and Co., without tender, on the ground that
that firm had become interested with him
in the concessions. The company were thus
saddled with an engineer and a contractor as
part of the "concession;" practically, the form
of the cable was decided upon, and little remained
for the board to do but to pay. With
these private and confidential arrangements,
it is not surprising that unprotected iron wire,
scarcely larger than bell-wire, was used for the
covering of the cable, although there was abundance
of experience to prove that, after being
only a few months in the sea, it would become
so rusted, that when repairs were necessary, it
would be impossible to lift it to the surface. It
is not surprising that such close contract was
taken for a lump sum, thereby offering a premium
upon the chances of saving some part of
the slack or surplus cable; and so causing the
fractures attributed to the tightness with which
the cable was laid.

Ruinous as this private and confidential contract
arrangement was, the directors of the
company felt that no other course was left open
to them than to make the best of it; and they
therefore held together, and supported their
engineer and contractor. The rival contractors
—Messrs. Glass and Elliot—on seeing the
estimates of Messrs. Newall and Co.— approved,
of course, by Mr. Gisborne—to carry
out the work for a sum of six hundred and
fifty thousand pounds, or thereabouts, offered
to carry out similar work for ONE HUNDRED
THOUSAND POUNDS LESS. Their offer was not
accepted, their claims upon the undertaking
were ignored, and the Treasury were led to
believe by the directors, that the work was laid
out in the surest manner to lead to success.
The warning addressed by Messrs. Glass and
Elliot to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury,
dated June 26th, 1858, was only answered
by a Treasury minute of the usual stamp, dated
August 4th, 1858. As it shows the nominal
character of the supervision exercised by the
government over the undertaking, we present
the document entire:

"Inform Messrs. Glass, Elliot, and Company, that
my lords have made an arrangement with the Red
Sea Telegraph Company, by which, on certain conditions,
a guarantee on the part of her Majesty's
government is granted to that company.

"It is one of the conditions in the arrangement,
that the line of telegraph shall be laid down on the
responsibility of the company; my lords do not propose
to interfere in the selection of the parties who
are to execute the work, further than to see that its
proper execution is sufficiently secured. My lords
have no doubt that the company will adopt the
proper means of procuring contracts for the execution
of the work on the best terms, and can only
refer Messrs. Glass, Elliot, and Co. to the directors
of the company."

The directors were immovable, and they comforted
themselves and the Treasury with the belief
that "the early and satisfactory completion of the
enterprise would be most effectually promoted by
the selection of the contractors who combined
the highest reputation," &c. &c. &c. What they
meant by "selection of contractors," is not
quite clear, when it was notorious that only one
contractor was forced upon them; but as their
policy was to get the government guarantee at
all hazards, we can hardly feel surprised at the
tone of their communications with the authorities.
In their contempt for the saving of one
hundred thousand pounds, the directors of the
company seem to have caught the infectious
liberality of our imperial expenditure. The
maxim that the ship should never be spoilt
(although it invariably is spoilt) for a hundred
thousand pounds worth of tar, which is so
familiar to "my lords," as they delight to style
themselves, is not often the guiding principle of
cautious mercantile bodies, who work with a fear
of the Court of Bankruptcy before their eyes.
But, to do the Treasury justice, one of "my
lords"—Lord Stanley—seems to have grown
uneasy about this hole and corner contract,
some two months after the official minute, just
quoted, was recorded. To his credit, he complained,
through the usual secretary, in the usual
form, that the system of competition was not
resorted to.

A contract, huddled up as this was, pointed
to failure from the beginning, and turned the
concession of the Turkish government into a
barren permission to throw certain vast sums of
public money into certain Oriental seas. It
provided that the laying of the cable should be
left entirely in the hands of the contractors, and
so absolved the engineers of the company from
all responsibility. Failures in the line declared
themselves almost immediately, and a vessel
was engaged for one hundred and eighty-two
days in abortive attempts to repair one hundred
and eighty-four miles of cable.

The scientific, mechanical, and natural enemies
of telegraphic enterprise, do not seem to
be half as formidable as its moral enemies.
Gutta-percha—the present popular material for
what is called the insulating medium, or covering
necessary to protect the wire from air and
water—may be difficult to manufacture entirely
free from small cavities; currents may be troublesome
in washing these specks of bad workmanship
into gaping holes; sharp rocks, hungry
fishes; too much, tightness in laying the cable
producing fractures; or too much slackness
producing "kinks," or tangles; rigid instead of
elastic machinery for paying out the cable;
storms, which come on just at the critical
moment of the paying-out process, forcibly
dividing the paying-out ships from their long
tail of cable; a want of careful submarine surveys;
variations in temperature, not known or
provided for, which melt the insulating medium;
the action of sea-water upon the outer iron
covering of cables; ships' anchors; movements
of the sea; antagonistic vegetation gathering
round the cable; gas currents; want of sufficient
thickness in the cable; and a dozen other
defects and opposing forces may silently and
rapidly convert a great undertaking into a hopeless
wreck. These are powerful opponents that