Oliphant had entertained the gallant notion of personally delivering to Charles Egremont a transcript of Sybil Gerard’s testimony. But upon his return to England, those symptoms of advanced syphilis which Dr. McNeile had incorrectly diagnosed as railway-spine temporarily overcame him. Disguised as a commercial traveler from M. Arslau’s native Alsace, Oliphant went to ground in Brighton’s hydropathic spa, to take the waters and dispatch a number of telegrams.
Mr. Mori Arinori arrives in Belgravia at a quarter past four, driving a new-model Zephyr gurney leased from a commercial garage in Camden Town, just as Charles Egremont is departing for Parliament and a most important speech. Egremont’s body-guard, on assignment from the Central Statistics Bureau’s Department of Criminal Anthropometry, a machine-carbine slung beneath his coat, watches as Mori descends from the Zephyr, a diminutive figure in evening-clothes. Mori marches straight across the new-fallen snow, his boots leaving perfect prints upon the black macadam. “For you, sir,” Mori says and bows, handing Egremont the stout manila envelope. “Very good day to you, sir.” Donning round goggles with an elasticated band, Mori returns to his Zephyr. “What an extraordinary little personage,” Egremont says, looking down at the envelope. “One hasn’t seen a Chinaman, got up like that . . .” Recede. Reiterate. Rise above these black patterns of wheel-tracks, These snow-swept streets, Into the great map of London, forgetting
MODUS The Images Tabled
The Language of Signs
The circular arrangement of the axes of the Difference Engine ’round large central wheels led to the most extended prospects. The whole of arithmetic now appeared within the grasp of mechanism. A vague glimpse even of an Analytical Engine opened out, and I pursued with enthusiasm the shadowy vision. The drawings and the experiments were of the most costly kind. Draftsmen of the highest order were engaged, to economize the labor of my own head; whilst skilled workmen executed the experimental machinery. In order to carry out my pursuits successfully, I had purchased a house with about a quarter of an acre of ground, in a very quiet locality in London. My coach-house was converted into a forge and foundry, whilst my stables were transformed into a workshop. I built other extensive workshops myself, and had a fire-proof building for my drawings and draftsmen. The complicated relations amongst the various parts of the machinery would have baffled the most tenacious memory. I overcame that difficulty by improving and extending a language of signs, the Mechanical Notation, which in 1826 I had explained in a paper printed in the Philosophic Transactions of the Royal Society. By such means I succeeded in mastering a train of investigation so vast in extent that no length of years could otherwise have enabled me to control it. By the aid of the language of signs, the Engine became a reality. -LORD CHARLES BABBAGE, Passages in the Life of a Philosopher, 1864.
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Letters from Our Readers
[From The Mechanics Magazine, 1830.]
To judge by readers’ letters we receive, certain among our public would doubt that political matters come within the province of this journal. But the interests of science and manufacturing are inextricably mixed with a nation’s political philosophy. How then can we be silent? We look with delight for a grand new age for Science, as well as to every other PRODUCTIVE interest of this country, from the election to Parliament of a man of Mr. Babbage’s eminence in the scientific world, his tried independence of spirit, his very searching and business-like habits. Therefore we say forthrightly to every elector of Finsbury who is a reader of this journal — go and vote for Mr. Babbage. If you are an inventor, whom the ubiquitous and oppressive TAX ON PATENTS shuts out from the field of fair competition, and desire to see that TAX replaced by a wise and deliberate system of PUBLIC SUBSIDIES — go and vote for Mr. Babbage. If you are a manufacturer, harassed and obstructed in your operations by the fiscal stupidities of the present Government — if you would see British industry become as free as the air you breathe — go and vote for Mr. Babbage. If you are a mechanic, and depend for your daily bread on a constant and steady demand for the products of your skill, and are aware of the influence of free trade on your fortunes — go and vote for Mr. Babbage. If you are a devotee of Science and Progress — principle and practice united as bone and sinew — then meet us today on Islington Green, and VOTE FOR MR. BABBAGE!