Rue's large battery, where there were 14,400 cells to deal with. This splendid piece of electrical apparatus was used in its full power for the first time at an evening lecture of the Royal Institution, given on January 21 in the present year. Upon that occasion an artificial auroral display, and other very beautiful luminous effects in vacuum tubes, produced by the combined energy of the 14,400 cells, were exhibited. Now, the construction of this battery for the purpose of the lecture was commenced in June, 1879, and was not completed until August, 1880. A fortnight was occupied in the mere filling of the cells with the liquid in which the rods had to be immersed. It was estimated that the penetrating or disruptive force of this piece of apparatus, which is by far the most powerful voltaic battery that has yet been brought into operation by human hands, was about the 243rd part of that of a veritable flash of lightning, capable of striking one mile through the air. The entire battery was contained in twelve cabinets of somewhat considerable dimensions. It must, therefore, be understood that in this form, at least, it could not be looked upon as a portable piece of apparatus. It is simply upon the ground that it is a store reservoir of electrical force, that the store is maintained by similar chemical means, and that it is set free for use by the same expedient of a spontaneous return of a metallic compound into the state of a pure uncombined metal, that it is compared with the invention of M. Faure. As a mere concentration and store of reserved energy it is a very perfect piece of apparatus indeed. In one tolerably large battery of the same construction which Dr. De la Rue has been using for some time in his own laboratory, the electrical action was maintained without any perceptible diminution of power for three years.

But the secondary battery of M. Faure is portable as well as being a reservoir or store, and this is the distinctive merit which marks it out as an advance upon other forms of constant battery. A Faure apparatus weighing 140 pounds gives storage enough for a power that can do the mechanical work of a horse for an hour. It might, therefore, be easily packed away in a wheeled carriage, which it is itself competent to drive for that period of time. Compared with the chloride of silver battery, the arrangement of M. Faure exerts a higher energy for a more limited interval, and it is on that account that it is adapted for transport. Sir William Thomson, in speaking of this plan for converting electricity into a storable form, which can be packed away and drawn upon piecemeal as it is required, correctly likens it to the winding up of a clock. The

chloride of silver battery is certainly in that sense like a clock, and it is like a clock which can go for months and even years without renewal of its motor impulse when it has once been wound up. The Faure battery, on account of the greater concentration and intensification of energy, requires more frequent winding, but it is an ample compensation for this that it possesses the remarkable advantage of being windable by means of another electrical battery. It can be recharged with equal facility either by a few Grove's cells, or by a steam or water driven magneto-electric machine, and it is this feature, no doubt, which has so signally drawn to it the attention of practical men. Sir William Thomson is already obviously inclined to look upon this invention as the direction in which the hitherto unmanageable problem of the application of the electric light to the ordinary purposes of domestic life is most likely to be solved. He conceives that household Faure batteries may hereafter take the same position for the supply of light that cisterns now hold for the supply of water.

Professor Osborne Reynolds, of Manchester, who, on the other hand, entertains a less sanguine view of the promise of the new invention than some of his compeers, is largely influenced in his scepticism by the consideration of the inferiority of the red-lead battery as a transportable store of force to coal. Coal, we know, is sent by steamships and railways as a source of motor power half over the world, and there is as much potential energy in an ounce and a half of coal as there is in seventy-five pounds of M. Faure's lead-batteries. One pound of coal judiciously brought into play can lift eleven million pounds one foot high. But this, it must be remembered, is not all that has to be taken into account. It is only one aspect of a many-sided question. The ounce and a half of coal cannot be recovered when it has been consumed. When once it has been burned there is an end of it, at any rate so far as all human agency is concerned. It is only the subtle power of nature itself that can get back the coal out of the oxidised vapour into which it has been dissipated, in order that it may be used over again. But it is the very essence of M. Faure's battery that its material ingredients are used over and over again. They are indeed, for all practical purposes, indestruc tible. This, therefore, at once suggests the yet further thought, that when all the coal stores of the world have been consumed it may not be amiss to have some alternative and less rapidly exhaustible stores of moving force to fall back if upon, even they should prove to be more costly, and in connexion with this consideration it must also be kept in mind that the newly

