1840] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



279 



taxation which tends to separate the interests of tlie Kaihvay Companies and 

 of the public, and whicli will gradually exclude a great number of persons 

 from the benefit of cheap conveyance. 



Two modes of altering the present system of taxation have been proposed, 

 by which the inconvenience above mentioned would be removed. 



One suggestion is, to substitute a per-centage on tlie gross receipts derived 

 from passengers, in lieu of the present tax. Tlie assessor of stage-coach 

 duties, an officer in the department of stamps and taxes, has stated that five 

 per cent, on the gi'O.'s receipts derived from passengers, wo\ild produce about 

 the same amount of revenue as is raised under the present system. This 

 would relieve railways from that inequality of which many complain ; and 

 several of the petitions leferred to your committee recommend this as the 

 best course wliich could be adopted. 



Another suggestion has, however, been ottered to your committe, which 

 would be much more favourable to the interests of the puljlic, namely, to 

 establish a graduated scale of taxation, by which the amount of the tax should 

 be made immediately dajjendant on the amount of the fare ; the great advan- 

 tage such a system would be that it would act as a check on high fares, and 

 •would hold out an inducement to Railway ComiKinies to accommodate every 

 portion of the community. 



A scale of graduation has been submitted to your committee by Captain 

 Lawes, which will serve to illustrate this plan. JIany Railway Companies 

 are limited by .ict of Pai'Uament to a maximum charge of 3Jd. per mile for 

 a passenger. Captain Lawes proposes that on all fares exceeding 70 percent. 

 of the maximum allowed by the act, a duty of 10 per cent, should be levied ; 

 on all fares exceeding -iO and under "0 per cent., a duty of five per cent, 

 should be levied ; on all fares l)elow 40 per cent, a duty of two and a half 

 per cent, should be le\ied. 



Mr. Wickham, the chairman of the stamps and taxes, stated his objection 

 to the plan to arise from' a belief that such a graduated scale would be evaded, 

 and that the revenue \vould suffer a loss, or at least would not receive the in- 

 crease which may be expected from a continuance of the present system. 



According to the calculation made by Mr. Smith, upon the accounts ren- 

 dered to your committee by several Railway Companies, it appears that there 

 would be a considerable increase of duty by the adoption of the proposed 

 scale. 



Your committee have examined into the different objections urged against 

 a graduated scale, which are, the danger of fraud, by which the revenue 

 might suffer, and the difficulty of collecting duties varying in proportion to 

 the fare. 



It is the interest of even.' Company that all its accounts should be kept in 

 a clear and intelligible form, and in this respect the interests of the Company 

 and of the Government are identical ; mider a proper system of accounts it 

 does not appear to your committee that frauds could lie practised without 

 detection ; and the mode of issuing tickets adduced by Mr. Edmoustone, or 

 some similar metliod, would afford considerable facility for the introduction 

 of a graduated scale of duty. 



Your committee do not recommend that the scale proposed by Captain 

 Lawes should lie adopted, because they think tb.at the duty of 10 per cent, 

 would be too high ; but they would recommend, that wherever no maximum 

 has been fixed by Act of Parliament, 3id. per mile should be considered to 

 he the maximum, for the purpose of this graduated taxation ; and tliat on all 

 fares exceeding 70 per cent, of this maximum, a duty of 71 per cent, should 

 be levied ; on all fares exceeding 40 and under 70 per cent., a duty of 5 per 

 cent, should be levied; and on all fares below 40 per cent, a duty of 2i per 

 cent, should be levied. They believe that a scale thus graduated would be 

 found more just than the present system, and that while it would not di- 

 minish the revenue, it would afford relief and continued accommodation to 

 the poorer classes of the community. 



Your committee would further suggest, that if it be expedient that such an 

 alteration should be made, it is desirable that it should be carried into effect 

 with as httle delay as possible, because every alteration in the principle of a 

 tax becomes more difficult in proportion to the extension of the traffic to 

 which it applies ; the traffic itself is thereby more deranged, and especially in 

 this case it is expedient that in those districts where railways have been al- 

 lowed to compound for the existing tax, a substittition to the graduated scale 

 should enable them still to afford accommodation to the labouring class, 

 before they have been induced to abandon their present system of cheap 

 conveyance. 



Two other subjects have been incidentally brought under the notice of 

 your committee, on which they are desirous of offering a few observations to 

 the House. 



The rapid conveyance of troops from one part of the country to another is 

 occasionally an object of great national importance ; and, for this purpose, 

 provision is annuaUy made in the Mutiny Act, whereby in cases of emergency 

 " all justices are required within their several jurisdictions to issue their war- 

 rants for the provision not only of waggons, wains, carts and cars, kept by or 

 belonging to any person, and for any use whatsoever ; but also of saddle- 

 horses, coaches, post-chaises, chaises and other four-wheeled carriages kept 

 for hire, and also of boats, barges, and other vessels used for the transport of 

 any commodities whatsoever upon any canal or navigalile river." Your com- 

 mittee recommend that similar powers should be taken with regard to rail- 

 way conveyance, on payment of a reasonable snm in consideration of the 

 accommodation required. 



