TO 1837.]

THE BRIDGE OVER THE MENAI STRAITS.

Mr. Telford has bestowed to give the surface of the road one uniform and moderately convex shape, free from the smallest inequality throughout its whole breadth; the numerous land-drains, and, when necessary, shores and tunnels of substantial masonry with which all the water arising from springs or falling in rain is instantly carried off; the great care with which a sufficient foundation is established for the road, and the quality, solidity, and disposition of the materials that are put upon it, are quite new, in the system of road-making in these countries." The road along the coast from Bangor by Conway, Abergele, St. Asaph, and Holywell was also greatly improved. But there was still great difficulty in removing the impediments at the Conway and Menai Straits, which Mr. Telford had the honour of overcoming, as we have seen in a former part of this work. Scientific details of the construction of these stupendous works would be out of place here; but the following graphic description of the hoisting of the first great chain across the Menai Strait will be interesting to our readers. "About the middle of April, 1825," says Mr. Smiles, "Mr. Telford left London for Bangor, to superintend the operations. An immense assemblage collected to witness the sight, greater in number than any that had been collected in the same place since the men of Anglesea, in their war paint, rushing down to the beach, had shrieked defiance across the Straits at their Roman invaders on the Caernarvon shore. Numerous boats, arrayed in gay colours, glided along the waters, the day-the 26th of April-being bright, calm, and in every way propitious. At half-past two, about an hour before high water, the raft bearing the main chain was cast off from near Treborth mill, on the Caernarvon side. Towed by four boats, it began gradually to move from the shore, and with the assistance of the tide, which caught it at its farther end, it swung slowly and majestically round to its position between the main piers, where it was moored. One end of the chain was then bolted to that which hung down the face of the Caernarvon pier; whilst the other was attached to ropes connected with strong capstans fixed upon the Anglesea side, the ropes passing by means of blocks over the top of the pyramid of the Anglesea pier. The capstans for hauling in the ropes bearing the main chain were two in number, manned by about 150 labourers. When all was ready, the signal was given to 'Go along!' A band of fifers struck up a lively tune; the capstans were instantly in motion, and the men stepped round in a steady trot. All went well. The ropes gradually coiled in. As the strain increased, the pace slackened a little, but 'Heave away! now she comes!' was sung out. Round went the men, and steadily and safely rose the ponderous chain. The tide had by this time turned, and bearing upon the side of the raft, now getting freer of its load, the current floated it away from under the middle of the chain, still resting on it, and it swung easily off into the water. Until this moment a breathless silence pervaded the watching multitude, and nothing was heard amongst the working party on the Anglesea side but the steady tramp of the men at the capstans, the shrill music of the fife, and the occasional order to Hold on!' or 'Go along!' But no sooner was the raft seen floating away, and the great chain

321

safely swinging in the air, than a tremendous cheer burst forth from both sides of the Straits. The rest of the work was only a matter of time-the most anxious moment had passed. In an hour and thirty-five minutes after the commencement of the hoisting, the chain was raised to its proper curvature, and fastened to the land portion of it, which had been previously placed over the top of the Anglesea pyramid. Mr. Telford ascended to the point of fastening, and satisfied himself that a continuous and safe connection had been formed from the Caernarvon fastening on the rock to that on Anglesea. The announcement of the fact was followed by loud and prolonged cheering from the workmen, echoed by the spectators, and extending along the Straits on both sides, until it seemed to die away along the shores in the distance. Three foolhardy workmen, excited by the day's proceedings, had the temerity to scramble along the upper surface of the chain, which was only nine inches wide, and formed a curvature of 590 feet from one side of the Straits to the other! Far different were the feelings of the engineer who had planned this magnificent work. Its failure had been predicted; and, like Brindley's Barton viaduct, it had been freely spoken of as a 'castle in the air.' Telford had, it is true, most carefully tested every point by repeated experiment, and so conclusively proved the sufficiency of the iron chains to bear the immense weight they would have to support, that he was thoroughly conyinced as to the soundness of his principles of construction, and satisfied that, if rightly manufactured and properly put together, the chains would hold together, and the piers would sustain them. Still there was necessarily an element of uncertainty in the undertaking. It was the largest structure of the kind that had ever been attempted. There was the contingency of a flaw in the iron; some possible scamping in its manufacture; some little point which, in the multiplicity of details to be attended to, he might have overlooked, or which his subordinates might have neglected. It was indeed impossible but that he should feel intensely anxious as to the result of the day's operations. Mr. Telford afterwards stated to a friend, only a few months before his death, that for some time previous to the opening of the bridge his anxiety was so extreme that he could scarcely sleep, and that a continuance of that condition must have very soon completely undermined his health. We are not therefore surprised to learn that when his friends rushed to congratulate him on the result of the first day's experiment, which decisively proved the strength and solidity of the bridge, they should have found the engineer upon his knees engaged in prayer. A vast load had been taken off his mind; the perilous enterprise of the day had been accomplished without loss of life, and his spontaneous act was thankfulness and gratitude."

