Daily National Democrat

No Humbug:
The citizens of Marysville, as a general
thing, suppose themselves to have been
egregiously humbugged, in the notable in-
stance of their grand parade and celebration
over the success of the Atlantic Cable. They
are of the opinion that no communication,
through this cable, was ever had between
England and America—that the message of
Mr. Buchanan to Queen Victoria and her re-
ply thereto were never transmitted, but mere-
ly gotten up for the occasion—that other
messages purporting to have crossed the wire
were of like character, and, in short, that the
Atlantic Cable was one grand and stupendous
failure.

We consider this popular opinion as a very
great error. We hear from the very best of au-
thorities for knowing that the Cable experiment
was not a failure, but a really wonderful suc-
cess.

We have means of knowing, and do
know, that those who are the most deeply
interested in that enterprise, in a pecuniary
point of view, consider the laying of the ca-
ble, so far as it was an experiment of the pos-
sibility of such a work, as a complete success,
demonstrating the practicability of sub-ma-
rine telegraphic communication between the
two continents, beyond all doubt or ques-
tion. One of the parties engaged in this en-
terprise and leading member of the com-
pany who have undertaken it, (whose privi-
lege, by the way, leads for 50 years) owns
from $25,000 to $50,000 of interest in the work, and,
although offered 33 per cent on the shares, by
persons who are willing to take the chances,
refuses to sell one dollar's worth of his inter-
est. Is it to be supposed, that he would re-
fuse this offer, if the whole thing were a
humbug? By no means.

We have means of knowing, and do know
that it is the intention of the projectors of
this grand enterprise to lay another cable
which will work. For a while, the present
cable performed its functions with compara-
tive readiness, and the correspondence of
President Buchanan and Queen Victoria was
in fact, word for word, and sentence
for sentence, transmitted, as well as
those other communications, a report of
which appeared in the papers. The cessa-
tion of the transmitting qualities of the cable
was easily accounted for. It was owing to
the neglect of the orders of the Company in
the manufacture of the cable, and to a neg-
lect of orders also in the "paying out" pro-
cess from the ships engaged in that portion
of the work. Owing to these pieces of negli-
gence and inattention, it was a wonder that
the cable worked at all; and the fact, that,
under these circumstances, it did transmit in-
telligence from continent to continent, con-
clusively shows that, with a proper cable,
properly laid submarine communication be-
tween hemisphere and hemisphere is a thing
certain.

The same confidence in the final success of
the cable is observable among the stockhold-
ers in England as here. They consider their
fifty years franchise as a privilege beyond all
purchase, and as the undoubted source of un-
told millions of revenue hereafter.

In view of these facts, the Mayor and the
City Council of '58 need not be at all cha-
grin ed at the course which they pursued in
doing honor to the occasion of the laying of
that cable, nor the people of Marysville of
their praiseworthy and hearty concurrence
in the recommendations of the Mayor and
Council in celebrating the arrival of the in-
telligence to these golden shores, that con-
tinent had spoken unto continent and hemis-
phere to hemisphere; for they did indeed do
so, and will again hereafter.