collection was a larger, richer, and more comprehensive one than was anticipated. It has fully satisfied-rather say it has agreeably surprised-every one who visited it, and mostly those who were most capable of appreciating it. It is a truism to add therefore that it has beyond question been the means of diffusing a very large amount of intellectual enjoyment; and, after our rapid survey of the accumulated treasures, it is almost unnecessary to say that it has afforded an unprecedented opportunity of comparison and study to the student of the fine and ornamental arts. Whether pecuniarily profitable or not, this, we should think, must be admitted to be a great success. But though there is no very important pecuniary profit, it is now certain that after all expenses are paid, there will remain a surplus.

Further it has, we cannot but believe, had some beneficial influence in bringing together different classes, different social grades,-the mere men of business and those of artistic tastes, the cultivated and the labouring classes. Of the thousands to whom Manchester was chiefly known by name, a visit to the city will have left associations of a far more agreeable kind than their preconceptions would have permitted them to expect. The exhibition itself was admirably calculated to produce mutual good feeling. As the Prince Consort, said in well-considered words at the opening of the exhibition," the building and the wonderful treasures of art which it displays must strike the beholder with grateful admiration, not only of the wealth and spirit of enterprise of this country, but also of that generous feeling of mutual confidence and good will between the different classes of society within it, of which it affords so gratifying a proof." If it has done something to extend a generous feeling of mutual confidence and goodwill between the different classes of society," it will assuredly not have been unsuccessful.

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The direct educational result will not probably be very apparent. But it is not necessarily wanting, because not immediately, or even at all, palpable. All that any such effort can accomplish is to arouse interest, to stimulate inquiry; and if the Manchester Exhibition has done this--if among its hundreds of thousands of visitors it has by the master-pieces of ancient and modern painters, or the graceful forms and exquisite workmanship of the objects of ornamental art, done something to refine as well as to widen the range of thought, and purify the taste-and who shall say that it has not ?-it will have accomplished much. Its practical influence on the designer and the manufacturer ought to have been great, for there was much in the Exhibition to instruct them.

Locally there can be little doubt that a great amount of interest has been aroused, and it is earnestly to be hoped that, before it subsides, some practical step will be taken to turn it to lasting purpose. One step has been taken, and we may hope that with their proverbial energy the men of Manchester will follow it up. They have purchased the Soulage Collection. It affords an excellent nucleus for a permanent free gallery of ornamental art; let it be gradually rendered more complete by the addition of articles, not of mere costly curiosity (however the fashion of the day may incline that way), but of real intrinsic beauty. A truly educational museum might thus be

formed, and one which might be rendered generally instructive by lectures, &c. It has been said that the Manchester mechanics and labourers have not been reached by the Exhibition. Probably not. To derive actual instruction from such objects, there is required previous knowledge beyond that which they are likely to have possessed. But the Executive Committee hardly did as much as they might to extend the benefits of the Exhibition downwards. There were, it is true, the "sixpenny days," of which much was said, and they were a great boon. They were, however, not whole days, being only from 2 o'clock on Saturday (when the factories and warehouses are closed), and lasting little more than through September, and it required many afternoons of even a well-trained visitor to see the Exhibition to profit. The little time the mechanic could afford was moreover sadly wasted, owing to the absence of plain explanatory and descriptive labels on the pictures and other objects, and the attractions of the music-which was commonly regarded as a part of the programme to be done.' Still among them we are satisfied good was effected. As we have already said, we saw them in considerable numbers, examining the pictures with intelligent earnestness, and we have been assured by those who have had better opportunities of knowing, that the Manchester labourers have largely participated in the enjoyment and instruction which the exhibition has afforded. Let the Manchester merchants see to it, that their permanent Art Museum is so planned that all classes may participate in its educational advantages.

