May 27, 1875] 



NA TURE 



be informed that the narrator in this instance has person- j 

 ally been more or less connected with the progress of the | 

 telegraph from 1844, the date at which this story com- 1 

 mences, to 1875, the period under review. In the year 

 first mentioned Charles Wheatstone, Professor of Natural 

 Philosophy at King's College, London, was at the same i 

 time connected with a musical instrument and publishing 1 

 business in Conduit Street, Regent Street. In that j 

 house many of his important improvements and patents in ' 

 connection with the electric telegraph were carried out, 

 and many of the drawings connected with the filing of 

 the specifications of those patents were, by permission of 

 the directors of the East and West India Dock Company, 

 elaborated by a clerk in the Dividend Office of the Dock 

 House, Billiter Square ; resolutions standing in the Minute 

 Book of the Dock Board authorising the devoting of his 

 spare time in the office to Mr. Wheatstone's telegraph 

 drawings, and afterwards a resignation in favour of an 

 appointment in the then projected Electric Telegraph 

 Company. 



Prefaced with these preliminary remarks, the more imme- 

 diatesubjectmatterofthepresentpaperwill be commenced. 

 It is a matter of history that the early telegraph patents of 

 Cooke and Wheatstone were disposed of for a sum of 

 1 20,000/. to a Company called the Electric Telegraph Com- 

 pany, in which the late John Lewis Ricardo, M. P. for Stoke- 

 upon-Trent, was at once the mainspring and vital element. 

 Of this amount Cooke retained 90,000/., and Wheatstone 

 received 30,000/. This sum included the transfer to the 

 Company, besides other matters, of the telegraph line 

 between Paddington and Slough, on the Great Western 

 Railway, already alluded to in the earlier pages of this 

 summary. As already mentioned, this short line was a 

 kind of Madame Tussaud — daily advertisements, 

 and a profusion of visitors entertained, or, as 

 they imagined, duped or bamboozled, at one 

 shilling a head, into the belief that standing be- 

 fore the little instrument in the Paddington 

 station, it would the7-e and tJieti convey their 

 thoughts, and in intelligible language return a 

 response from a station some twenty miles dis- 

 tant. Inquiries as to the " time of day," " state 

 of weather," or general health of the operator, 

 served to test the accuracy of the new invention. 

 Nevertheless, nine out of every ten persons who 

 were attracted by the printed placards sown 

 broadcast about the station, left the Paddington 

 terminus as little impressed with any behef that 

 what they had seen represented the future germ 

 of a great invention, as if they had viewed the 

 automaton chess player. Necromancy, witch- 

 craft, and delusion seemed to be the parting 

 impression on their minds as they left, in return 

 for their shilling charge. The announcement as 

 issued in 1844, inviting the patronage of the 

 public, is here reprinted ; it affords an amusing 

 souvenir of the early history of the telegraph : — 



{^Facsimile of Announcement.'] 

 '* Under the Special Patronage 

 OF ROYALTY. 

 Instantaneous Communication 

 l)e*wcen Paddington and Slouch, a distance ot 

 nearly twenty miles, by means of the 

 ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH, 

 which may be seen in operation Daily, from nine in the 

 morning till eight in the evening at the 

 Great Western Railway, Paddington Station, 

 and the Telegraph Cottage, close to the Slough Station. 



Admission- One Shilling, Children and Schools halfprice. 

 Since this very interesting Exhibition has been opened to the 

 Public, it has been honoured by the visits of His Royal High- 

 ness Prince Albert, the Emperor of Russia, the King, and Prince 

 William of Prussia, the Duke de Montpcnsier, His Royal High- 

 ness the Duke of Cambridge, the Duke of Wellington, Sir 



Robert Peel, the Foreign Ambassadors, and most of the 

 nobility, &c. 



"In no way has the science of Electricity been made so sub- 

 servient to the uses of man, as in its application to the purposes 

 of Telegraphic Communicition, wliich is now brought to the 

 height of perfection. The working of this beautiful apparatus is 

 not in the least degree affected by the weather, intelligence can 

 be sent by night equally well as by day ; distance is no object ; 

 by its extraordinary agency communications can be transmitted 

 to a thousand miles in the same space of time, and with the same 

 ease and unerring certainty, as a signal can be sent from London 

 to Slough. Accordinfj to the best authorities, the electric fluid 

 travels at the rate of 280,000 miles in a second. 



" The Electric Telegraph has been adopted by Her Majesty's 

 Government, and the Patentees have just completed a line of 

 communication between London and Portsmouth, agreeably to 

 directions received a short time ago from 

 the right honorable the lords of the admiralty, 



"In the late trial of John Tawell, at Aylesbury, for the murder 

 at Salt Hill, near Slough, the Electric Telegraph is frequently 

 mentioned in the evidence, and referred to by Mr. Baron Parke 

 in his summing up. The Times newspaper very justly observes 

 ' that had it not been for the efficient aid of the Electric Tele- 

 graph, both at the Paddington and Slough stations, the greatest 

 difficulty, as well as delay, would have been occasioned in the 

 apprehension of the prisoner.' Although the train in which 

 Tawell came to town was within a very short distance of the 

 Paddington Station before any intelligence was given at the 

 Slough Telegraph Office, nevertheless, before the train had 

 actually arrived, not only had a full description of his person and 

 dress been received, but the particular carriage and compart- 

 ment in which he rode were accurately described, and an officer 

 was in readiness to watch his movements. His subsequent 

 apprehension is so well known, that any farther reference to the 

 subject is unnecessary. 



Fig. 26 —Cooke and Wheatstone's five-needle telegraph.] 



"The Telegraph Office at Paddington Station is at the end of 

 the Up-train Platform, where a variety of interesting apparatus 

 may be seen in constant operation." 



The first office of the Electric Telegraph Company was 

 at 345 Strand, a site now occupied by the Gaiety Theatre. 

 In those days (1846) scientific men of renown crowded 

 the instrument room to witness the prog^ress of this great 

 invention : George Stephenson, the Astronomer Royal, 

 Brunei, Vignoles, G. P. Bidder, Samuda, Rennie, Fair- 

 bairn, and most of the leading engineers of the day. In 



