1843-44 MEETS SPOHR 219 



The diary continues : — - 



' J tine 22. — R. to King's College. Prince 

 Albert to be received there by the Professors. 

 Mr. Wheatstone's experiment of firing a cannon 

 by the electric spark tried, the wire being laid 

 from Somerset House along the bed of the river 

 to the shot manufactory. Great crowd at the 

 entrance of Waterloo Bridge.' 



1 30M. — To Mrs. Taylor s, to meet Spohr and 

 his wife. Spohr is a very tall, big man, with an 

 innocent-looking, rather inexpressive fair face, 

 and a hideous sandy scratch wig. I was told that 

 Spohr's second marriage had greatly offended his 

 Prince (Hesse-Cassel), who wished him to marry 

 some other lady. Met also Benedict and M. and 

 Madame Moscheles.' 



The meeting of the British Association was 

 held in the August of this year at Cork, and 

 Owen attended it. In a letter to his wife, dated 

 August 17, he gives an account of his journey 

 thither : ' I was so lucky as to get a vacant seat 

 on the roof of the mail to Carnarvon [at Glou- 

 cester]. The ride is through a glorious part 

 of S. Wales. . . . We passed through two turn- 

 pikes that had been visited by the Breakers ; 3 

 one was down, the posts having been neatly 

 sawed through, and the toll-house unroofed ; the 

 other gate, twenty miles farther on, was similarly 

 demolished, and the toll-house razed to the 

 ground.' 



3 The Rebeccaites. 



