74 



INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES. 



he added, "could not increase either 

 my fame or my happiness." 



ROMANCE OP THE ELECTRIC TELE- 

 GRAPH. 



A newspaper paragraph relates, 

 that a Liverpool citizen, touring in 

 Holland, suddenly found himself in 

 want of 100 ; instead of writing 

 from Amsterdam to Liverpool and 

 waiting the return of post, an ope- 

 ration of five or six days, he walks 

 into the telegraph office and sends 

 a few words by lightning to state 

 his need. This was at twelve o'clock. 

 A turn or two on the quays, round 

 the square of the Palace, would 

 bring him to the hour of dinner. 

 Six o'clock found him at his v/ine. 

 A tap at the door, a stranger is 

 introduced : " Have I the honour 



to address M. ]" "Yes." 



" Our London correspondent desires 

 us to place in your hands a cheque 

 for 100." The Athenceum relates 

 an anecdote which has a different 

 interest. The scene is the Prague 

 railway-station in Vienna; the 

 time, six in the morning, on the 

 arrival of the great train from 

 Dresden, Prague, and Brunn. An 

 Englishman, who has lost his pass- 

 port, is on his way to a guard-house, 

 conducted by a Croat soldier, on 

 suspicion of being a refugee and a 

 conspirator. He has about him let- 

 ters to various persons in Hungary 

 and in Italy, chiefly patriots and, 

 knowing the Austrians, he is alto- 

 gether conscious that his case is 

 bad. Arrived at the guard-house, 

 he is asked to tell the story of his 

 life, those of the lives of his father, 

 mother, friends, and acquaintances. 

 He is cross-questioned, doubted, 

 threatened. Of course, he lets them 

 know that he is a free-born Briton, 

 and he plainly hints that they had 

 better mind what they are about. 

 His words are disbelieved, and put 

 down as evidence against him. He 

 is without a passport, and every 

 man without a passport is a vaga- 



bond. A thought strikes him: 

 when he entered Austria at Boden- 

 bach, he remembers that he was 

 detained a couple of hours while 

 the police looked into his passport 

 and copied it into their books. That 

 entry must still be there. He ap- 

 peals to it, and suggests an inquiry 

 by telegraph if his story be not 

 true. The Croats, with their long 

 guns and baker-boy faces, stare in 

 bewilderment : they were probably 

 thinking of the glacis and a short 

 range. But the official could not 

 refuse the appeal, especially as the 

 prisoner offered to pay the expenses 

 of the inquiry. Away flashed the 

 lightning along the plains of Mo- 

 ravia, by the Moldau and the Elbe, 

 through the mountains of Bohemia 

 to the heart of the Saxon Switzer- 

 land; the book was opened, the 

 story found, and the reply sent 

 back. By ten o'clock the answer 

 was at the gates of Vienna, the 

 Croats gave up their spoil, and in 

 less than an hour afterwards the 

 tourist was enjoying a Viennese 

 breakfast at the Herz-Erzhog Karl. 

 In such anecdotes we see how 

 science has tended to lengthen life 

 by superseding the necessity for 

 intervals of waste, and assisted to 

 disarm the despotisms of the world, 

 by atoning for accidents and offer- 

 ing a ready means for innocence to 

 vindicate itself as it does, in other 

 cases, for the circumventing and 

 overtaking of guilt. 



ELECTRO-TELEGRAPHIC STORM. 



M. Breguet, in a letter to 3.1. 

 Arago, records the following re- 

 markable instance of the electric 

 telegraph being interrupted by at- 

 mospheric electricity : 



It appears that one afternoon, at 

 five o'clock, during a heavy fall of 

 rain, the bells of the electric tele- 

 gi-aph, placed in a small shed at 

 one end of the St. Germain's At- 

 mospheric Eailway, began to ring, 

 which led the attendant to suppose 