The suspension of the remaining fifteen chains was accomplished without difficulty, the last being raised and fixed on the 9th of July, 1825, when a band played the National Anthem amidst the cheering of many thousand persons; whilst the workmen marched in procession along the bridge, and the St. David's steam-packet passed under the chains towards the Senithy rocks and back again, thus re-opening the navigation. The bridge was opened for

public traffic on the 13th of January, 1826, when the the quantity and value of the exports and imports. It London and Holyhead mail coach passed over it for the was, however, estimated by persons acquainted with the first time, followed by the commissioners of the Holyhead subject, that the quantity of agricultural produce imported roads, the engineers, several stage-coaches, and a multitude into Liverpool alone in 1832 was worth four millions and a of people. The length of the bridge is 1,710 feet-nearly half sterling; and this produce consisted chiefly of live the third of a mile-the distance between the points of sus-stock-horses, sheep, and pigs-which could not have been pension of the main bridge being 559 feet; the total weight so profitably brought over by sailing vessels. The value of of iron was 2,187 tons, in 33,265 pieces, and the total cost agricultural produce brought to the port of Bristol from of the bridge and its approaches was £120,000. A similar Ireland in the same year was one million sterling. The suspension bridge was thrown over the estuary at Conway. total value of all sorts of live animals brought from Ireland The works commenced in April, 1822, and were completed to Liverpool in 1837 was £3,397,760. One of the most in 1826. curious items in the traffic is the egg trade. Formerly eggs were extremely cheap in Ireland, but in consequence of the rapid conveyance by steam-boats, they are bought up by agents of the egg merchants, who intercept the baskets on the roads leading to sea-ports; and the consequence is that in Dublin, Cork, Waterford, Belfast, Londonderry, and Sligo they have become extremely dear, and new-laid eggs are often a costly luxury. In the course of the year 1832 no less than £100,000 was paid for Irish eggs in Liverpool and Bristol alone. Were it possible to ascertain the amount paid by the English and Scotch for this article of consumption, it would be scarcely credible. Looking at the whole traffic between the two islands, we perceive that the amount of tonnage employed in 1849 was 250 per cent. more than it was in 1801. Up to 1826 the increase was not so rapid as subsequently, it being then only 62 per cent. on the whole period, showing an annual increase of 23 per cent., whereas for the quarter of a century that followed, the increase was 188 per cent., the annual increase being 8 per cent.

