38 



SCIENTIFIC NEAVS. 



[April 1st, 1SS7. 



pondents " relieves the editorial stafi' of a world of anxiety, 

 and in the days of which we are speaking the existing libel 

 laws did not exercise their restraining influence, and make 

 publishers, printers, and proprietors alike never safe. This 

 fact is evident from the nature of much of the correspon- 

 dence. " The lie direct " was far more frequent than the 

 "retort courteous;" and correspondents seem to have measured 

 the value of their communications by the amount of vitupera- 

 tion they could introduce into them, strengthened by all the 

 emphasis of italics or large capitals, which the editor always 

 considerately allowed. A good example of this literary 

 cudgel play is to be found in the correspondence that arose 

 on the question whether Sir Humphrey Davy was, or was 

 not, expelled from the presidency of the Royal Society. 

 Mr. John Herapath took the affirmative view, and is roundly 

 abused by the friends of Sir Humphrey through a good part 

 of the volume ; " insolent puppy " being one of the mildest 

 terms by which Mr. Herapath's opponents would consent to 

 designate him. 



question, all the rest that was not correspondence having 

 been reprinted from other sources. 



Another railway, that seems now almost as natural an 

 adjunct to London as the old Birmingham Railway has since 

 become, was then exercising men's minds and imaginations. 

 Brighton was, in 1837, but a germ of what it has since 

 become. There were, it is true, green verandahs in the 

 King's Road ; and on the beach in front of this thoroughfare 

 were hauled up those homely fishing luggers, the genuine 

 old Sussex hog-boats, which are now fast becoming extinct. 

 The Pavilion, of course, had existed for many years, and 

 the Chain Pier had become a familiar sight. Even the con- 

 crete cliffs at Kemp Town were in a rudimentary state ; but 

 the vast congeries of houses at the north and west was 

 uncommenced. Hove was a distinct village across the 

 fields, as much so as Southwick now is, and had not been 

 smothered by the rows of terraces and squares, or the 

 wilderness of brick and stucco which now sprawls its 

 unlovely length to the confines of Portslade. Still, corn- 



Turning over the faded yellow pages of this half-century- 

 old volume we are reminded how recent, after all, are many 

 of those events whose origin must appear to the younger 

 members of this generation of the most respectable 

 antiquity. Can a business-man of forty years old, who 

 perhaps has a branch establishment in Liverpool or 

 Manchester, realise that only ten years before he was born 

 that ponderous facade at Euston Square did not exist ? Yet 

 on the first page of this 1837 volume there is a wood-cut of 

 the vast tomb-like structure as it was then about to be. 

 " We are happy to see," says the enthusiastic editor, " that 

 the Birmingham Railway is so far approaching a completion, 

 that the works of a grand fa9ade for the entrance at the 

 London terminus have been commenced. The view on our 

 front page is from a beautiful lithograph by Chiffins, and if 

 the erection does not disappoint the hopes held out by the 

 design, it will certainly be the grandest elevation of the 

 kind in the metropolis." The description of this " Grecian 

 Doric Portico in antis," occupying about twenty full-page 

 lines, was the only editorial matter in the number in 



paratively unimportant and pleasant as Brighton then was, 

 four or five rival schemes were in the field for connecting it 

 with the metropolis. Robert Stephenson wished to reach it 

 by way of Shoreham, " availing himself of the vallies (sic) 

 of the Mole and Adur," Sir John Rennie would go direct, 

 whilst Mr. Gibbs would have worked the Greenwich 

 Railway into his scheme. Great George Street was not 

 then the power it has since become, neither had the Board 

 of Trade spread its organization over all railwaydom. A 

 military engineer. Captain Robert Alderson, was appointed 

 to consider the matter and report to Her Majesty's Principal 

 Secretary of State for the Home Department. This martial 

 censor appears to have favoured Stephenson's plan, and his 

 reasons for and against the various schemes are fully set 

 forth in his report, which may still be read in the issue of 

 the Mechanics' Magazine for July 8th, 1837. In this same 

 number there is a reprint from the Morning Herald, 

 reporting the partial opening of the Grand Junction 

 Railway between Birmingham and Liverpool and Man- 

 chester. There were at that time plans for sevent3'-five 



