Aspects of the Agricultural Labour Question. 235 in this country, to cause a serious alarming drain of agricultural labour* Mr. Arch intends to proceed to the nited States with the object of making similar arrangements to those which he has already, made with the Canadians; and as agricultural labour is what the Americans reed as much as the Canadians, Mr. Arch’s to the United States will be un- hly a certain success, in so far as the re has in view is concerned, however, the continued ab- our agricultural labourers into xig and manufacturing industries of 1 ountry, together with the vigorous prosecution by the Agricultural Labourers’ Union of schemes of emigration to our co- lonies, have already produced throughout England a marked effect. Agricultural la- bour is every day becoming more scarce. Since the establishment of the Union, wages have been generally increased, although not to the extent which might be supposed; and so long as our peasants continue to go from us at the present rate, wages must necessarily continue to rise. Nevertheless, in many important agricultural districts, wages have not been materially increased during the last two years, because to a very great extent farmers have managed to dis- pense with much of the labour which they formerly employed, and because also far- mers and landowners have unfortunately maintained towards their men an attitude of uncompromising obstinacy. But this ob- stinacy will have to yield, should a great exodus of farm labourers from this country actually take rplace. Before this serious crisis has arrived, however, we trust that employers of agricultural labour will, by timely concession to their men, avert what will otherwise prove calamitous to them and to the whole nation. In a speech delivered before the Farmers’ Club, in December last, Mr. C. S. Read, M.P., the farmers’ representative in the House of Commons, in referring to the hos- tility which many farmers have manifested towards the Labourers’ Union, very sensibly recommended his hearers in all matters of work and wages to make no difference at all between union and non-union men. He added, however 4 There must be a more general and rigid pay- ment for overtime; but, on the other 'hand, I do not think the labourer can then call on the farmer, as he has done, to employ him through the whole of the dreary months of the year when he does not want him—that is to say, the spare hands. Nor is it incumbent upon us, as has been hitherto, to find work under cover wet and wintry days.’ OL. L1X. This is dangerous advice ; for unless Mr. Read meant, what he evidently did not, namely, that the farmer should pay the la- bourer, when he most needed his assistance, wages which would enable him to support himself during 4 the dreary months of the year,’ the labourer would leave him at that dreary season, and either emigrate or seek more constant employment in other places at home.; and would thus, in all probability, be lost to the farmer altogether. We have not space on the present occa- sion to discuss the many important questions that bear more or less directly upon the question of agricultural labour. One of the most important of these is that of tenant right. There is no doubt that the absence of any legal security for capital, when in- vested in the cultivation of the land, is the chief, if not the only cause of the very infe- rior state of our agriculture. Under an im- proved system of agriculture, it is certain that the position of the agricultural labourer would be immensely improved. Our land is rich enough to support our peasantry in de- cency and comfort, and it will be a national disgrace, as well as a national misfortune, if we allow the best and strongest of them to leave us. There are three things which most of our landowners and farmers have yet to learn. They must learn to recognise the right of the agricultural labourer to assert his manhood, and to raise himself from the miserable state of ignorance and poverty, of moral, intellec tual, social, and physical degradation in which he is still sunk, to a position of com- fort and independence. They must learn to recognise the fact that the healthy commer- cial spirit of the age will henceforth regulate the relations between employers and em- ployed in agricultural districts as elsewhere, and that the bonds of feudalism are finally being broken. They must also learn that the interests of the agricultural labourer are in reality identical with their own. The Government and the Legislature have, it must not be forgotten, great responsibili- ties in reference to this most important rriat-4 ter. The condition of our agricultural U bourers and the condition of our agricu^ are questions that demand the prompt earnest consideration of both ParW and the ministry, for they are < which vitally concern the nation;, classes engaged in the cultivation^ —landowners, farmers, and lab^ duties and responsibilities in ] other, they have yet greater in respect to the State. B—16236 The Electric Telegraph. Art. VI.—The Electric Telegraph. When we survey on a map of the Postal telegraph system the vast network of com- munication which encircles these islands, we find it hard to realize that considerably less than half a century ago the art of telegraphy was practically unknown. It is all the harder when we read that nearly two thousand five hundred years ago the keen-sighted, inquisi- tive Greeks had evoked that subtle power by means of which the ends of the earth have since been compassed and brought together. From these ancient Greeks we have inherited a veritable Aladdin’s lamp, by means of wrhich we can summon to our aid at any mo- ment an invisible force far more powerful than the Genie of the charming Oriental ro- mance. True, we no longer resort to the primitive method of nibbing amber to pro- duce this force; but when we speak of elec- tricity, as we constantly do, we but use a shorter form of speaking of the Genie of the amber, which the Orientals would have named the invisible, but as they believed, living agent evoked by the ancient Greeks. To trace, and properly develop the history of electrical science, would lead us far beyond the limits of a short paper like this. Besides, our object is to speatc rather of the applica- tion of electricity to the purposes of practi- cal telegraphy, than of the subtle power it- self. No doubt the invention of the electric telegraph, and the discovexy of the active principles of electricity, are very closely as- sociated in the public mind. But we need scarcely point out that they are totally dis- tinct things; and that just as steam existed long before the invention of the steam en- gine, so electricity had an existence, or, rather, its existence was discovered long be- fore the invention of the electric telegraph. We are reminded, indeed, that electricity must have been from the very beginning; for, as has been well put by the late Dr. George Wilson, in one of his very able pa- pers on tliis subject, if we are to consider him the founder of electrical science who first observed an electrical phenomenon, the honour must be assigned to Adam, who earliest of men, doubtless witnessed a thun- der-storm, and might have named the agency which produced it the lightning force. * In considering the foundation of electri- cal science, we are brought down to a com- paratively recent period, so recent, indeed, that the ‘ Latin Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism,’ published by Dr. Gilbert, of Colchester, in the year 1600, may be said to have been the first nractical work on the I April, subject. Even this admirable work proved to be far in advance of its age; and its dis- paragement, even by some of the most pro- found thinkers of the age, led to an actual retrogression in electrical science. Another Englishman, Stephen Gray, a pensioner of the Charterhouse, rendered very valuable service in the field of electrical discover; and his efforts, supplemented by those of Du Faye, a Frenchman, led to what may be called the classification of electrics. This brings us down to the year 1730, «>., one hundred and thirty years after the publica- tion of Dr. Gilbert’s treatise. Progress now became much more rapid, and within the next hundred years we must include the im- portant discoveries of Franklin, Galvani, Volta, Sir Humphry Davy, Ritter of Munich, GErsted of Copenhagen, the celebrated Da- nish philosopher, Arago, Sturgeon, and Fara- day. From 1830 onwards, Faraday proceed- ed in his career of discovery; and to him, more than to any other single observer, we owe the demonstration of the essential iden- tity in nature and power of all the so-called different kinds of electricity. He furnished the true explanation of its decomposing power over chemical compounds, which Sir Humphry Davy, with all his genius, had in several respects misinterpreted; and, besides much else, he discovered that, as a loadstone renders magnetic all the iron in its neigh- bourhood, so a current of electricity, pro- ceeding from a battery along one wire, de- velopes a momentary current along another and passive wire stretched near it Speaking of wires brings us into close contact with the subject more immediately in hand. We have glanced at the history of electrical science down to the year 1830; but in order to trace the history of the electric telegraph, from its earliest beginnings, we must go back for a moment to the year 1753/ when we find the first mention of a system of practical telegraphy. In that year‘ C. M.’ described in the Scots' Magazine his so- called ‘Expeditious Method of Conveying Intelligence.’ Curiously enough, the writer had in his mind the leading ideas which have been developed in all modem telegra- phy, viz., the complete insulation of the conducting wire, and the production at the distant end of a signal which should either be visible to the eye or audible to the ear. He may be said to haye failed only in a matter of detail, inasmuch as his system in- volved a separate wire for each letter of the alphabet, whereas one wire has now been found to suffice. According to Sir David Brewster, the author of this remarkable pa- per was a Greenock man ; and Brewster, after Careful mnnirr. ftoaarta fViof Kia nomo woa1847. 237 The Electric Telegraph. Charles Morrison, although it has been fre- quently quoted as Charles Marshall. The little that is known of him may be given in the words of an elderly Scotch lady who remembered] a 4 Very clever man of obscure position who would make lichtnin’ write an’ speak, and who could licht a room wi’ coal- reek ’ (i.e. coal smoke). This characteristic reminiscence of the old lady naturally recalls to our mind the remarkable words contained in the 35th verse of the 38th chapter of the Book of Job : ‘ Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are V We may take it for granted, from the tenor of this question, that the bearers of evil tidings, who, rushing in succession into the presence of the Patriarch, crushed the old man with instalment after instalment of malign fortune, were not the bearers of telegraphic messages. Ill news proverbially travels fast, but it never travelled in those days with speed so great as the lightning flash, whose subjugation under [the domi- nance of man seemed to Job a typical cul- mination of human impossibility. The Scotch lady spoke of Charles Morrison as the man ‘who could make lichtnin’ write an’ speak,’ but under his system the tongue fal- tered somewhat, and the pen was not exact- ly that of a ready writer. The period be- tween 1753 and 1837 is almost a blank in the history of the electric telegraph. It is true that in 1774 one Le Sage, a Frenchman, resident in Geneva, submitted a plan of electric communication to Frederick of Prus- sia, which has been regarded by some as en- titling him to the credit of originating the system. But the method too closely resem- bled that of Charles Morrison to entitle it to be considered as either original or superior. From 1774 to 1837 little was done to render telegraphy a practical science. The labours of M. Lomond in 1787, and of Mr. Ronalds, of Hammersmith, in 1816, led to no definite result; and up to the year 1837 the people of these islands were without that means of communication which, if taken, not from the whole country, but from one of its great «commercial centres only, for a single day, would be productive of the most disastrous results. To this period, says Dr. Wilson, belongs the date of greatest practical interest in re- ference to the telegraph. In 1837 the inex- haustibly ingenious Wheatstone, and Cooke, a man in whom the practicality of the En- glish character showed itself in its fullest, freest development, took out their patent for an electric telegraph; and to them, as the earliest* practical telegraphists, belongs the honour which attaches'to that difficult step in all enterprises, le 'premier pas, but of which, in their case, it may be emphatically added, qui cqute..