We regret to notice the death of Sir John Pender,
a man to whom human progress upon its modern lines owed much. Acquiring very early a large fortune in the piece-goods trade, Mr. Pender devoted himself to trans-oceanic telegraphy, and the success of the first Atlantic cable was in great measure owing to his determined pluck. Twice broken the cable was twice relaid, and when at last it succeeded, the future of sub- marine telegraphing was assured. When he died Sir J. Pender was chairman of nine submarine telegraph com- panies, working seventy-six thousand miles of cable, and was of all men the one who had done most in applying the science of electricity to the international needs of the world. We shall never allow that his work was beneficial, or that the submarine cables have effected anything except a useless acceleration of imperfect information, but we fully believe that Sir J. }lender thought differently, and that although he was first of all seeking a great fortune for himself, he honestly supposed that the way in which he sought it was the most rapid path of progress. To " girdle the earth" in sixty minutes with a message which need never have been delivered struck him as an almost supernatural achieve- ment, and we sincerely trust that he is now "annihilating distance" bctween stars in the Milky Way, and getting paid for the same. He bad splendid courage and energy, could decide a really big question in five minutes, and could make men under him exert their abilities to the fullest. Those are the qualities we admire in ambitions Kings, and we do not know why we should not admire them in the captains of industry.
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