On the whole then we are inclined to regard the Exhibition as having been far more decidedly successful than was to be expected in any provincial town, however large. To be really successful-to place the pecuniary result beyond the risk of failure-to afford the largest possible amount of instruction to persons prepared to receive it by previous studies to diffuse enjoyment among the greatest numbers-the metropolis is evidently the only proper place for an Exhibition so comprehensive in its plan. If this had not been sufficiently obvious before, the experience of the Manchester, following that of the Dublin Exhibition, will have placed the matter beyond doubt. It would seem indeed that special Exhibitions, taking as wide and comprehensive a grasp of their object as possible, are what are really best adapted for provincial towns. Such a magnificent collection of articles of ornamental art as this, for instance, would have been invaluable at Birmingham, where it would have come directly home to the daily occupations of a considerable proportion of the population. Why should not such an one be even now got up? And why might not London have, not immediately, perhaps, but within a year or two, a grand gathering of pictures and sculpture-one which, making use of the experienee acquired at Manchester, should really include the best obtainable specimens of every school and time? Such a collection would be educational in the best sense and we believe that it would not be found necessary to expend an enormous sum upon drums, fiddles, and organs, in order to induce persons to visit it. A collection of the great works of the greatest painters ought to be able to depend upon its own merits.

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Moreover it requires the concentration of the attention with which the continual sound of music sadly interferes. The band at Manchester was a terrible tax upon the visitors' nerves as well as the Exhibition funds. It was a very good band, and the organ a very good organ, no doubt-but from our Manchester experience we should not advise the Royal Academicians to engage Jullien for their great room during their next season.

But let us acknowledge our debt to the men of Manchester, and emphatically to the Executive Committee. They placed within the reach of the English student and the English public such an Art Exhibition as they never before enjoyed—such as in this generation they could scarcely have hoped to enjoy. And let us repeat that all their arrangements were made, and their proceedings conducted to the end, in a large and liberal spirit. In a word, they conceived a magnificent scheme, and they carried it out right worthily.

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We have not cared in this record of the Manchester Exhibition to weary the reader with statistics. It is announced, apparently with authority, that an Official Statistical Account of the Exhibition containing all the details of the plan from its first conception to its termination," will be shortly published, and in that will no doubt be found as many figures as the most statistic-loving reader can de sire. We may just note generally that, according to the Preliminary Report, the Exhibition, during the five months it remained open, received above a million and a quarter visits (1,335,915)-one million (1,053,538) by payment at the doors, the rest by seasontickets. The receipts from all sources amounted to 98,500l., the expenditure to 99,5007. The entire outlay, including the expense of returning the various articles to their owners, is estimated at 104,000l., being an excess of 5,500l. over the receipts; but to meet this there are the materials of the building, which have been estimated to fetch some 15,000l.; so that, after all expenses are paid, it is believed there will remain in the hands of the Executive Committee a surplus of from 5,000l. to 10,000l. In the course of this sketch we have spoken of the building as a still existing edifice, its removal not having been decided on when we wrote. Its doom has, however, now gone forth, and by the time this will be in the reader's hands the building will probably be in course of demolition.

THE ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH:-THE FUTURE OF ELECTRO-TELEGRAPHY.

JUST ten years ago Lord Palmerston made a remarkable prediction, which, although expressed by him very much like a joke, his lordship would now be heartily glad to find something more than a joke. It was to the effect that the day would come when, if a minister were to be asked in Parliament whether war had broken out in India, he would reply, "Wait a minute: I'll just telegraph to the Governor-General, and let you know." When a period of two to three months elapses between the sending of a message or request from Calcutta to London, and the receipt of an answer thereto; when this is the utmost rapidity which the advances of railways and electric telegraphs have, even now, placed within our power; when the lives of thousands of English men and women, and the safety of the British empire in the East, are more or less dependent on rapid communication of intelligence-it is at such a time that the importance of telegraphy becomes keenly felt.

Although the main purpose of the present Article is to notice the great experiment of an Atlantic Telegraph, we may fittingly commence with a brief view of the whole system as it at present exists, and as it is foreshadowed in the future. In the Companion to the Almanac for 1843, in an Article on Recent Applications of Electricity to the Arts,' the various electric telegraphs planned up to that time were described in their scientific principles and their mechanical construction. In the volume for 1848 the subject was taken up a second time, with a record that submarine telegraphy had just commenced. Lastly, in the volume for 1853, the great lines of telegraph, land and sea, were described, with an intimation that the transatlantic scheme was under consideration. After a third quinquennial period a brief additional view of the telegraphic system may not be unacceptable.