-. The genial spirit that ut- tered these'words has passed away ; but Sir Charles Wheatstone is still amongst us, and apparently only in the midst of his useful- ness. The system introduced in 183.7 by Messrs. Cooke and Wheatstone was what is known as the ‘ double needle ’ telegraph— an invention for which it has been justly claimed that it deserves to be recognised in the same light as the first steam engine of James W^att. The circumstances attending the trial of the wonderful invention have an almost historical importance, and it is impos- sible to read the simple, yet impressive lan- guage in which they are detailed, without feeling somewhat of the sensation which is described as having come upon its authors when the greatness of their work came to be practically demonstrated. We read that on the night of the 25tli of June, 1837, the fa- mous invention was subjected to trial in the presence of several distinguished men, pro- minent amongst whom was the late Robert Stephenson. Wires stretching from Euston- square to Camden Town were connected with the instruments. At the one end stood the able and energetic Mr. Cooke; at the other, his coadjutol, Professor Wheatstone. The experiment was successful. ‘Never,’ says one of the inventors, ‘ never did I feel such a tumultuous sensation before, as when, all alone in the still room, I heard the nee- dles click; and as I spelled the words, I felt all the magnitude of the invention, now proved to be practicable beyond cavil of dis- pute.’ Great as was the magnitude of the invention—although confined in its display to the little line between Euston and Camden Town—it could not have entered into the minds of these pioneers how it was destined to be turned [to account within the twenty or thirty years that followed its introduc- tion. For it is worthy of note thatwhereas the progress of telegraphy between the date of the humble invention of Charles Morrison and the memorable epoch of which we are now speaking was slow* and marked by nu- merous vicissitudes, it was comparatively rapid and successful, after the impetus, given to it by the untiring efforts of Messrs. Cooke and Wheatstone. What may be described as the ‘ needle era ’' of the telegraph extended over a period of; twenty years, and was marked by the intro- duction of numerous forms of instruments,, all more or less designed on the Cooke and. Wheatstone principle. Some of these, as they may be seen now in the museum of the Postal Telegraphs Department, are curiosi- ties which excite in the mind of the telegra- phist who has grown with the system from /> '40481238 The .Electric Telegraph. its earliest beginnings very mingled feelings. One we noticed bad no fewer than five needles, representing, of course, as many conducting wires, not a very great improve- ment in this respect on the crude invention of Charles Morrison. It had earned a very honourable retirement, however, for it had been instrumental in securing the capture of the notorious Taw ell, the Quaker murderer. But the feat had not been accomplished without difficulty, for in spite of its five needles, the instrument could not make the letter 4 Q,’ and but for the ingenuity of the telegraphist, who spelt the word 4 Quaker,’ Kwaker, the murderer would have escaped. We are speaking now of a time when tele- graphy had not developed into a special branch of commerce, but was confined to the then slender requirements of one or two railway companies. By-and-by a basis was made of the railway system for the erection of telegraphs throughout the country, and the incorporation in 1846 of the Electric, afterwards the Electric and International Telegraph Company, laid the foundation of a system which, in the hands of the British Post Office, has grown to be not only the most extensive, but the best organized in the world. But the oak has sprung from a very small acorn indeed. Less than thirty years ago the 4 system’ of the Electric Company, or, to speak more forcibly, the telegraphic system of the United Kingdom, consisted of a line to Nine Elms, and a small office at 334, Strand. The Electric Company pur- chased the patents of Messrs. Cooke and Wheatstone, and for several years after the date of its incorporation the only instrument in use was the 4 double needle,’ of which we have already spoken. This instrument con- sists simply of a pair of vertical galvanome- ters, with a key or apparatus for placing a battery in circuit, and for reversing the cur- rents. The lower end of the inside needle is a north pole, and the coils are wound, so that if the copper of a battery be connected to the left, and the zinc to the right hand terminal, the top of the needle will move to the right, and so on. Dr. Wilson, in the article from which we have already quoted, written in 1852, gives a specimen of an alphabet, in which there were no fewer than ninety separate signals, some of the letters requiring as many as five distinct beats. The system would appear to have been that of the'single needle only, although, so far as we can gather, that form of instrument had not been introduced when the article was written. On the double needle instru- ment the letters of the alphabet can be ma- nipulated in less than fifty beats, and not more than three beats are required for any April, single letter. Taking the left handle, two beats to the left indicate the letter 4 A f three beats to the left indicate the letter 4 Bone right and left 4 C one left and right 4 D,’ and so on. These combinations can be pro- duced with such amazing rapidity that, even at the'[present day, with the vast strides which have been made in improving the methods of communication, the double nee- dle instrument can be worked at as great a speed as any hand instrument at present in use. But it has these great disadvantages— it necessitates the use of two wires, and is ill-adapted for working long distances. We have good reason for remembering how, in the early days of telegraphy, when the sys» tern of insulating, wires was only imperfectly understood, it was frequently impossible to telegraph a greater distance than forty or fifty miles, and messages from Edinburgh to London had to be 4 repeated,’ or re-transmit- ted as many as half a dozen times. So in- sensitive was this form of instrument, that a vibration of the needle, which, under favoura- ble conditions of working, would extend over a range of about a quarter of an inch, and be distinctly visible at some distance, might be reduced to the faintest tremble, and could only be caught by peering into the face of the instrument with all the anxiety and intense eagerness of a person on shore looking out for a sail on the distant horizon. The tele- graphists of those days were a band of reso- lute fellows, and were too proud, or too de- termined, to give in and say they could not read, when there was the smallest chance of making out the wavering signals. Clearly, however, a system of this kind was only adapted to the experimental stage of electric telegraphy, when people looked upon the new discovery as a kind of supernatural agency, only to be employed on the rarest and most important occasions. Messages were written out in those days with all the care and deliberation which characterize the gravest transactions of life, and they were entrusted to the wires with a kind of feeling that they might possibly create a degree of mental prostration in their unfortunate re- ceivers. For the most part they related to serious illnesses or deaths, or to pecuniary embarrassments, calling for immediate action on the part of some distant correspondent, or partner in trade. It is small wonder, then, that we read that the telegraph messenger of that period was scarcely more welcome at the doors of most people than the undertak- er or the sheriff’s officer, and that messages actually containing good newrs were frequent- ly refused from very fear of their being the medium of evil tidings. Naturally a system which existed under such conditions was1874, 239 The Mectru both expensive and unreliable. We remem- ber, indeed, when tbe charge from Edin- burgh to London was something like twelve and sixpence, and to other places in propor- tion. It could hardly be otherwise under a system requiring two separate wires for each instrument, and with lines so imperfectly' constructed that it was frequently found ne- cessary to set up temporary offices at inter- mediate points in order to enable the com- munication to be maintained at all. The double wire system was slightly improved upon by the introduction of the single nee- dle instrument—a modification of the origi- nal apparatus of Messrs. Gooke and Wheat- stone—but the economy of wire was more than counterbalanced by the loss of speed in transmitting signals, and the question of an improved method of communication, especi- ally for long distances, still remained unsolv- ed. The first real improvement in this di- rection may be said to have been effected by the introduction of the chemical printing in- strument of Alexander Bairn—a clever Scotch- man, resident, we believe, in Glasgow, and the inventor of the electric clock described by Dr. Wilson in the .article to which we have already referred. Chemically prepared pa- per in a long narrow strip was unwound from a roller driven by clock-work and a weight. A needle or pen—generally a piece of thin steel wire—was made to rest on the paper in a slanting direction, and, as currents of elec- tricity were sent from the distant station, by depressing a ‘ key ’ or lever, in contact with the battery, blue marks of long or short du- ration, just as the depressions were long or short, were produced on the strip of pa- per. Here, then, was a telegraph which not only worked with a single wire, but which could be worked much greater distances than the needle instrument, and replaced the van- ishing signals of that instrument by intelligi- ble marks or signs which, although they fad- ed by-and-by, were sufficiently distinct for all practical purposes. The leading princi- ple of Bain’s system was That, by increased sensitiveness in the receiving apparatus, a corresponding current of electricity to that required for the needle instrument could be made to produce a much better result, in proportion as the decomposition of the chem- cals in the paper was more easily accomplish- ed, than the mechanical