The Electric Light. From the (London) "Spectator."

Daily Southern Cross, Volume V, Issue 214, 17 July 1849, Page 4

The Electric Light. From the (London) "Spectator."

It is evident that the art of life, in some of its grossest branches, is but beginning to develop itself. The machinery which provides raiment already outruns the supply of the raw materials. Such in» vestigators as Huxtable are placing a circle of reciprocal nutriment, for the vegetable and animal kingdoms, within the command of man. Crosse has taught us to understand what powers are latent in elejtricity, for the stimulation if not the origination •f life, for imitating the mineralific processes of n iture, for reproducing fresh water at sea, and other g tat works of formation or purification. The elect ic telegraph is in practical use. And now several inventors compete to make lightning itself the slave of man : Le Mott compels it to take the shape of signals that might pierce the total eclipse of blindness ; Staite makes it introduce sunshine into your room at night ; and a Scottish Bavan renews a declarution uttered many years ago, that electric light nvght add the night unto the day in onr streets. Though the columns of the "Dundee Courier," Mr. J. B. Lindsay has preferred his claim to priority of discovery and enunciation in the matter of electric light, and in a separate private letter he appeals to our own testimony. The practicability of making electric light Berve the purposes of illumination, occurred to him in the progress of some experiments on magnetism as a motive power in 1832! and in 1835, he publicly exhibited a light. He can produce it in an unintermitting stream ; it shines without combustion ; it can be maintained equally without air in a sealed vessel, or in the open air ; it is inextinguishable by wind or water ; a single light might illumine the main street of Dundee ; the factory might be brilliantly lighted, without danger of fire ; and finally, the expense would be Email— much leis than that of gas. Great promises these; but performance has gone so far towards fulfilment, that we may expect to realize all. We see that Mr. Le Mott modesdy, and perhaps politicly, abstains from claiming for his light any applicability to purposes of illuminat ing streets or buildings, by which he avoids the rival bostility of gas companies. But we remember that, many years ago, in his remote Scottish residence, Mr. Lindsay produced a brilliant illumination from minute points of light ; and we have seen sunshine filling a large saloon, at midnight, from a slender apex of light in Mr. Staite's apparatus. Sunshine, we say : the aspect of light, as you turned your back on the apparatus and looked upon the»objects which it bathed in splendour, was precisely that of sunshine on a watery day. It was very different from the red glare of the gas — how pure that looked by contrast when we were used to oil-lamps I — or from the harsh white glare of the oxyhydrogen light: it was true sunshine, warm in its tint, and fetching out the warmth of color in every object. Cold was the night, and dark and diurnal out of doors ; but in that saloon was a knot of men, round a green baize table, producing sunshine at pleasure I Who shall say where we are to stop ? Has not a sage already produced bottled atmosphere, for respiration in closed places ? It not Colonel Reid looking into the storm, and ascertaining its laws ? Have not speculators dreamed of arresting the rain-cloud, and making it yield up its spoils where rain was wanted ? Poetry and practice are meeting : when they unite, art will rule the social code, and beauty will saniify itility. The Two Parties in English History, and the Popular Mass between them. In November, 1840, met that renowned Parliament which, in spite of many errors and disasters, i6 justly entitled to the reverence and gratitude of aU who, in any part of the world, enjoy the blessings of constitutional government. . » •• After ten months of assiduous toil, the houses, in September, 1641, adjjurned for a short vacation, and the king visited Scotland The day on which the houses met again is one of the most remarkable epochs in our hiitory. From that day dates the corporate existence of the two great parties which have ever since alternately governed the country. In one sense, indeed, the distinction which then became obvious had always existed, and always must exist. For it has its origin in diversities of temper, of understanding, and of interest, which are found in all societies, and which will be found till the human mind ceasss to be drawn in opposite directions by the charm of habit, and by the charm of novelty. Not only in politics, but m littr»ture, in art, in scienc9, in surgery and mechanics, in navigation and agriculture, nay, even in mathematics, we find this distinction. Everywhere there is a class of men who cling with fondness to whatever is ancient, and who, even when convinced by overpowering reasons, that innovation would be benefiiial, consent to it with many misgivings and forebodings. We find also everywhere another class of men, san^uiue in hope, bold in speculation, always pressing forward, quick to discern the imperfections of whatever exists, disposed to think lightly of the risks and inconveniences which attend improvements, and disposed to give every change credit for being an improvement. In the sentiments of both classes there is something to approve. But of both the best specimens will be found not far from the 0 mmon. frontier. The extreme section of one class consists of bigoted dotards ; the extreme section o the other consists of shallow and reckless empires When, in October, 184.1, the Parliament re-assembled after a short recesg, two hostile parties, essentially the same with thost which, under different names, have ever Bince contended, and are stilt contending) for the direction of public affairs, appeared confronting each other. During some years they wete designated as Cavaliers and Roundheads. They were subsequently called Tories and Whigs ; nor does ic seem that these~appellations are likely soon to become obsolete. It would not be difficult to compose a lampoon or a pauegyric on either or these renowned factions. For bo man not utterly destitute of judgment and candour will deny that there are many

deep stains on the fame of the party to which he belongs, or that the party to which he is opposed may justly boast of many illustrious names, of many heroic actions, and of many great services rendered to the state. The truth i», that though both parties have often seriously erred, England could have spared neither. If, in her institutions, freedom and order, the advantages arising from innovation and the advantages arising from prescription, have been combined to an extent elsewhere unknown, we may attribute this happy peculiarity to the strenuous conflicts and alternate victories of two rival confederacies of statesmen, a confederacy zealous (or authority and antiquity, and a confederacy zealous for liberty and progress. It ought to be remembered that the difference between the two great sections of English politicians has always been a difference rather of degree than of principle. There were certain limits on the right and on the left, which were very rarely overstepped. A few enthusiasts on one side were ready to lay all our laws and franchises at the feet of our kings. A few enthusiasts on the other side were bent on pursuing, through endless civil troubles, their darling phantom of a republic. But the great majority of those who fought for the crown were averse to despotism ; and the great majority of the champions of popular rights were averse to anarchy. Twice, in the course of the seventeenth century, the two parties suspended their dissensions, and united their strength in a common cause. Their first coalition restored here* ditary monarchy. Their second coalition rescued constitutional freedom. It is also to be noted that tiese two parties have never been the whole nation, my, that they have never, taken together, made up I a majority of the nation. Between them has always ' been a great mass, which has not steadily adhered to either, which has sometimes remained inertly neutral, and has sometimes oscillated to and fro. That mass has more than once passed in a few years from one extreme to the other, and back again. Sometimes it has changed sides, merely because it was tired of supporting the same men, sometimes because it was dismayed by its own excesses, some* times because it had expected impossibilities, and bad been disappointed. But, whenever it has leaned with its whole weight in either direction, resistance has, for the time, been impossible.— iJxfrac^ from Macaulay's History of England.