It appears that on the Great Western Eailway experiments have been made 



to a considerable extent, with a view of ascertaining the best means of con- 

 veying intelligence through the medium of electricity. There is no necessary 

 connexion between railways and tliis new mode of communication, except 

 that a railway possesses continuity of property between two distant jilaces ; 

 and, also, that the numerous servants of an established railway are available 

 to protect the uir.chiuei'y required for the purposes of this comnumication. 



Mr. AVheatstone, Professor of Experimental Philosopliy in King's College, 

 has for some years turned his attention to this subject, and has, in conjunc- 

 tion with Jlr. Cooke, olrtained patents for his inventions. From his evidence, 

 which is especially deserving of notice, it appears that there is no difficulty in 

 conveying intelligence to any part of the island, with an aliuost instantaneous 

 rajiidity, by means of a few copper wires, and small galvanic batteries. There 

 is great ingenuity in the various modes in which Mr. \Vheatstone has applied 

 the power of electricity to alphabetical communications, and your committee 

 believe that in a short time further improvements in this mode of intercourse 

 will simplify the machinery, and render the correspondence between distant 

 parts of the island more speedy and certain than Ijy means of such telegraphs 

 as have been usually employed. 



Mr. Saunders, the secretan' of tl'.e Great '^'estern Railway, states the ex- 

 pense of constructing the electrical telegraph on the line of that railway to 

 have been from .-S250 to £300 a mile. This description of telegraph, how- 

 ever, when once constructed, is worked at a very trifling expense, whereas 

 the telegraph now in use between London and Portsmouth, independent of 

 the original outlay, costs about £3,300 a year, and the Unes of telegraphic 

 communication to Plymouth, to Yarmouth, and to Deal, were abandoned in 

 the year ISIG, on account of the expenditure required for their maintenance. 



Whenever a telegraph shall have been laid down between London and the 

 other ports and mercantile cities of the island, it will give to its jiroprietors 

 great advam ages in obtaining .md transmitting information, whicli must be 

 attended with most important results. For the purposes of tlie railway itself 

 this telegraph may also be frequently used to prevent the risk of accidents 

 and to obviate delay and inconvenience. 



Your committee" are of opinion that circumstances may arise in which it 

 may be very inconvenient to leave in the hands of a private company, or 

 possibly of an individual, tke exclusive means of intelligence which this tele- 

 graph will afford ; and it cannot fail to be of paramount importance that the 

 goverument should be furnished with similar means of procuring and trans- 

 mitting intelligence, and they believe that no Railway Company will object 

 on fair terms to give every facility to the government for establishing a line 

 of electrical communication over the whole length of their railway. 



Your committee are aware that tliey have not fvdly developed the great 

 and increasing importance of this subject, ^hich perhaps does not fall strictly 

 within the terms of the subject-matter referred to them, but they are most 

 anxious to fix the attention of the House and of the pubUc on a discovery 

 which is no less susceptible of useful than of dangerous application. 



July 2, 1840. 



ADCOCK'S PATENT TOR RAISING W.iTER FROM MINES. 



At the last quarterly meeting of the Manchester Geological Society, Mr. 

 Adcock, C.E., read a paper on'his invention for the raising of water from 

 mines anil other deep places, and illustrated his subject by numerous dia- 

 grams and cards of data, which excited much attention. Tliis invention is 

 unusually novel ; it is wholly unlike every thing that has preceded it ; and 

 should it answer as well in practice, in the large way, as it appears to have 

 answered in the experiments that have been conducted upon it, it must be 

 regarded as one of the most important and extraordinaiT inventions of the 

 dav, and eft'ect a revolution, as extensive as desirable, in mining affairs. It 

 can be put down, even in the deepest pits, at compai'atively little cost, for 

 there are no pumps, no pinnp rods, no clacks, no valves, but simply one pipe 

 extending to the bottom of the mine or to the sump, and another pipe united 

 with it extending from the liottora of the mine to the top. These pipes are 

 made of sheet zinc, or sheet copper, of the thinnest gauge; and the cost, 

 therefore, wlien compared with the heavy pump trees now employed, is but 

 of small amount. Wear and tear, comparatively speaking, there is none. We 

 ■n-ill, however, let Mr. Adcock describe his invention in his own words. He 

 stated that, encouraged by the successes he had experienced in some former 

 attempts to improve pump work, by which he had been enabled to make one 

 valve perform the dutv of four ciacks, he was emboldened to attempt still 

 further improvements, and eventually proposed to himself the question—" Is it 

 possilile, in the raising of water from mines and other deep places, to do without 

 clacks or valves altogether ?" He stated he knew this desu-able effect could 

 not be produced if the water had to be raised from the mine in a compact or 

 solid state, as in pump work. For in a pit of 1,000 feet in depth, the column 

 of water being also 1,000 feet, the pressure of water against the sides of the 

 pipe at the bottom of the mine would be about 440 lbs. on each square inch, 

 and no pipe that eonld be conveniently appUed in practice could resist that 

 pressure. He, therefore, in the next place, questioned within himself whether 

 the water could not be brought up from the mine in a divided state ; and the 

 obvious replv to that questi"bn was, if the water be brought up in a dirided 

 state, it must be in the state of vapour or of rain. The chain of reasoning, 

 thus far continued, led him, he states, to investigate the descending velocities 

 of drops of rain compared with what those velocities should be by the laws 

 of gravitation ; and he found that, by the laws of gravitation, the rain ought 



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