It is

born power is yet in the most tender days of its infancy. but a first tentative effort of a new inspiration of the inventive faculty. When it is as old as steam-driven machinery, in all probability less ponderous applications of the method will have been devised. And yet again it may not be amiss also to remember that in the marvellous economy of nature there is room for small offices as well as great. Every new discovery in the end finds for itself its application and place. In reference to this Sir William Thomson pertinently says, as a rule we do not in the arrangements of our household life turn our backs upon our water-cans and cisterns because we find that water can be more economically distributed by pipes than by pails. The cans will not be used where the pipes can be employed. But they will, nevertheless, beat the pipes out of the field for special services to which they are better adapted. Elastic hose and force pumps will never take the place of tea-cups. So also will it assuredly be in the end with these new methods of electrical storage and transport. The electrical hand-can of M. Faure will have its opportunity and use. The principle it involves is a real discovery. The purpose, however, of this brief article is rather to draw attention to a hopeful birth than to prophesy or forecast a career. It is in this spirit, therefore, that the fortunes of this youngest offspring of inventive ingenuity are now left, without further attempt at vaticination, to the final arbitrament of time.

VOL. CLIV. NO. CCCXV.

T

ART. X.-Landlords and Tenants in Ireland. By FINLAY DUN. London: 1881.

TE HE January number of this Journal contained an article on the then critical condition of affairs in Ireland, and on the duty the Government had to perform: first of all, in restoring order and in maintaining the law; secondly, in providing such remedial measures as would (without violating either the rights of property or the fundamental laws of political economy) remove those evils which really exist, and foster the growth of a happier state of relations between different classes in that country. Since that time the energies of the Government and of Parliament have been almost entirely given up to the performance of these two duties. It is right that those of us who can look calmly back upon the work of the past half-year, and at the present state of affairs in Ireland and in Parliament, should state fully and fairly their impressions of the progress of events, and their hopes of the future.

There is at the present time (and it cannot be wondered at) a tone of despondency among thoughtful Liberals not natural to that generally sanguine section of the body politic. In the political society of the metropolis, a weeping philosopher, were he to arise, would find a numerous following. Though there is matter to account for it, this mournful spirit is unworthy of the Liberal party. It is time for these mourners (would that they were also mutes!) to consult

'What reinforcement they might gain from hope,
If not what resolution from despair;'

for to complain continually of the present, and at the same time to despair loudly of the future, can have no effect but to weaken the efforts of the only men who adhere in practice, as in speech, to the old Whig doctrine that Reform is the only sure buttress against Revolution. If, therefore, honesty compels us to express some dissatisfaction with much that has occurred during the last few months, and here and there to doubt whether all the benefits promised us will result at once from the legislative projects of the Government passing into law, our remarks at all events will not be dictated by any feeling of hopelessness as to the future of either Ireland or of this country.

The present Ministry contains men of first-rate ability, and it is admirably representative of the various shades of opinion held by the different sections of the Liberal party. Measures

of reform brought forward by such a Government must necessarily show a certain character of compromise, which will tend to alienate extreme men, without conciliating those who are opposed to any substantial changes. An extreme man' and a satisfied man' are a contradiction in terms. There is no possibility of converting the one into the other. Hence we are not surprised that the Parnellite faction, which professes to represent the Irish people, proclaims its dissatisfaction with the ministerial Bill. No measure would satisfy these men, some of whom are avowedly endeavouring rather to bring dissolution upon the Empire than benefit to the Irish portion of it. Before discussing the great remedial measure of the present session, let us consider what has been done, and what is being done, to maintain the law. No mistake could be made more fatal to the interests of the Liberal party, or more injurious to Ireland, than the association in the popular mind with a Liberal régime of any weakness of purpose in this the first duty of Government. The laws are what we ourselves have made. them. If we do not like them, we can alter or repeal them; but while we maintain them upon the Statute Book, our dignity as a nation is concerned in their enforcement. It is not only our self-respect that requires this. The liberty and safety of those who are otherwise defenceless depend upon a firm and fearless administration of the law. This, we need hardly say, has been the language steadily held by the leading members of the present Cabinet. Whether from the Lord Chancellor or from Mr. Gladstone at the Lord Mayor's dinner, from Lord Hartington in the House of Commons, or from Mr. Chamberlain at Birmingham, the country has been told that the Government knew its duty in this respect, and would do it. To language of this kind the country has never been dead; indeed, the immediate response occasionally evoked by it has almost startled in its vehemence those who were but giving expression to the universal sentiment of law-abiding Englishmen. But the country cannot content itself with mere words, however brave; and it cannot be denied that the lawlessness prevailing in Ireland during last winter, and still existing in some portions of that country, is enough to make loyal citizens blush to think of.

It is not that the number of crimes against person and property (though very great) has amounted to anything approaching the figure reached in previous times of disturbance. When Lord Grey had to propose coercion,' he had a far blacker list to show. Mr. Forster, by taking enormous precautions, has succeeded in protecting life. But, as Lord Har

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