Holyhead, formerly a small fishing village, has grown into a considerable town, in consequence of its being the nearest and most convenient place of embarkation for Ireland. Here terminate the great parliamentary roads from London and Chester. It is the terminus of the Chester and Holyhead Railway, in connection with which two mail packets start for Kingstown daily. Immense sums have been spent in constructing the pier, and in making Holyhead a harbour of refuge. The works inclose an area of 316 acres, and a depth of at least six and a half fathoms of water. The pier extends nearly 1,000 feet, and upon it is an arch of Mona marble, commemorative of the visit of George IV. in 1821. At the extremity of the pier is a lighthouse, exhibiting a white light fifty feet above sea level. On South Stack, an isolated rock, three miles west, is another lighthouse, whose light is produced by twenty-one lamps, with powerful reflectors, and is 212 feet above high water mark. The railway trains run down to the pier, so that passengers can step into the steamers at once, without the necessity of troubling themselves about luggage. At Kingstown, which is connected by a railway with Dublin, trains running every half-hour, and a special train running alongside the mail boats, the conveniences for the embarkation and landing of passengers are still greater. A commodious harbour is inclosed by two piers, extending about half a mile into the sea; and to crown the contrast between the past and the present, passengers may go through from Dublin to London in eleven hours, at a charge of £3 1s. for first class and saloon, and £2 4s. 6d. for second class and saloon. The City of Dublin Steam Packet Company has upon the line four splendid mail packets, which leave Kingstown every morning and evening, and perform the passage to Holyhead in three hours and forty-five minutes. Besides the mail boats, there is a large passenger traffic in other steamers from all the principal sea-ports of Ireland to England, while cattle and goods of all sorts are conveyed daily in steamers to Holyhead, Liverpool, Fleetwood, Bristol, and Glasgow, so that the Channel, instead of keeping up the separation between the two islands, serves more effectually to unite them by facility of intercourse and identity of interests.

The effect of steam communication between Great Britain and Ireland was to increase very greatly the traffic of those countries. It has been stated that in order to save the salaries of one or two junior clerks, it was determined to cease keeping any official records of this traffic, with the exception of grain and flour. In the absence of such records, we can only arrive at an approximation to

Trade and commerce were very much hampered by the old system of weights and measures, or rather the want of system which prevailed before 1824, when the gallon varied in size with the nature of the things that it measured, and the utmost irregularity and discrepancy prevailed with regard to all weights and measures in different parts of the United Kingdom. But in 1824 an act was passed for ascertaining and establishing uniformity of weights and measures, by which the old standards of weight and linear measure that had been long in use in England were adopted, and made applicable to the whole kingdom, while the measures of capacity were changed and rendered uniform. A curious mode of verifying measure and weight, and establishing their mutual relations, is thus described:"The contents of the cube of the sixth part of the length of the pendulum vibrating seconds in the latitude of London, at the level of the sea, and in a vacuum (which has been the element for establishing linear measure), is so very near the contents of the imperial standard gallon, that the difference is only three-tenths of a cubic inch; the cube of the sixth part of the length of the pendulum being 277-578, while the imperial gallon contains 277-274 cubic inches; and the tenth part of the weight of an imperial gallon of water, at a temperature exactly one-sixth part of the distance between the points of freezing and boiling, is an imperial standard avoirdupois pound. The standards of both weights and measures are thus rendered so far invariable in future, that they are found to be independent of all artificial measurements and graduations, and can be at once referred to nature alone for their prototypes. This is

FOREIGN AND COLONIAL COMMERCE.

jealous system of protection that prevails in that country.
The sphere of our commercial operations was being continu-
ally enlarged from year to year, and the enterprise of our
merchants was continually opening up fresh markets in dis-
tant parts of the world. The value of the exports of British
and Irish produce in 1820 was as follows:-To Northern
Europe, £11,000,000; to Southern Europe, £7,000,000; to
Africa, £393,000; to Asia, nearly £4,000,000; to the
United States of America, nearly £4,000,000; to the
British North American Colonies and the West Indies,
£5,750,000; to Central and South America, including
Brazil, £3,000,000. The total value of our exports to foreign
countries, and to our colonies in that year, was £36,000,000.