action represented by the movement of the needles. Stated briefly, this is the principle adopted in all cases where communication has to be carried on through long lengths of line, or at high speed, on short lines. It is applied in diffe- rent ways, of course, but the idea is the same, viz., that the less you give the current of electricity to do at the receiving end, es- Telegraph. pecially as regards mechanical action, the quicker and the better it will accomplish its task. The Bain system, so far as we are aware, has passed altogether out of use ;' but there are, at the very moment in which we write, indications that it may be revived with very startling results on the future of telegraphy. We read, only a week or two ago, a short account of some marvellous re- sults in telegraphy achieved in America by means of what was described as the 4 new American system’ of combining chemical with mechanical action. The system, we be- lieve, is at this moment being experimented with in this country, and so far as we can gather, it possesses several of the most im- portant features of that invented by Alexan der Bain. It will only be another example added to many that history repeats itself, if it should be found that, like Dr. Gilbert, of Colchester, with his treatise published in the year 1600, Bain should have been in advance of his age with his chemical telegraph invent- ed some twenty or thirty years ago. Up to this point, as our readers will have observed, the principal discoveries in the field of electrical science, and all the practi- cal inventions in the telegraphic field had resulted from British genius and British in- dustry. Indeed it may be said that the whole system of electric telegraphy is of purely British origin ; although it is a curious fact that several countries, %nd notably, little Belgium and Switzerland, had, prior to the acquisition of the telegraphs by the Post Office in this country, far outstripped us in the application of the system to the wants of the people. But, if we had done much to establish telegraphy as a practical and useful art, it remained to another coun- try—to America, indeed—to furnish that link in the chain which has rendered the system not only universal, but almost per- fect. After all, it was only fitting that the younger country should take its share in the labours so assiduously carried on by the parent land for so many years. What Fara- day did for. electrical science, Professor Morse has done for the electric telegraph, in giving to' the world that beautiful instru- ment which bears his name, and which, in some form or other, is in use throughout the whole civilized world. Morse was a native of Massachusetts, and a son of the well- known author of 4 Morse’s Geography.’ He was born in 1791, and died some two or three years ago. He was originally an artist, and devoted himself chiefly to por- trait painting; bub he had studied the principles of electricity and electrical action, and, us a result of his labours, he has given us the 4 Morse printing instrument'.’ The'240 The Electric Telegraph. principle of this ingenious and1 beautiful in- strument is electro-magnetic. "What may be designated the ‘ keeper ’ of the magnet is an armature, or horizontal lever carrying a piece of pointed metal, or i style,’ which embosses a mark upon a band of paper carried for- ward by wheel-work. The electric current is sent by means of separate apparatus at the distant end, called the ‘ key,’ which is in connection with the battery. The electro- magnet attracts its armature so long as a current is made to flow through the wire with which it is wound, and ceases to attract it as soon as the current is cut off by releasing the key, the armature being drawn back by a spring. The paper is carried forward by two rollers, in the uppermost of which there is a groove to receive the point of the style. Motion is supplied by means of clock-work and a spring ; and it is worth mention that it April, was from a cheap wooden clock, which he accidentally picked up, that Professor Morse constructed the train of wheels for his ex- perimental instrument. Morse not only in- vented the instrument which we have thus briefly described, but he invented the code of signals best suited to its use, and both the alphabet and the instrument are inseparably linked with his name. In fact, the ‘ Morse code5 is the telegraphic , language of the world, and furnishes the means of intercourse between the Far East and the Far West as readily as between London and Liverpool. Our readers will remember what we said about the short and long signals of the Bain telegraph, and how they were produced by short and long depressions of the lever, or key, connected with the battery. The Morse system is somewhat similar in this respect, but the signs are different, thus :— AB O D E F ^G II I J K L M R S T U ' V The principle, it will be observed, is that of long and short marks, or, as they are telegra- phically known, 4 dots’ and ( dashes and while the arrangement is highly ingenious and very beautiful, it is also very simple, and capable of being taught to very young per- sons with comparative ease. It may be worth while to anticipate somewhat in order to illustrate how, even in a minor detail like that of teaching the telegraphic alphabet, the master mind which conceived and has so boldly executed the idea of postal tele- graphs has been at work. The needle al- phabet was comparatively easy of acquire- ment because one letter ‘ led up’ to another, so to speak. Thus, while two beats of the needle signified ‘ A,’ three beats stood for ‘B,’ and so on. There is no such suggestive ness ' about the Morse alphabet, but in the follow- ing arrangement, which has been very aptly designated the ‘ Scudamore method,’ an aid to memory has been furnished, which has reduced the teaching of the system to the very Verge of simplicity. The letters of the alphabet are divided into six groups, with a catchword for each letter, and a characteris- tic saying for each group, thus: Group 1. E- Earwigs I-- Infest S--- Summer H Houses N 0 p Q W X Y z T — Group 2. Turnips M Make 0 Oxen OH ,— Cheerful Group 3. A- — A w Wet J Jacket’s U Uncomfortable Y Group 4. Yerv N . No D Difficulty B Baffles G Great Z Group 5. Zeal R Remember! : L Law p Preserves p Group 6. Freedom K Kindness 0 Conciliates Y - — Youth X Xtremely Q Quickly This tabular arrangement of the alphabet was supplemented by a few simple rules for the guidance of the pupil, as for instance that1874. 241 The Electric all the signals hr the first group are left strokes, or dots, and all those in the second group right strokes, or dashes ; and it only remained to fix these 'rules in the mind in order to gain a mastery of the alphabet in a very short space of time. Reverting to our narrative, we find that the first.- practical experiment with Morse’s system took place in 1844 'between Wash- ington and Baltimore, and speaking of what has followed since then, an enthusiastic American writer says:— 4 The subseqent history of the telegraph is but the history of the career of Professor Morse, and is too well known to require to be detailed here at length. He abandoned his art, and devoted the remainder of his life to the telegraph. We need not give the history of its steady advance across continents, and beneath oceans, till now but one link remains to com- plete the world’s electric girdle. The Morse has become almost the universal telegraph of the world, and nations have overcome their prejudices in favour of their own productions, and adopted the “ Morse ” as the most simple, practical, and useful of all telegraphs.’ Following the introduction into this coun- try of the Morse instrument telegraphy made rapid strides, and while the system was extended and improved in many direc- tions, it was also cheapened to some slight extent, and as a matter, of course it became more popular. But the 4 Morse ’ instrument, proper, may be said only to have laid the foundation for further improvements in the means of communication, although it is im- portant to note that subsequent inventors have retained to a large extent the leading principles of Professor Morse in their inven- tions. The great defect in the original 4Morse’ instrument, or, as it is common- ly called, the 4 embosser,’ is the difficulty of reading, unless under certain conditions of light and shade, the embossed marks on the strip of paper, and the non-permanency of the record. This may, however, be said to have been a mere difficulty of detail, and it was soon overcome, by the introduction of the ink-writer, in connection with which it is proper to mention the name of the Messrs. Siemens, of London and Berlin. The mani- pulation and electrical action of this instru- ment are in all respects the same as those of the ‘ Morse,’ in fact, it is to all intents and purposes a 4 Morse,’ with the important ad- dition of the ink-writing principle. The lever attached to the armature, which, in the 4 embosser,’ holds a style for the indentation of the strip of paper, has, in the case of the ink-writer, a small disc attached to it. This disc rests in a well or trough filled with specially prepared telegraphic ink, and each Telegraph. time the armature is drawn down towards - the electro-magnet, the disc - is raised by means of the lever arrangement, and being thus brought into contact with the paper which is being -unwound from the instru- ment, just as the paper is unwound In the new 6 Walter ’ printing machine, beautifully distinct marks or signs are made in place of the somewhat faint indentations produced by the original instrument. These ink-writ- ing instruments are of two kinds, telegra- phically described as double and single cur- rent ink-writers, the former being used for long distances, where the signalling is more laboured and difficult, and the latter being used for short distances, and generally throughout the Metropolis. The instruments to which, up to this point, our observations have been confined are those which were in use, up to the time of the transfer of the telegraphic system to the Post Office, by the Electric and Inter- national, and United Kingdom Telegraph Companies. The latter company is deserv- ing of special mention as having been the first to break down the practical monopoly in telegraphy which existed prior to its for- mation, and for having made a very credita- ble attempt to establish a uniform shilling rate for telegrams of twenty words within the United Kingdom. It succeeded tolera- bly well for a time, but its resources were limited, and by-and-by it was compelled to give up the attempt, and from being an op- ponent, to Become a confederate of the two other companies. In this way, so recently as 1865, the interests of the public in the matter of telegraphy were utterly baffled, and matters threatened to settle down into a worse condition as regards cheap and popu- lar telegraphy, than before. The United Kingdom Company, however, achieved one considerable object during the brief period of its existence, in its acquisition of the Hughes type-printing instrument—one of the most interesting and beautiful inventions in modern telegraphy. The Hughes instru- ment differs from all others, in that it is mainly mechanical, the electrical action being confined to the sending a single short current at the instant the type-wheel is in the proper position, and only a single wave is needed to produce a letter. The sending and receiving instruments are precisely alike, and are manipulated by a key-board somewhat resembling that of a pianoforte of as many keys as there are letters, figures, and signs to be printed. The messages, in