At the present time almost every important town in Great Britain, with the exception of Inverness in the far north, and Falmouth in the south-west, is furnished with means of telegraphic communication to other towns. As fast as any new railways, whether trunk or branch lines, are opened, so surely is the telegraph now laid down; insomuch that the length of telegraph is nearly coincident with the length of rail. The exceptions to this rule are so few as scarcely to disturb the simplicity of the rule itself. From Cornhill, from Charing Cross, from the Government offices, and from numerous other places in the metropolis, messages are every day being quickly flashed to Aberdeen in one direction, to Liverpool in another, to Dover in a third, to Southampton in a fourth, to Plymouth, to Milford Haven, to Holyhead-indeed, to almost all of our outports, and to nearly every inland town of any commercial pretensions. A system is everywhere acted on that the principal railway stations shall at the same time be telegraph stations, some of the wires being for public use, and the others for railway use. The charges have been gradually lowered, to the great advantage of all parties; and the messages now sent are of countless variety-the price of funds, the

state of the markets, orders to purchase, the arrival of ships, the receipt of important news, the Queen's speeches, the result of elections, the divisions on a debate, the running of a race, the progress of the Court while travelling, the state of the weather, the verdict in an important trial, the sending for a doctor, the detection of a thief or murderer, inquiries after health, announcements of illness or of death, inquiries after lost luggage-these are only some of the open or confidential communications intrusted to the copper wires. In most parts of England the wires, as from the commencement of the system in this country, are supported on poles at a height of several feet from the ground; but in a few cases, such as along the old mail-coach road from London to Dover, a subterranean arrangement has been adopted: the wires being encased in a wooden trough, and deposited a foot or two beneath the surface of the ground.*

Next, in relation to the wires linking Great Britain with other countries. Here the submarine principle has been brought very remarkably into operation. Beginning at the north, and working half round the island, we first meet with the Portpatrick and Carrickfergus cable (24 miles) dipping between the North Channel of the Irish Sea, and connecting Scotland with Ireland. At one end it joins two land-telegraphs, the forerunners of railways possibly to be constructed hereafter: one from Portpatrick through Stranraer to Ayr and the centre of Scotland, the other through Stranraer to Dumfries and the general net-work of British lines. At the other end the cable is connected with wires running along the Irish railways. Without any difficulty a message is sent from London to Ireland via Dumfries without regard to circuitousness of route; for the electric current recks little of distance. Next comes the Holyhead and Dublin cable (64 miles), joined at one end to the Welsh and English lines of telegraph, at the other end to the Irish lines. In the south is the Hants and Isle of Wight cable, not very important commercially, but establishing electric communication with Her Majesty's marine residence at Osborne; it is connected at Hurst Castle with a land-wire running through Lymington to the Brockenhurst station, and at the other end with a land-wire passing through Yarmouth to Osborne. Farther east is the Dover and Calais cable (22 miles), connected at the two ends with the systems of telegraphs belonging to England and France respectively. Another is the Dover and Ostend cable, connecting England with the Belgian and European wires generally. Lastly, there is the Orfordness and Hague cable, joined at one end to a land-wire running to the Ipswich station, and connected at the other with the Dutch telegraphs. All these cables are thicker than that intended for the Atlantic, presently

A judicial investigation, just concluded, has brought to light the fact that the electric telegraph, in proportion to its wonderful efficacy, requires caution and intelligence in its management, else it may increase rather than diminish the chances of accidents during railway travelling. A cattle train broke down on a Welsh railway, midway between two stations. The telegraph clerks at those stations, when informed of the disaster, opened communications with a view of determining what should be done with three or four other trains shortly expected. In consequence either of a confusion in the apparatus, or of unskilfulness in the workers, the men could not understand each other's messages; they misinterpreted instructions; a down train was allowed to go upon the up line; a collision with an up-train occurred; and the result was very fatal to the passengers.