The Coffee Trade-London Coffee-houses-China; the Tea Trade-Tea
Duties-Currency-Coin-Inadequacy of a Metallic Currency-Paper
Money-The Bank of England-Joint Stock Banks-The Public Revenue
Expenditure-Cost of the National Defences-The Sinking Fund-In 1840 we exported the following quantities, which, it
Progress of the National Debt-Stocks-Paying Power of the English

the palm-tree, besides teak-wood, cedar, ebony, mahogany, and dye-woods. The sugar-cane grows wild in the bush, and the palm-nut rots upon the ground, unheeded and neglected. The population of this Delta, I should consider, does not exceed half a million." Yet our commerce with this rich district, so happily formed by nature for a great commercial emporium, does not exceed, as Mr. Porter remarks, the value of the eggs sent from Ireland to the single port of Liverpool. The cultivation of cotton is specially adapted not only to the soil and climate, but to the nature and habits of the negro population. So that England has the greatest possible interest in the extension of Christian civilisation and good government in Africa.

Our commerce with India increased during the half century terminating at the commencement of the present reign to the extent of nearly 200 per cent., while the opening of the trade with China gave a great impulse to our important commerce with that part of the world. The East India Company's charter expired in 1834, and then, for the first time, a distinction was made between the exports to India and China. The declared value of English manufactures exported to China in 1834 was £800,000; in 1836 it was £1,250,000. In several subsequent years it was much lower than this, but it reached about double that amount in 1844 and 1845. The monopoly of the East India Company always crippled our trade with the East, and it is only now, when freedom and good government are so rapidly developing the resources of the country, and creating a prosperity never known in that part of the world before, that we can fully conceive the paralysing power of the incubus that rested so long upon our Indian empire. A discriminating duty of 28s. per cwt., or 50 per cent., was imposed upon coffee grown in British India, for the benefit of the West Indian planters. The effect of the reduction in 1825 was to increase the consumption of coffee, in six years, from 8,000,000lb. to 22,000,000lb. "The price of fine Jamaica coffee, which at the time the duty was reduced was about 90s. per cwt., advanced, through the demands of the consumers, to 125s. per cwt., but without producing any increased production. The quantity annually imported of British plantation coffee, in the five years that preceded the reduction of the duty in 1825, averaged 30,280,360lb.; and the average quantity imported in the five years from 1832 to 1836, reached only 19,812,160lb., being a reduction of 34 per cent. in the supply, notwithstanding the inability of the West India planters to keep pace with the wants of the English consumers. In September, 1835, our tariff was so far modified, that coffee imported from the British possessions in India, if accompanied by a certificate of its being the actual produce of those possessions, was admitted to consumption on payment of the same rate of duty as British plantation coffee. The quantity of East India coffee taken for consumption while the duty remained at 9d. per lb. advanced, because of the increasing price of West India coffee, from about 300,000lb. per annum to about 1,500,000lb. The assimilation of the rates of duty did not take effect until two-thirds of 1835 had elapsed; but in that year the consumption of East India coffee advanced to 5,596,791lb., and in 1837 reached 9,114,793lb."

In 1824 the consumption of coffee in the United Kingdom was 8,250,000lb., and the duties were-on foreign coffee, 2s. 6d. per lb.; East India, 1s. 6d.; British West India, 1s. per lb. In the same year the consumption was of foreign coffee, 1,540lb.; East India, 313,000lb.; West India, about 800,000lb. In the following year, Mr. Huskisson reduced the duties on these several kinds to 1s. 3d., 9d., and 6d., respectively, which caused a rapid increase in the consumption. In 1840 the consumption was-of East and West India, 14,500,000lb.; and of foreign, 14,000,000lb. In 1821, 7,250,000lb. of coffee were consumed by fourteen millions of people in Great Britain. In 1841, 27,250,000lb. were consumed by eighteen and a half millions of people. In the former year the duty per lb. on British plantation coffee was 18., and the sum contributed per head to the revenue was 6d. ; in the latter year the duty was 6d., and the sum contributed per head to the revenue was 10d.-a striking illustration of the bad policy of high duties, looking only to the revenue even, without reference to the privations which they inflict upon the people. In 1835 the duty on coffee consumed in the United Kingdom was £652,000. Chicory has also become an important article of commerce in this country. In 1840 the quantity of raw chicory retained for home consumption was nearly 4,000cwt., its value being 9s. 6d. per cwt., and the duty 20s. per cwt. In the early part of the present century there was scarcely a coffee-house in London to which the humbler classes could resort, or where a cup of this exhilarating beverage could be had for less than 6d. In 1844 the number of coffee-houses in London was above 600, in some of which from 700 to 800 persons a day were supplied, at the rate of 1d. per cup, and in others from 1,500 to 1,600 persons were served at 14d. a cup. All these houses were well supplied with daily and weekly newspapers, and with magazines and other publications, for the use of those who frequented them; so that for two or three pence a working man might get his cup of coffee, a roll of bread, and the reading of the public journals, being thus put upon a level in point of facilities for obtaining information with regard to current history with the wealthiest men in the land.