stead of being printed in signs, as in th< case of the Morse alphabet, are printed ii Roman.characters; and there is this advan tage in the Hughes instrument over al242 The Electric Telegraph. other instruments whatever, that the ^opera- tor at the sending station reproduces his own message by the same process which produces it at the distant station. Some of our readers are, no doubt, familiar with the telegrams produced by the Hughes instru- ment, in which the actual words printed in Homan characters by the instrument it- self, are delivered to the addressee of the message, instead of the transcription which requires to be made by the telegraph cleft in the case of messages transmitted by the Morse instrument. For every depression of the piano-like key of the Hughes instrument, a letter comes tumbling out at the distant end, while, under certain conditions com- binations of as many as five letters can be produced during a single revolution of the type-wheel. Here, surely, is a striking con- trast to the double needle instrument of less than twenty years ago, which required numerous combinations for almost every let- ter of the alphabet, and which, when work- ed at its highest speed, necessitated the as- sistance of a second operator to write the messages down as they were read off by the operator in charge of the circuit. The dif- ference between the duties of a telegraphist at the receiving end of a Hughes circuit, and one in charge of a Morse circuit, is about as great as that between making up an article after the somewhat unorthodox fashion of 4 scissors and paste,’ and writing "an original one. In fact, scissors and paste are the necessary adjuncts of the type-printing instrument. The Magnetic Telegraph Company work- ed a variety of instruments during the period of its existence prior to the transfer of the system to the Post Office. But the instru- ment w7ith which its operations were most closely identified was the bell telegraph of Sir Charles Bright, in which two distinct sounds may be said to represent the dot and the dash of the Morse*alphabet, or the left and the right beats of the single needle instrument. The bell instrument is rapidly disappearing from the Postal system, but the question of acoustics in telegraphy is one which must ere long become prominent. The system of reading by sound is almost universal in America, and we understand that at the present moment it is occupying the serious attention of the authorities of the Postal Telegraphs Department. Hitherto the Post Office has erred on the side of cau- tion in reference to the matter, adopting the view so strongly held by the leading tele- graph companies that some kind of record or other was necessary to the accurate trans- mission and decipherment of the messages. But later experience has begun to tell in April, favour of sound reading, and we have lie doubt that before very long what is known as the 4Morse sounder’ will be in pretty general use throughout our telegraphic sys- tem. The bell instrument possessed great speed, and was peculiarly adapted, in the hands of an expert operator, for the trans- mission of news for the press. But it was difficult of adjustment, and seldom worked - well except, under the most favourable con- ditions of wire and weather. Besides, it was an exceptional system, understood by a comparatively small number of the telegra- phists transferred to the Government ser- vice, and therefore not calculated to conduce to that uniformity and simplicity which Mr. Scudamore has endeavoured from the first to establish within his department. The Morse sounder is practically the Morse instru- ment of which we have already spoken at some length. But inasmuch as the princi- pal part of a recording instrument is that connected with the unwinding and.marking the paper, the sounder may be said to be the mere skeleton of the printer. The clock- work is altogether dispensed with, and the apparatus may be said to resolve itself into a pair of coils, and an armature, the stroke of which, as it is attracted by the electric current, creates the sound from which the signals are interpreted. In fact, it is little more than an electro-magnet, which may almost be carried in the waistcoat pocket, while the Morse recorder, or printer, can hardly be accommodated in a smaller space than eighteen inches. square. Difference of sound in the bell instrument has been sub- stituted by duration of sound in the Morse sounder; and just as a stroke on the left- hand bell indicated the 4 dot ’ of the' Morse alphabet, or the letter 4E,’ so a momentary click of the armature is similarly interpreted on the sounder, while'a more decided click would represent the 4 dash ’ of the Morse alphabet, or the letter 4T.’ The system, so far as the Post ^Office is concerned, is only beginning to lisp as yet, but by-and-by there will probably be some hundreds of these tiny metal tongues ^clattering away at the same time in the great central telegraph station of the metropolis. There will be no Babel- like confusion amongst them, however, for they will all speak the same language, and will all be requa!ly easy of interpretation. Sound telegraphy has these important ad- vantages : it disciplines the operator by making him self-reliant, and keeping him up to his work, while it limits the clerical requirements of any given wire or circuit to a single operator, and thereby does away with the extravagant, and, in many cases, unsafe system of 4 writers.’ Combining, as243 1874. The Electric Telegraph, it therefore does, simplicity and efficiency with the greatest economy, we shall he sur- prised if before long it does not become the universal system of the Post Office, as it has become the universal system in America. Obviously, the speed of any system of sound telegraphy is limited to that at which the operator can write. But there are a variety of circumstances which render it imperative that certain wires or circuits should be work- ed at a much greater speed' than this; and the consideration of this necessity brings us face to face with one of the most impor- tant telegraphic improvements of the age. The very"rapid progress of telegraphy may be best judged of by considering that the first practical telegraph, invented less than fo-rty"years ago, and the latest improvement in practical telegraphy, for inland lines, bear the same name. Sir Charles Wheatstone has lived to witness not only the rise, pro- gress, and virtual extinction of the needle system of telegraphy ; but in the automatic system which bears his name, he has given us a means of rapid communication for long distances which will probably outlive the present generation of. telegraphists. We have already said that the double needle tele- graph could be worked as rapidly as any system of hand telegraphy at present in use. The limit of such working is forty words, or two hundred letters per minute ; but if we take the result per wire on the double needle instrument, we are reduced to twenty words, or one hundred letters per minute. The Wheatstone automatic system is capable of producing and recording no fewer than one hundred and twenty words, or six hun- dred letters per minute ; so that in the brief space of five-and-thirty years the carrying power of the telegraph may be said to have been increased more than six-fold 1 Popularly described, the Wheatstone automatic instru- ment may be said to be a fast-speed applica- tion of the Morse system ; although it possess- es several characteristics which entitle it to be regarded as an essentially distinct system. It will be readily perceived that the highest speed attainable under the ordinary Morse system is just the speed at which the opera- tor can manipulate his key, or lever, due re- gard being had to certain rules of 4 spacing/ or measuring the signals, which are essential to decipherment at the distant end, with facility and correctness. Now, the automa- tic arrangement of Sir Charles Wheatstone has revolutionized the 4keying’ or sending process altogether, and has transferred the manual portion of it to a totally different operation. A machine called the 4 perfora- tor’ punches holes in a strip of specially prepared paper which resemble the 4 dot,’ the 4 dash,’ and the 4 space ’ of the ordinary .Morse instrument. Three small discs are depressed by smart blows delivered from a pair of wooden or iron 4 sticks,’ about three inches long, held in the hands of a smart boy, called the 4 puncher.’ If the left-' hand disc be struck, it will make two’per- forations, thus, § ; and if tfye right-hand disc be depressed, it will make two perfora- tions, thus, °co . The first-described perfo- ration represents the 4 dot,’ and the last-de- scribed the 4 dash,’ of the Morse alphabet; and the two taken together make the letter 4 A.’ The depression of the centre disc makes a series of small holes between the larger ones, which serve at once to carry the paper forward, and to form the necessary spaces between letters and words. The ap- pearance of the punched tape, as it is jerked from the perforator, may be gathered from the following diagram ::— ooo GOOO o oo o ooo o o o o o o o oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo OOO oooo o o o o ooo o o o o oo o These perforations represent the letters of the word 4 Wheatstone; ’ and when they have been passed through the 4 transmitter,’ by a process which we shall shortly describe, W H E A T The main portion of the 4transmitter’is a clock-work arrangement, driven by a heavy weight. A very delicately fine mechanical arrangement, which it would be impossible to describe here, is set in motion by the they simply resolve themselves into* the printed dots and dashes of the Morse alpha- bet, thus:— ST 0 N E clock-work; and as the .perforated paper is drawn through the machine by a kind' of cogged wheel, small pistons are forced though the perforations, and thus the cur- rents are sent. ’ Two holes immediately op-244 The Electric Telegraph. April, posite cacli other only admit of a momentary current being transmitted, hence the 4 dot ’ of the Morse alphabet. Two others in a slanting position, and consequently a greater distance apart, admit of a longer current be- ing sent, and hence the 4 dash.’ The speed of the transmitter may be regulated at will from twenty to one hundred and twenty words a minute; and as the automatic ar- rangement secures absolute mechanical pre- cision in dots, dashes, and spaces, the signals or marks are as easily decipherable at the faster, as at the slower speed. As the Wheatstone system of telegraphy was only in its infancy, so to speak, when the Post Office assumed the control of the telegraphs throughout the country, we select this point as the fittest at which to diverge from the history of the origin' and progress of telegraphy, in order to inquire very brief- ly into its present condition. Before quit- ting the subject of instruments, however, it may be useful to remark that the Post Office has not added in any appreciable degree to the apparatus in use by the companies some four or five years ago, its objectbeing, in the words of Mr. Scudamore himself, 4 to dis- continue the use of the less perfect, and to extend the use of the more perfect forms ’ of apparatus in use by the companies. We cannot find that any useful or practical in- vention has been rejected by the authorities of the Post Office since it assumed the con- trol of the telegraphs. A great many dis- carded inventions have been re-invented, and a good many inventors have usurped the telegraphic field who would have been much better employed in studying the past history of the electric telegraph. The Post Office has not been by any means idle in the matter of telegraphic improvement. It has increased the use of the Wheatstone system nearly a hundred-fold ; and by the valuable aid of its practical officers it has so far sim- plified many of the forms of apparatus hith- '■erto in use, that not only a great economy in the manufacture, but considerably increased facility in the use of such apparatus has re- sulted from the change. At the present moment experiments are being made with the / duplex,’ or 4 double-working ’ system of telegraphy, wffiich bid fair to establish as a permanent system, what has hitherto been re- garded more in the light of a scientific curi- osity. The attempt to send messages in op- posite directions, on the same wire, at the same time, was made some years ago by Gintl, an Austrian telegraph Director. It failed, not because it was impossible, but because it was attempted under conditions altogether adverse to success. It was subsequently tried in this country, under almost equally un- favourable conditions; but with a greatly improved system of insulation, and with greatly improved appliances, it is confident- ly hoped that all difficulties have been over- come, and that a practical success has al- ready been achieved for the system. To the scientific officers of the Postal Telegraph De- partment will be due the credit of success in establishing the 4 duplex ’ system in this country; although it is proper to state that their efforts were largely prompted by the aid of Mr. Stearns, an American inventor, whose name is intimately associated with the extension of the system of duplex telegraphy, and who has materially facilitated its appli- cation to lines of more than 150 miles in length. Viewed commercially and socially, the progress of telegraphy in this country has been almost greater than it has been in other respects; and in treating this part of our subject our attention is naturally recalled to the time when the Government proposi- tions for acquiring the telegraphs were un- der consideration by the House of Commons and the country. It will doubtless be re- membered by some of our readers that the measure was strenuously opposed by the then existing telegraph companies, who asserted that further extensions of the telegraphic system were not wanted, and that if made they would certainly never pay. They, un- consciously, of course, hit the blot of the whole system, when they declared in a pam- phlet issued to create opposition to the Tele- graphs Bill, that their lines were used main- ly by 4 stockbrokers, mining agents, ship- brokers, colonial brokers, racing and betting men, fishmongers, fruit merchants, and others engaged in business of a speculative char- acter, or who deal in articles of a perishable nature.’ It was their opinion, too, that 4 general merchants used the telegraph com- paratively little compared with those en- gaged in the more speculative branches of commerce.’ Most undoubtedly this was the fact; but how false was the assumption, that any extension or cheapening of the sys- tem would fail to lead to its more general use by the public at large, is best proved by the results which have so speedily fol- lowed the establishment of the Post Office Telegraphs. The class interest in telegra- phy has been destroyed, but the classes them- selves have not been injured by being placed on a level with the whole British public, in a matter as intimately associated, with the wel- fare and happiness of the people as the penny post itself. Business messages of all kinds have increased largely; but instead of crowd- ing out messages of friendship, pleasure, congratulation, or anxiety, they have only as-187*. The JElectri sisted in creating and multiplying them. How this has been done will be best explain- ed by considering briehy the programme pre- scribed for itself by the Post Office when it undertook to assume the control of the tele- graphs. This programme has been fulfilled to the letter, so that it presents, in brief, the main results achieved under the existing con- dition of things. Mr. Scudamore, who. has been very aptly named the ‘ Rowland Hill of telegraphy,’ undertook to effect— A. The reduction and simplification of the charges for the transmission of telegrams throughout the United Kingdom._ B. The extension of the wiresUrom rail- way stations lying outside of town popula- tions to post offices in the centre of such populations; the extension of the wires al-' ready carried into large cities towards the suburbs of such cities; and the extension of the wires from towns into* rural and other districts unprovided with telegraphic accom- modation. From the combined effect of these extensions it was hoped that a saving of time, and a saving in cost of porterage, would accrue to the senders and receivers of messages. 0. Such a complete separation of the commercial telegraph system from the rail- way telegraph system, as would entirely re- lieve the commercial wires of railway mes- sages, and throw on the railway wires those commercial messages only which arise out of the circumstances of railway traffic ; and D. Free trade in the collection of news for the press, of which collection the telegraph companies had hitherto had a monopoly; with low rates for the transmission of such news, no matter by what or by how many agencies it might be collected. Adverting to proposition A, it will hardly be believed that less than five years ago the charges for telegrams throughout the United Kingdom ranged from Is. to 7s. 8d. The charges were mostly regulated by distance, but here and there the system of charging exhibited the most grievous anomalies, and was sorely puzzling to most people unskilled in telegraphic vagaries. Especially was this the case when a telegram had to be trans- mitted ove, the lines of two or more tele- graph companies, or had to be handed over to the tender mercies of a railway telegraph. For instance, a message would be carried from London to Edinburgh, a distance of nearly 400 miles, for 2s.; but one to Granton, less than four miles distant from Edinburgh, cost 50 per cent, more, viz., 3s. The charge from London to Bournemouth, which is about seven miles from Poole, was made up of Is., the charge to Poole, and 2s. the extra - charge to Bournemouth. Such cases might Telegraph. , 245 be multiplied indefinitely, but these will suf- fice. A varying tariff, as Mr. Scudamore has pointed out, framed primarily upon distances, and secondarily upon routes, is a tariff diffi- cult to understand; and there can be little doubt that the prevailing uncertainty as to the charge prevented many persons from sending messages, who would otherwise have' sent them freely. The uniform Is. rate of the Post Office means not only a cheaper rate than that of the companies, but it means a simpler one as well; a fact which is really of more importance than at first sight appears. Some of us remember, no doubt, the tre- pidation with which letters were committed to the post in the old days, when anything from a shilling to half-a-crown might have been exacted for postage; and much the same feeling was experienced only a year or two ago by the senders of telegraphic mes- sages under the Companies’ system. Not only as regards the mere transmission of messages does the shilling rate of the Post Office mean a vast saving to the public; but the subsidiary charges for porterage—a very important item in the old days—have been very much modified and reduced. The public are naturally anxious for still further reduc- tions ; and we think they may safely accept this assurance, that the moment the purely physical difficulties in the way of such a step^ are removed, a lower rate will be introduced. Mr. Scudamore expressed himself not very long ago to the effect that a sixpenny rate for messages of ten words is that which will at no very distant date be found the best for the country; and his well-known predilections are all on the side of cheapness and popular- ity. Meanwhile, it should be cheering for the British taxpayer to reflect that the gift to the public of a reduced tariff for telegraphic messages is to be measured by a sum not far short of half a million sterling. Under proposition B, we are called upon to consider some very important results. We remember the time when at most places of second and third rate importance the telegraph office existed only at the rail- way station, where public business was car- ried on to a large extent subservient to that of the railway company. In fact, the railway system was made the basis of telegraphic operations, and places remote from the lines of railway, however great their importance, were rarely favoured with telegraphic facili- ties. Nor did the.presence of a railway al- ways confer the advantages of telegraphic communication, unless the railway happened to require the 'telegraph for its own peculiar purposes. We can recall the case of a sea- port town in Scotland, of some five or six thousand inhabitants, to which the telegraph246 The Electric Telegraph. was only extended on a certain amount of traffic being guaranteed to the company by the leading business men of the place. All this sounds strange now* when the humbelst village almost has its claim to telegraphic ac- commodation, and when the claims of nearly everyplace entitled to the privilege have been satisfied. This is very apparent when we consider that in January, 1870, immediately prior to the acquisition of the system by the Post Office, there were only some 2,500 tele- graph offices in the United Kingdom; while in January of the present year there were close upon 5,600, of which nearly 160 had been opened during 1878. The full value of this increase is by no means measured by a mere statement of the figures such as we have given. Yery many of the companies’' offices were mere duplicates and triplicates, necessarily arising out of the system of compe- tition then in force. The Edinburgh Cham- ber of Commerce, led on by that indefatig- able advocate of telegraphic reform, Mr. George Harrison, put the case very strongly, thus:—4 There are at present about 300 places in which all the three companies have offices, generally situated, as in the case of our own city, within a few yards of each other. Many of these offices could be dispensed with, and their cost 'applied to the establishment of others, placed where the convenience of the public, rather than the necessities of competi- tion required them to be placed.’ Obvious- ly, it was the view of the Edinburgh Cham- ber of Commerce that these duplicate and triplicate offices did not afford duplicate and triplicate accommodation; and, as a matter, of course, they were right in supposing that the companies in thus settling themselves in such close contiguity to each other, were de- sirous of merely competing for the most lucrative site, Edinburgh wTas only one of many towns in which duplicate and triplicate offices were located side by side, or vis-d-vis, in the centre of business. It may be taken as a type, however, of how the number of offices has not only been increased four-fold, but of how they have been distributed so as to meet public requirements, not necessarily converging upomthe mere centres of business. The three offices hitherto situated in Princes-street, within a few doors of each other, have been concentrated at the General Post Office ; and in their places have arisen offices in the east at Porto hello and Leith Walk ; in the west at the Hay market, Mur- rayfield, and Corstorphine; in the north at Granton and Newhaven ; and in the south at Newington and Boroughmuirhead.