FOREIGN UNDERTAKINGS. 121 



state telegraphs. In fact for several years communi- 

 cation of any kind whatsoever with myself and with my 

 firm entirely ceased. All orders were withdrawn from 

 us, and our special constructions handed over to other 

 manufacturers as models. This constituted a severe 

 crisis for our young establishment, which had rapidly 

 risen to be a factory with some hundred workmen. 

 Luckily railway telegraphy, which as the railways 

 themselves was not then state property, furnished an 

 independent market for our manufactures. The breach 

 with the government telegraph management however 

 had a trood deal to do with turning our attention 



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more abroad, and leading us to seek there a market 

 for our products, as well as opportunities for larger 

 undertakings. 



As in the foreign undertakings of my firm, which 

 I shall now have to report, my younger brothers 

 played a very important part, it will be as well to 

 cast a retrospective glance at the doings of my 

 family and especially of my brothers during the 

 period of my life just described. 



The life of my brother William has been narrated 

 at considerable length, and with the conscientious use 

 of all the sources accessible to him. by a well-known 

 English writer. Dr. William Pole. In what follows I 

 need therefore only touch upon such events of his life 

 as had immediate relation to my own. First I will 

 here remark, that I stood during the whole of his life 



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