Source.—The Times, July 3.
The fact is that considerations of risk are not uniformly present to servants when they are hired, and that the miner or railway guard generally contracts on the assumption in his own mind that he will be lucky, and will not be injured. The impulse to such Bills as Mr. Brassey's, Earl De La Warr's, and the measure introduced by the Government, is the inability of many people to see any good reason why, if a master is liable for the acts of his servant towards a stranger, he should be irresponsible when someone, fully clothed with his authority, and acting with all his power to enforce obedience, injures a so-called fellow-servant, who, perhaps, did not know of the existence of this vice-principal, and who never, in fact, consented to endure without complaint what might befall him by reason of the negligence of the latter. Perhaps in theory it is entirely wrong to make a master in any case liable for the acts of his servants. It is hard to give any good reason for this portion of our common law. Perhaps this species of responsibility, when historically examined, will be proved to be a shoot from the Roman law of master and slave, which has been unintelligently grafted on a law governing the relations of men who are free. It matters not, however, how employers came to incur their present liability to strangers for the acts of their workmen. The question is whether it is right or worth while retaining an exception to the general law of master and servant. The question has become one, not of principle, but of details.... The Government Bill starts from the principle that workmen may claim redress when they are injured in consequence of defective works or machinery, or of the negligence of any person in the service of the employer, who has superintendence entrusted to him.... It will be highly expedient to endeavour to express more clearly a law which must annually be set in motion in hundreds of cases.
Funded Municipal Debt.
Source.—The Times, September 2.
A subject of great interest was discussed at yesterday's meeting of the Liverpool City Council. In seconding a recommendation of the Finance Committee that the settlement of the prospectus and terms of issue of the first £2,000,000 of stock to be created under the Liverpool Loans Act be referred to that Committee, Alderman A. B. Forwood explained that the Bill had now passed both Houses.... It had been a very difficult and intricate matter to get the Bill through, because the Liverpool Corporation were the first in the kingdom to obtain powers to fund their debt in the way proposed. He believed that, when the new water scheme was passed, the new mode of raising money would materially reduce the cost of money to the town, and would effect the saving of £25,000 to £30,000 a year. The stock would be put in exactly the same position as Consols.
Electric Light, The Telephone, New Hotels.
Source.—The Times.
January 5.—The last American mail has brought us interesting details relating to the progress made in manipulating the electric light. Pending the researches in which Professor Edison has for a long time been engaged, it appears that his laboratory at Menlo Park was practically closed to all strangers, until the young scientist should have arrived at a point to enable him to declare that complete success had attended his final efforts. That point has apparently been reached.... The steadiness, reliability, and non-fusibility of the carbon filament, Mr. Edison tells us, are not the only elements incident to the new discovery. There is likewise obtained an element of proper and uniform resistance to the passage of the electric current.
April 10.—Several chambers in the Temple will shortly possess the advantage of having communication by telephone with the Law Courts at Westminster and the Houses of Parliament. The telephonic apparatus is at present being laid down between the Temple Gardens and Westminster Hall, the Metropolitan District Railway being utilized for the purpose. The apparatus, after having been connected with several of the chambers and offices in the Temple, enters the underground railway line, which it is carried along, immediately under the crown of the railway arch.
May 31.—That the Lord Mayor should in his official capacity have lent his presence to the opening of the Grand Hotel at Charing Cross, as he did on Saturday evening, implies that the new undertaking possesses a more than private character. So, in fact, it does. If it cannot be said altogether to open a new era in the history of hotels in this country, it makes at least a distinct advance in the character of English hotel accommodation.... The distinctively English hotel is a dismal and cheerless place, where one feels cut off from all human sympathy. Of late years there has been a tendency in London to adopt Continental ways, but the improvement has seldom been carried much further than the establishment of a table d'hôte. The Grand Hotel is an ambitious attempt to rival the best European and American models.