* Of course there are a great many more within the city delivery proper; but these we have mentioned will best illustrate Mr. Scuda- April, more’s idea of extending the wires to the suburban districts of our great cities. Here was the case of another large city—Liver- pool—prior to the transfer of the telegraphs to the Post Office, as put by Mr.'Scudamore himself:—■ ‘ The district of Liverpool may be regarded as a semicircle, with a radius of five miles. The river forms the chord of the semicircle, and all the telegraph offices are on or very near to the chord, the principal of them being cluster- ed together in the centre of the chord. The district is thickly studded with Money Order Offices, which have been placed so as to suit the requirements of the population. Twelve of these Money Order Offices are at a distance of from one to two miles from the nearest tel- egraphic station, and the population served by them must, to a great extent, be outside the telegraphic free delivery. Three are from two to three miles, and three are from four to five miles from the nearest telegraphic station. The population served by these offices must be altogether outside the telegraphic free deliv- ery.’ At the present time the district of Liver- pool contains no fewer than forty separate telegraph offices, as compared with fifteen in the days of the Companies; while the area of telegraphic operations has been so ^ much enlarged that such distant points as Waterloo, Wavertree, and Dingle Hill, are included within its limits. The cases of Manchester, Birmingham, and Glasgow are equally striking ; while as regards London the increase in the number of offices has been nearly four-fold. But the enormous increase of facilities which has taken place in recent years may also be judged of by considering the extent of the system as regards wires and appara- tus. Twenty-two years ago, as we read in Chambers’s Papers for the People, the num- ber of miles of telegraph in Great Britain was 3,000. At the time of the transfer of the system to the Post Office there were in existence 15,203 miles of telegraphic line, and 59,250 miles of wire. There are at the present moment more than 20,000 miles of line, and nearly 110,000 miles of wire ; while the number of instruments, which stood at the time of the transfer below 2.000, has been increased to upwards of 8.000. The combined Companies forwarded amongst them some six millions of telegrams, aiid their revenue would be somewhere about half a million sterling. In the first year after the transfer of the system to the Post Office the number of messages had risen to very nearly ten millions ; in 1871 , more than twelve and a half millions of messages had been forwarded ; in 1872 the I number had risen to close upon fifteen mil-247 The Electric Telegraph. 187 4, lions, while for the financial year ending 31st March, 1874, the number cannot he very far short of eighteen millions. The total esti- mated revenue for the year is £1,220,000, and there is every reason to believe that the estimate will be more than realized. Thus, the number of messages has been tripled in four years, and the revenue Has been consid- erably more than doubled—the difference of proportion between the increase in the num- ber of messages and the increase in the rev- enue representing the gain to the British public by the transaction. ' * Under head C it is only necessary to state that a complete separation of the commer- cial and railway telegraphic systems has been effected; and it is clear, as pointed out by Mr. Scudamore himself, that so far as the safety of railway passengers can be secured by the employment of a free and unencumbered telegraph, the risks of railway travelling over great lengths of important line must have been diminished by the operations of the Govern- ment measure. .Nor have the public suffered in any way in respect of telegraphic facili- ties at railway stations. Nearly every station- master in the United Kingdom is an agent of the Postmaster-General in the matter of collecting telegrams ; but the messages, in- stead of encumbering the through wires of the railway companies to the exclusion of important traffic messages, are simply trans- mitted over a local wire, provided by the Post Office, to the nearest postal telegraph office. The railway stations, therefore, in- stead of being primary telegraph offices, as in the old days, are simply secondary offices, at which the business of the Postal Depart- ment is supplemented with much conve- nience to the travelling public, and consider- able profit to the railway companies. Under the head D, relating to the estab- lishment of free trade in the collection of news for the press, some very startling results have been achieved since the Post Office assumed the control of the telegraphs. We need scarcely remind our reader^ that in the hands of the telegraph companies the supply of news was a virtual monopoly, exercised too often to the oppression of newspaper proprietors, and to the detriment of impor- tant public interests. The supply was scan- ty, inferior, and fitful ; and it was carried on in all cases subservient to the private message business of the companies. It was expensive, also, and had' to be contracted for under the most rigid conditions possible. ‘ Our special correspondent,’ seldom figured under the head of ‘ Latest Telegrams ’ in these days ; and in non-parliamentary times from two to three columns of telegraphic news was all the most enterprising newspa- per could boast. For obvious political rea- sons the Post Office could not undertake the ’ collection of news, as the Companies had done. But it could do what is perhaps of more importance ; it .could arrange for its- cheap and rapid transmission, and for throw- ing open channels of dissemination which before had been closed alike to the press and the public. The, collecting function of the late telegraph companies was speedily as- sumed by several news agencies—the chief , of which are the Press Association and the Central News. The newspapers themselves soon became alive to the importance of in- creased facilities, and cheaper rates ; and much of the work which had hitherto been done for them by the telegraph companies, They began to do for themselves. The insult is that during the past year thirty-seven and a half millions of words of news for the press were handed in at the different postal tele- graph offices for transmission. But inas- much as the great majority of the messages thus handed in were addressed to two or more newspapers, the actual number of words delivered was upwards of two hundred and fourteen millions, representing about 120,000 columns of an average newspaper. „ The total cost of this enormous service was a little over £47,000 ; so that the cost per column to the newspapers was something less than eight shillings ! In the days of the telegraph companies there were less than 500 subscribers (including newspapers) for telegraphic news.. At the present time there are close upon 1,000 in the United King- dom ; while many imporant towns, at one time excluded from the benefits of early in- telligence, have been placed on a level with the great centres of trade and politics in this respect. The impetus given to newspaper enterprise by the reorganization of the tele- graphs has been enormous. Four years ago there were less than half-a-dozen newspapers in the Kingdom whose proprietors cared to risk the extravagance of hiring special wires for their sole use between six p.m. and six a.m., and these were mostly the proprietors of Scotch newspapers in Edinburgh and Glasgow. At the end of February last no fewer than twenty such special wires had been hired from the Post Office by the prin- cipal newspapers in England, Scotland, and Ireland ; and more were expected to be taken up prior to the meeting of Parliament. The cost of a special wire is £500 per an- num, so that the Post Office dQrives an annual revenue of £10,000 from wires which might otherwise be lying idle during the night. These special wires are worked, for the most part, direct from the London of- fice of the newspaper into its office of publi-248 The Electric Telegraphs cation in the country ; and it is becoming a common tiling in some towns to publish in what is called the ‘ town ’ edition the princi- pal items of news contained in the London papers of the same morning !' It is in the great central station, perhaps, that the very rapid growth of telegraphy, since the acquisition of the system by the Post Office, is most forcibly illustrated. We spoke at the commencement of this article of the little office in the Strand, with its single instrument and wire, which formed the complete system of the Electric Tele- graph Company less than thirty years ago. The next step in the history of progress brings us to the office at 445, West Strand, which was for a short period the central station of the same Company. It is now a branch office in the Postal system, and from its having been a ‘ night ’ and 1 Sunday ’ office from the beginning, it possesses this feature over all other offices, that its doors have never once been closed since they were opened for the first time about five-and- twenty years ago. The demands of the ser- vice soon brought the Company further east- ward, and the first city office it possessed was in Founders’-court, Lothbury, where, what was then considered a spacious build- ing (for telegraphic purposes) was erected. In this office, in its palmiest days, probably not more than fifty instruments were ever worked—most of them of the old double needle type. The era of printing telegraphs set in about this time ; and as the system was beginning to open out in various direc- tions, room for expansion at its greatest centre became indispensable. What might have been considered a model telegraph office for that period was erected some years ago in Great Bell-alley, Moorgate, which has since been known as 6 Telegraph-street;5 and here the Electric Telegraph Company may be said at once to have entered upon its career of prosperity, and to have ended its days. Meanwhile, however, several other companies had located themselves in central positions jn the City—the British and Irish Magnetic Company in Thread needle-street, where is still the head office of the Subma- rine Telegraph Company; the United King- dom Company in Gresham-house; and the London and Provincial Company in Cannon- street. Each of these had by this time set up a very considerable system of its own, md to bring all of them together under one roof at the commencement of the year 1870 svas the first practical task set Mr. Scuda- more. In Telegraph-street at this time about L20 separate instruments were worked by Re late Electric Company, and the addition )f the apparatus in use by the three other April, companies brought .the number up to about 220. In the interval between February 1870, and the date of the transfer of the whole system to St. Martin’s-le-Grand on the l7th of January last, this number had been more than doubled; and the task which then pre- sented itself to the practical officers of the Postal Department was the removal, between Saturday night and Monday morning, of nearly 500 separate instruments, with their attendant wires, batteries, &c..< It was cer- tainly the largest operation of the kind which had ever been attempted in this or any other country. But it was completed in less than half the allotted time, and with- out disturbing to any appreciable extent the vast network of communication which now converges at St. Martin’s-le-Grand. Here the instruments, which were scattered over several floors in Telegraph-street, find a home on one vast floor, consisting of a cen- tral gallery, with four wings, somewhat resembling the letter ‘ H.’ The superficial area occupied by the instruments and staff is 20,000 square feet, or nearly double that occupied at Telegraph-street; while the desk space extends to very nearly three-quarters of a mile in length. In the main or central gallery are situated the instruments which communicate with the chief provincial towns, and the pneumatic tubes. All kinds of in- struments are at work here. There are Morse’s printing instruments to the right and left, in apparently endless variety and profusion; while the Hughes type printer is clicking away in the centre of the room, as it delivers its forty 'messages an hour, in bold and well-defined Roman characters. The instruments worked on the duplex sys- tem are dotted about the room as the neces- sities of the traffic require ; and the Wheats stone system has apparently penetrated into every corner, if w~e may judge by the inces- sant clatter of the perforators as they jerk out the crotchet-like tape which in another minute will be whirling through the trans- mitters, and‘conveying messages at a speed of a hundred words a minute to all parts of the Kingdom. The single needle instruments are ticking away against the wall yonder, busy with the gossip of some fifty or more of the smaller provincial towns, of which Stoney Stratford, Amersham, Baldock, and Ware may be taken as fair specimens. On the southern side of the central gallery are the pneumatic tubes—one of the great fea- tures of the establishment. It is found that for short distances, as in the eastern central and western central districts of the metro- polis, mechanical methods of transmitting messages are superior to electrical. Practi- cally a message may be transmitted electri-1874. The Electric cally from London to Manchester as quickly as from St. Martin’^-le-Grand to Temple Bar ; the delay in transmitting over the short distance, therefore, ds more noticeable than that over the long distance. To keep up a very rapid electrical transmission of messages throughout the City of London would necessitate a, very large number of separate wires, and a numerous and highly skilled force of telegraphists. Leaden tubes through which messages may either be blown or sucked—pea-shooter fashion—at will, are preferable to wires for short distances, be- cause they will carry a dozen or more mes- sages at a single blow, and do not require any skilled labour beyond the attendance of a smart lad to despatch and receive the 6 carriers’ in which the message papers are contained. There are nearly thirty such tubes or pipes in use in the central telegraph station ; serving such important centres of business as the Stock Exchange, the Baltic, Lloyd’s, Fen church-street, &c. A tube made of iron instead of lead, and worked on a slightly different principle from that of the system generally, communicates with Temple Bar and West Strand, this being the greatest distance travelled by the pneumatic system in London. These pipes are buried in the streets—generally under the pavement— just as the gas and water pipes are. They are led into the different offices which they serve in a sweeping curve, so that the carri- ers, which have no notion of getting round corners, may travel smoothly and without hindrance. Twenty miles of pneumatic tubes are terminated in graceful curves at what is called the ‘ tube-board,’ which runs along the entire length of the central gallery, and at each of the thirty separate tubes thus repre- sented is stationed a smart boy attendant. Each tube is fitted with an elaborate and costly brass apparatus for regulating the pressure and vacuum to be applied to it, and with an electric bell for signalling purposes. The ‘ carrier’ in which the messages are en- closed for transmission is a round tube-like box, made of gutta percha, and covered with several coatings of felt, so as to make it nicely fit the pipe through which it has to travel. The messages are rolled up tightly, and placed inside the carrier either singly, or in half dozens, as the pressure of business requires. The carrier is inserted in the mouth of the tube, pressure is turned on by the attendant, and away it goes, round the curve which takes it up nearly to the roof of the gallery, down through the flooring to the level of Newgate-street, until speeding its way along busy thoroughfare, and quiet court or alley, it reaches, its point of destina- tion, where it will probably ascend to the Telegraph. 249 top of the building in which the office is situated, apparently for no other purpose than to descend again into the basement, and project itself under the very nose of the messenger boy whose duty it is to ‘ uncork’ the messages, and run with them to their final destination. The operation takes longer to describe than most 4 carriers’ occupy in travelling from St. Martin’s-le-Grand to their destination ; and we need , scarcely point out - that,, by simply reversing the process—he. by exhausting instead of chargingthe tubes, carriers are drawn or sucked inwards as easily and quickly as they are blown or puffed outwards. It would be curious to read some of these messages, just to see the various uses to which the telegraph is turned. No doubt many a warm and loving senti- ment is committed to the cold embrace of these subterranean conductors ; and many a . ‘ trifle light as air’ is blown through with all the speed and importance of a Stock Ex- change quotation, or an order to buy a hun- dred thousand Consols. The motive power by which these novel and interesting opera- tions are carried on exists in the basement of the building, in the shape of three enor- mous steam engines, each of fifty horse- power—two of which are constantly em- ployed in pumping air into, or sucking it out of huge mains carried up the outer walls of the building, and connected with the tubes up-stairs. The engine room resembles no- thing so much as the hold of a great steam- ship, and when its arrangements are ’ com- plete it will, from the peculiarly interesting construction of its machinery, be a source of great attraction to the numerous visitors to the building. The pneumatic system has undergone very considerable extension and improvement at the hands of the Post Office, and an interesting feature of its more recent application consists in the laying on of com- pressed air—just as gas and water are laid on—to the desks and tables throughout the building, so that the Wheatstone perforators, originally only workable by the pressure of blows from male hands, are now ‘ played on’ by female fingers, just as the notes of a piano are manipulated. The galleries stretching along the whole eastern front of the building are devoted solely to metropolitan instruments, of which no fewer than 240 are constantly at work. Here we miss the rapid Wheatstone and type-printing instruments of the provincial system, but we have in their stead the nim- ble ‘ direct writer,’ which can deliver with ease forty messages an hour, and we have, too, a pretty extensive application of the duplex system of working. Numerous single needle instruments supply the means of250 The Electric Telegraph.® communication with the less important offi- ces, from fashionable - Belgravia, in the. West, to the not very classic Isle of Bogs, in the East; while the alphabetical, or 4 A B C7 instruments, which spell their messages out letter by letter, are used for the trans- mission of the high behests of 4 My Lords7 of the Treasury, and other important digni- taries located near Whitehall. One instru- ment we must not omit , to mention, not simply because it is the only one of its kind in use by the Post Office, but be- cause it speaks eloquently for the kindly consideration of our most gracious Sove- reign. We mean the old-fashioned double needle—the means of communication be- tween the Central Telegraph Office and Buckingham Palace, which is simply re- tained out of consideration for an old and faithful servant at the Palace, who is unable to work any of the more modern instru- ments. In what may be called the western gallery are the 4 express circuits,7 i.e. the instruments which convey the news for the press all over the country, and the instru- ments brought into use on occasions of sud- den emergency and importance. These ex- press circuits work mostly at night, when the others are comparatively still. They are all on the Wheatstone principle, *and have a most’ devouring appetite for all kinds of news, whether it be Reuter, general news, sporting, stocks, markets, parliamentary, or miscellaneous. The towns to which news is transmitted are grouped together on the same wire according to their geographical position, as Birmingham, Manchester, and Liverpool; Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds, and Newcastle; Edinburgh, Dundee, and Aberdeen ; and so on. Most towns take the same classes of news, and the advantage of the Wheatstone system for this important service is that an item of news once punched out on the perforated tape, may be passed through any number- of transmitting instru- ments. But more than this, as many as three slips or tapes of the same news can be perforated simultaneously by the automatic puncher, so that Dundee and Aberdeen are placed on a level with Liverpool and Bir- mingham in. the matter of early intelligence. Some idea of the enormous business trans- acted in this department may be gathered from the fatct that on the 9th October last upwards of 300,000 words of news were transmitted at the central station for the London and provincial newspapers in a space of about eight hours i.e., between 6 p.m. and 2 a.m. London, too, is only an enlarged specimen of what takes place at some pro- vincial offices on special occasions; as, for instance, when Mr. Bright delivered his April, famous speech, at Birmingham in October last, when 160,000 words were telegraphed : and again, when Mr. Disraeli visited Glas- gow in December, and agitated the wires tb the extent of more than 400,000 words. There are several mechanical objects of interest connected with the central station at which we can only glance for a moment in passing. The great test box, with its thou- sands of bright brass knobs and screws, is a piece of work quite unique nnd unparalleled. Here are brought together all the wires from the outer telegraph world, and hence they are distributed to the different instruments scattered throughout the galleries. The in- ward connection is made at the back of the 4 box,7 or board, and the Outward connection at the front. Every wire has its own pecu- liar number, by which it is known from its point of departure—at Land’s End, or John O’Groats, it may be—to its final connection with the instrument in the central station. This number is marked against the knob, or 4 terminal,7 which affixes it to its position in the test-box, and in this way its identity can never be lost. The wires thread their way from the test-box to the different instruments in great coils underneath the floor, and escape up the legs of the tables in the most uncere- monious fashion when they have reached the point at which their particular instruments are situated. In this -way upwards of 300 miles of wire are imbedded underneath the floors of the new central telegraph office. The test-box stands in the relation of a doc- tor to the wires—it feels their pulse when they are sickly, which they very often are, and it determines their degree of strength when vigorous and in good working order. Adjoining the test-box is the battery box, which forms the junction between the batte- ries in the basement, and the instruments upstairs. The connecting wires descend from the battery box to the battery room in a perfect cataract, and are distributed amongst the 20,000 cells which form the motive power of the establishment in much the same unobserved fashion as the wires are distributed amongst the instruments in the galleries. Has any one ever remarked what an apparently harmless agent an electric bat- tery is ? A few strips of copper and zinc, a few crystals of sulphate of copper, and a little water, that is all. And yet from these 20,000 cells, as busily occupied night and day as busiest bee-hive, are constantly being evolved matters which concern the gravest events of life; nay, which' affect the very stability of thrones and kingdoms ! In the curious labyrinthine abode of electricity is one special battery, or set of batteries, which, the engineers tell you is something like hasty1874. 