ELECTRIC LIGHTING.

Evening Star, Issue 6030, 10 July 1882, Page 3

ELECTRIC LIGHTING.

[‘New Zealand Herald’s’ London Correspondence.] The financial atmosphere of London is charged with electricity ; electric light flares from the advertisement columns of all the newspapers, and electricity is decidedly the motive power of tho Stock Exchange; two men can hardly converse a minute in any of the business parts of the city without an electrical discharge, and though the dangerous explosions hare not yet begun, anyone can smell thunder in tho The mania for electric companies has fairly set in, and any scheme proposed, if it cm only show a spark of electricity in it, is literally rushed.

The Anglo-American Brush Company is the parent of nearly all tho projects now turning people’s heads, and is making hay while the sun shines. Four pound shares have sold at L 39, and from the sale of concessions for various districts at Home and abroad the parent company is gathering solid gold which cannot bo disturbed by tho subsequent fate or fortune of tho companies holding these concessions, while the wonderful success of tho parent company is put forward as an indication of what may be expected from the offspring. Companies which have acquired the right 'a electric lighting under the system throughout a county or part of a county, or twe or three counties, are every day coming out, and in probably every ease the shares are applied for threefold. It will interest your readers to know that Sir Julius Vogel is in the very thick of it, and has, I understand, made a handsome fortune within the past few months. He is going out shortly to tho colonies, having acquired a concession for Australasia and Fiji. As to the success of electric lighting and electric motive power, whether in respect of cost or efficiency, that has been absolutely demonstrated, and the dangers looming in tho distance are not from any question of electricity taking tho place of gas, and even steam, but from the conflict of patents, tho litigation which that may involve, and tho possibility at anytime of some new invention in tho generating or application of tho “fluid’’which may throw its predecessors into the shade. These dangers are not ignored by those who are rushing into investments, as it is felt that the concessions for tho supply of electricity to particular countries and districts confer on tho holders points of advantage from which they cannot bo readily dislodged. Meantime tho furore increases daily in intensity, and tho accumulation of interests now involved in the success of electric lighting will give a hard time of it to the gas companies, who, their enemies say, will by-and-by bo relegated to the menial duties of boiling their kettle and cooking chops, while electricity will sit in tho drawing-room and boudoir. Whether in anticipation of this humiliating future, or to secure a firmer footing from which to combat tho new and brilliant competition, some of the gas companies are, by a kind of quiet house-to-house canvass, offering extreme inducements to householders to employ gas for cooking purposes, furnishing gas stoves at a merely nominal rental, hardly sufficient to pay for wear and tear, and providing tho necessary alterations in supplying pipes and fittings at absolutely no cost whatever to tho customer. It is a sign of the times, and foreshadows tho battle of the lights that is coming. A paper has been road at the Society of Arts by Mr Bolas, F.C.S., on “Fire Risks and Electric Lighting,” the chief practical value of which was to demonstrate that all the experiments made to show dangers by electric lighting either wholly failed or were exceedingly difficult of accomplishment. Tho committee deputed by the Leeds Corporation to visit the Crystal Palace Exhibition have issued a report of 136 pages. It is favorable in a high degree rewards electric lighting, both arc and incandescent. At a fancy dress ball at Manchester tho Assembly Rooms were lighted by a large display of incandescent light by the British Electric Light Company. There were 150 of these lamps fitted to elegant glass chandeliers at tho refreshment room, and thirty-two othera in Venetian shades of different colors.

Of all recently deceased judges ViceChancellor Malms seems to have died tho wealthiest. His will has been proved at L 96,000 personalty. Lord Justice Thesiger’s was only LBO,OOO. Chief Baron Kelly’s was LOO,OOO, ho having lost a great deal in the great crash when Overend and Gurney went down. Sir Alexander Cockburn’s was L 40.000, but then ho was rich in reality. Sir W. M. James’s was L.36,000. The personal property of the late Lord Robartes has been proved to amount to upwards of L 570.000. Escheat of a fortune happens very rarely, but at Cheltenham (England) lately a sheriff’s commission sat to inquire whether a Mr George Berton, widower, was of legitimate birth. The deceased was formerly a jeweller at Birmingham, but had lived in Gloucestershire for seveial yoinv, and died without issue last autumn. He was worth L’200,000, only a small portion of which had been devised by will. Tho jury decided that the deceased was illegitimate, a decision by which a sum of LI 70,000 falls to the Crowm.