was commanded by Captain Anderson; the " cable crew," and everything connected with the laying of the cable, was under the superintendence of Mr. Canning. The plan was, that the immense vessel, propelled both by paddles and screw, and, therefore, more manageable than a vessel dependent on one source of motion, should steam slowly ahead, paying out the cable as she went over the stern, through machinery invented for the purpose in the preceding year by Messrs. Canning and Clifford, which had been found to answer admirably. The shore end of the cable, which had been laid at Foilhummerum Bay, in Valentia Island, some days previously, was brought on board the Great Eastern on the 13th instant, and made fast to the cable; as soon as the splice was effected, the paying-out process immediately commenced. For some days the weather was everything that could be wished; it seemed as if " old ocean smiled " upon the enterprise; on the 16tli, the sea was so still and smooth that the masts of the convoy were reflected in the water, an unusual thing to see. Three men-of-war took part in the expedition, ready to give immediate aid, if necessary - the Terrible, the Albany, and the Medway. The insulation of the cable was perfect; communication between the ship and Valentia was uninterruptedly maintained, and the last news from Europe, received through the cable, was printed each day on board, under the title of the Great Eastern Telegraph. The first check to the prosperous progress of the undertaking occurred on the 18th July, and it was a very alarming one. A " foul flake " took place in the after tank, containing, originally, more than 800 miles of cable, while the paying-out was tranquilly going on, a short time after midnight. The engines were immediately turned astern, and the paying-out of cable stopped. " It was found that the coil being paid out had caught three turns of the flake immediately under it, and carried them into the eye of the coil, fouling the lay-out and hauling up one and a half turns from the outside and five turns, in the eye of the under flake." To compare great things with small, the emergency was like the tangle which often befalls a lady's skein of silk or worsted, as it is being reeled off from the back of a chair, or from clumsy hands. No fishing line was ever entangled worse than the rope was, when thrust up in apparently hopeless knots from the eye of the coil to the deck. There lay at least 500 feet of rope in this delightful condition; the rain was falling all the time heavily, and the wind getting up. Mr. Canning feared that he would be compelled to cut the cable and buoy it, and the ominous order was given to " stand by to let go the buoy." Captain Anderson, however, conned the ship, and directed the working of wheels and screw, with such admirable skill and judgment, as to keep the ship as nearly as possible right over the rope, so that it should hang straight up and down; in this way the dire necessity of cutting the cable was averted. Meantime, the cable crew had discovered the nature of the tangle, and, by dint of an hour and a half's hard work, succeeded in clearing it, so that soon after 2 A.M., the paying out of the cable could be recommenced. All through this critical period, the insulation of the cable continued to be " simply perfect."