An anecdote seems worth preserving relative to an invention, completely in anticipation of the use now made of steam for propelling vessels in all parts of the world. The mere idea of using this gigantic power instead of the human arm for moving boats and ships through the water, must have occurred to thousands; the mode of effecting the application is the real invention.
About sixty years ago Mr. Charles Warrick resided at Truro, a young man of some family and fortune, and bred to the law; a person of singular and eccentric habits, displaying much ability and genius in some cases, with an apparent want of both in others. Mr. Warrick partook of a taste very common in places situated on navigable rivers, for spending a large portion of his time on the water, or in making contrivances relative to navigation; and he constructed a boat with slender ribs, covered either with canvass or with paper soaked in substances that excluded water: on each side he appended a wheel connected together by an axis turned in the middle into the form of a staple, or what is called a double crank. In this boat he frequently paddled from Truro to Falmouth Harbour, moving the crank with his hands, and out-running all other boats; but no one thought of applying the construction to larger vessels, nor had he, in all probability, the slightest notion, that within half a century similar wheels and cranks, moved by steam-engines, would impel vessels of many hundred tons burden through the most tempestuous seas, and against winds and tides, over extensive oceans, with a safety and a precision almost equal to land conveyance.
As illustrative of the changes in all respects, that have taken place in the last three-quarters of a century, the following curious relation, although trifling in itself, may be allowed to find a place.
A family about to embark at Falmouth, no longer ago than the year 1748 or 1749, hired a coach and horses in
London to convey them there, a system of travelling practised on the continent up to the present time; the driver having delivered his charge, made known his desire for obtaining, what he perhaps denominated a back-freight, on easy terms, and a party of young men availed themselves of the opportunity, stipulating, however, that in the event of their reaching a town at any part of the day where cockfighting would take place in the evening, the coach should lie by to afford them an opportunity of being present at the diversion.
Truro has not been measured as a distinct parish, and is therefore included in Kenwyn.
| £. | s. | d. | |
| Annual value of the Real Property as returned to Parliament in 1815 | 6958 | 0 | 0 |
| Poor Rate in 1831 | 1119 | 4 | 0 |
| Population,— | |||
| in 1801, 2358 | in 1811, 2482 | in 1821, 2712 | in 1831, 2925. |
giving an increase of 24 per cent. in 30 years.
It must be observed, that the amount of Real Property, the Poor Rate, and the Population, relate only to the ward rather than the parish of St. Mary, constituting Old Truro. In a note attached to the last Population Abstracts, it is said that the whole town is supposed to have contained 8,468 inhabitants in the year 1831.