The tea trade with China was used by the East India Company for the purpose of enriching itself, by an enor mous tax upon the British consumer. During one hundred years it ranged from 2s. to 4s. in the pound excise duty, with a customs duty of 14 per cent., down to a total minimum duty of 12 per cent. The former duty was estimated at 200 per cent. on the value of the common teas. The effect, as might be expected, was an enormous amount of smuggling. The monopoly of the company was abolished; it was made lawful for any person to import tea by 4 William IV., cap. 85; and the trade was opened on the 22nd of April, 1834. The ad valorem duties were abolished, and all the bohea tea imported for home consumption was charged with a customs duty of 18. 6d. per lb.; congou, and other teas of superior quality, were charged 2s. 2d. per lb., and some 3s. per lb. In 1886 these various duties gave place to a uniform one of 23. 1d. per lb., which, with the addition of 5 per cent., imposed

TO 1837.]

REDUCTION OF DUTY ON TEA.

325

that empire is about £12,000,000. This is but a small amount compared with what it will be when freedom of intercourse is completely established, in pursuance of the treaty of Tien-tsin. It is a strange anomaly that, with all this busy traffic, the Chinese have no coinage, except the copper tchen, or cash, which is not a tenth of a penny; and all but the most trifling payments are made either in foreign money or by the weight of silver.

in 1840, continued till 1851, when the penny was removed. In 1853 the duty was lightened, with a view to its permanent reduction to 1s. in the pound in 1856. The Russian war interfered with this plan, and caused a rise from 18. 6d. to 18. 9d., but in 1857 this war duty was again reduced to 1s. 5d. Since that year further reductions have from time to time been made, and now (1872) the duty is 6d. in the pound. During the last year of restricted trade (1833), our aggregate importa- The vast commercial transactions daily and hourly tions amounted to 32,000,000 lbs.; during the first year of carried on by the people of the United Kingdom require free trade, they bounded up to 44,000,000 lbs.; and in 1856 a circulating medium adapted to their magnitude, and they had attained 86,000,000 lbs. The average price of tea capable of expanding according to the requirements of

per lb., including duty, in 1834, was 4s. 4d. In 1821 the total quantity of tea imported into Great Britain was upwards of 31,000,000 lbs., and its value £1,873,886; in 1834 the quantity was about 35,000,000 lbs., and the value about £2,000,000. The change of habits among the British people with regard to diet may be inferred from the increased consumption of tea during a century. In 1760, 7,000,000 people consumed 3,861,000 lbs. of tea; in 1859, 28,900,000 people consumed 76,300,000 lbs. of tea. Of all the nations of the East, the Chinese are the most addicted to traffic. The Middle Kingdom has been described as, throughout its length and breadth, a perpetual fair. The annual value of our direct trade with VOL. VII.-No. 340.

society. We can scarcely conceive it possible that business could be conducted among us on the Chinese plan of weighing the precious metals in paying for goods, or in bartering one commodity for another. Still less could we suppose it possible to conduct the commerce of the country according to the primitive methods of nations in the earlier stages of civilisation, who endeavoured to establish a rude standard of value by the number of the skins of wild animals, or the number of cattle. Pecunia is derived from pecus, which seems to prove that cattle had been the primitive money of the Romans, as they undoubtedly were that of the ancient Germans, whose laws uniformly fixed the amount of the penalties to be paid for offences in