251 The Electric Telegraph. friendship, very good while it lasts—very in- tense, but not very constant. This battery is connected with the beautiful apparatus upstairs called the 4 Chronofer,’ which is none other than the national time beeper. The chronofer has secret dealings with Pro- fessor Airey, and each morning as the hands of the great clock at the Royal Observatory point to ten o’clock, it sends forth a kind of nervous thrill, which records itself at some fifty or sixty great towns throughout the United Kingdom. At one o’clock in the afternoon, too, the chronofer comes once more into action, and by, its secret, invisible aid, time guns are fired simultaneously at Newcastle, Shields, Kendal, and other towns. One word about the personnel of the cen- tral station, where nearly 1,500 persons of all classes are employed, and where upwards of 30,000 messages have been dealt with in a single day. Of these 1,500 employes 500 are male telegraphists, 700 female telegraph- ists, 200 messengers, and the remainder engineers, mechanics, Ac. The great feature is the prominence given to female labour. Less than 300 female clerks were employed in the central offices under the Companies, but now the number has increased to 700. A more pleasing sight than these 700 young persons busily employed on the work of the nation can hardly be conceived. The occu- pation seems to be thoroughly congenial to them, and from the dignified lady superin- tendents down to the 4 sweet girl graduates with golden hair,’ who can scarce do more than lisp their telegraphic alphabets, all seem to have imbibed a large share of that enthu- siasm which characterizes the presiding genius of the Department. The interest of telegraph wrork is not confined to the mere surroundings of the place in which the tele- graphist is employed, for, as Mr. Scudamore so admirably puts it,— 4 The whole world is the country of the tele- graphist. Sitting at one end of a wire, no mat- ter what its length, he converses as easily with the clerk at the other end, as if he were in the same room with him. Strange as it may seem, he knows by the way in which the clerk at the other end of the wire does his work, whe- , ther he is passionate or sulky, cheerful or dull, .sanguine or phlegmatic, ill-natured or good- matured. He soon forms an acquaintance with him, chats with him in the intervals of work, and becomes as much his companion as if he were working face to face with him.’ Evidently the female telegraphists in the central telegraph office enjoy their work, and we think it very possible that the story told by Mr. Scudamore of a clerk in London who formed an attachment for, and after- wards married, a clerk with whom he worked B—17 in Berlin, is likely to prove true of very many of them. The secret of their happi- ness and contentment is that they are well cared for, and there is evidently a very bad field here for the champions of woman’s rights, so long as the present popular head of the telegraph administration remains in office. One of Mr. Scudamore’s additions to the previously existing telegraphic arrangements is that of a 4 Special Staff,’ whose business it is to deal with all occasions of emergency and importance, requiring the hasty impro- visation of telegraphic facilities, or the sup- plementing of existing arrangements. The labours of this peripatetic force of telegraph- ists are not confined to any very prescribed sphere, for we find that during the past year they have extended to such occasions as royal progresses, agricultural shows and fairs, political and general assemblies, elections, trials, boat races and cricket matches, fes- tivities, funerals, wrecks,, strikes, rifle meet- ings, military manoeuvres, and railway acci- dents. As the public appetite for early in- formation of all events of importance be- comes whetted, the labours of the special staff increase, and with its labours, those of the special correspondent, who is the close ally of the sp’ecial telegraphist, also increase. One of the most accomplished correspond- ents of the newspaper press, lamenting how telegraphic facilities 4 have rudely broken in upon the pleasant dilettanteism of the 44 spe- - cials,” for whom there-is no longer dalli- ance over a late dinner, or a nap to refresh. themselves before commencing to write,”' has thus written of the 4 Special Staff.’ ‘The special staff consists of men pickedi from the whole array of telegraphists for spe- cial capabilities. The special staff man must be an accomplished operator, to whom no in- strument comes amiss ; he must be enough of .' an engineer to be able to make alterations or- correct blemishes in the working of wires ; he must carry in his head the telegraphic chart of the country; he must be a strategist, in a sense, so that if over-accumulation of work, threatens to bar the direct advance, he may contrive a flanking movement in aid—in other words, devise a roundabout circuit with the same termination as has the direct wire.’ . . . ... 4 To the special staff homes are a super- fluity ; its members gyrate about the country like so many methodical ;ywills-o’-the-wisp. They know as much about newspaper work as ■ the pressman whose messages they transmit. They know up to what o’clock each London daily 44 can take copy,” and, I fancy,- have a fair notion, gathered from results, of the re- spective sub-editorial idiosyncrasies and abili- ties. In-a manner they aid in sub-editing them- selves, for it is, the commonest thing in the world for the operator_to insert a word obvi- VOL. LIX.252 The New Parliament ously omitted by neglect, and to bring to the notice of the writer a sentence that will not make sense, or which contains repetition. The special staff are as skilled in the decipherment of bad caligraphy as is a clever compositor, and they require to be so, for they sometimes get fearful pothooks and hangers. There is a spe- cial correspondent who cannot read his own writing, but there is a man on the special staff who can, and wherever the former goes, if the Department can possibly arrange it, the latter goes too. The special staff must understand the phraseology and contractions of the press generally—of racing,% boating, cricketing, and numerous other specialties—must be able to sleep as well in a railway-carriage as in a bed, and must know how to combine the suamter in modo with the fortiter in re..........One of its members is always with the Queen, an- other with the Prince of Wales. During his Royal Highness’s illness there were two at Sandringham engaged in the most exhaustive duties, and on his recovery, the Prince pre- sented both with a pretty souvenir of their devotion to their arduous work during a crisis so trying.’ A valuable adjunct of the special staff is the telegraph carriage, a veritable office on wheels, which carries all its gear along with it, and pays out its own cable as it moves along. This novel apparatus—the only one of the kind in existence—is msed'on such occasions as the Universities’ Boat Race, Eton and Harrow Cricket Match, Henley Regatta, and the Cattle Show, and we un- derstand that it has recently attracted the attention of the Director-General of French Telegraphs. We have thus endeavoured to trace the history and progress of the electric telegraph from its earliest beginnings to the present time. Travelling over so vast a field, our review has necessarify been hasty, and may, An some respects, prove imperfect. We have aimed more at broad and popular treat- ment than scientific accuracy, believing that the great thing for the public to know is the extent to which they may now rely on the telegraph in the everyday concerns of . life, compared with the almost prohibitory . system of thirty years ago. We are not - concerned to defend the policy of the Post 1 Office in relation to the telegraphic system, except so far as it has benefited the great public interests at stake. We have seen what the system has become in the hands of a bold and vigorous administrator, who . suddenly found himself placed in this diffi- < culty, that he had an altogether novel task . (for a Governmental official at least) thrust upon him, involving purely mercantile con- siderations which rarely exist in official life, without; having any precedent to guide his actions. We can only guess what would April, have beei the result if the enormous inte- rests at stake nad been confided to a feeble and hesitating executive, and we are quite content to leave the matter where Mr. Glad' stone has left it, believing that if Mr. Scuda- more’s mistakes have been great, his services have been very much greater. We have left ourselves no room to speak of the great strides which have been made in the department of submarine telegraphy. The extensions and improvements here are mainly due to ! British skill and enterprise, and we may well contrast a time when, a few months ago, the Shah of Persia con- versed with ease from his bedroom in Buck- ingham Palace with his ministers in Tehe- ran, with the period, less than five-and- twenty years ago, when those prophetic ut- terances fell from the graphic pen of Dr. George Wilson. Summing up the different uses, and probable future development of the telegraph, he thus glowingly concludes the paper from which we have already quoted :— ‘ Wherever, in truth, wires can be stretched, whether suspended in the air, or buried in the earth, or sunk in the t sea, there our wonder-' working apparatus may be erected. A few square inches of zinc and copper will produce for us a force which, on the other side of a con- tinent or an ocean, will speak for us, write for us, print for us, keep time for us, watch stars for us, and move all kinds of machinery. No distance will stop its march, for where the force of one battery is spent, it can be made to call into action another or relay battery, which will carry on the message, so that if the wires were laid it might sweep round the globe. Such a network of wires, we may hope, will, one day, connect together the ends of the earth, and, like the great nerves of the human body, unite in living sympathy all the far- scattered children of men.’ Art. YII.—The New Parliament At the opening of the New Year public men on both sides of the House of Com- mons and politicians of every grade and shade outside Parliament had settled down into1 the comfortable conviction that the Ses- sion of 1874 would be modest and unevent- ful, that the Dissolution of the Parliament of 1868 would be a euthanasia, and that the country, having had full time to make up its mind as to the merits of Mr. Gladstone’s Budget and the value of the solemn Con- servative impeachment of Liberal policy, would proceed deliberately and without ex- citement to pass judgment in the ensuing autumn on the competitors for power. On