1880.] on the Telegraphic Achievements of Wheatstone. 303 



Here is another placard which was distributed all over London at 

 the same time as the previous one, and wliicli speaks of the telegraph 

 in the same eulogistic terms : — " The galvanic and electric telegraph, 

 Great Western Eailway, may be seen in constant operation daily [one 

 would think we were going to tlie Polytechnic] (Sundays excepted) ; " 

 and goes on to say that " by this powerful agency murderers have 

 been apprehended, thieves detected, and lastly (which is of no little 

 importance), the timely assistance of medical men has been procured 

 in cases which would otherwise have proved fatal." There are some 

 of the brilliant ideas thought of Wheatstone's telegraph in 1842. 

 Everyone knows of the enormous development of the telegraphs. In 

 1870 the commercial part of the business was transferred to the 

 Government, and at that time the business done in four weeks 

 represented 554,000 messages. In the four weeks just expired it was 

 1,900,000. In the metropolis alone, while the number of messages of 

 all sorts dealt with in four weeks in 1870 amounted to 130,000, in the 

 four weeks just passed there were 726,000. It is very curious to note, 

 in quoting these figures, that the high figure of the past few weeks is 

 to a large extent owing to the tremendous fogs we have had, which 

 were the cause of a marvellous increase in telegraph business. 

 Pecuniarily, therefore, from this point of view, fogs are not objection- 

 able. The traffic for two days at the Central Station in February, 

 1870, was 14,000; during the past week the average has been 

 40,000. 



But it is in the transmission of news where Wheatstone's telegraphic 

 achievements have proved of such marvellous benefit. In 1871 there 

 were distributed to the different papers copies of messages, some 2000 

 words long, others as short as 10 words, a total of 32,000. In 1879 

 they amounted to nearly 50,000. The number of words delivered in 

 one week in 1871 was 3,598,000 ; in 1879 they amounted to nearly 

 6,000,000, which means 300 millions for the year, or 15,000,000 

 columns of ' The Times.' There is not a town in the United King- 

 dom possessing a daily newspaper that is not in direct communication 

 with London for news purposes, and by this means every man receives 

 at his breakfast table the latest item of news. Parliamentary or 

 general, just as readily as we do in London. And all this is done by 

 the Telegraph Department with the Wheatstone apparatus. In 1870 

 there were only six wires used for special press purposes, now there 

 are twenty-four. Besides the million words sent a day, there are 

 newspapers in Glasgow, Dublin, and Edinburgh that rent wires for 

 themselves, fitted up with different kinds of apparatus, by which they 

 transmit all the debates of the Houses, &c. 



In 1870 the number of Wheatstone alphabetical instruments was 

 1200, now 5000 are in use. There are now 151 circuits worked by 

 the Wheatstone automatic apparatus, in 1870 there were only eight. 

 This system has proved its superiority for the rapid despatch of news, 

 and, in time, will no doubt be adopted by all countries employing the 

 telegraph. I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that our 



