USES OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 



nearly 5000 dispatches which passed through the Liverpool office 

 in the early part of the present year, 1854. 



General merchants 



Stock and share transactions 



Ship insurers, brokers, &c. 



Banking messages 



Corn dealers . 



Betting .... 



Personal and domestic . 



General brokers 



Tradesmen . . . 



Cotton brokers, &c. 



Law .... 



Political 



1954 



1441 



339 



315 



272 



233 



201 



117 



50 



34 



31 



4993 



243. Mr. Walker gives the following list of the subjects of 

 dispatches sent through the office of the Electric Telegraph 

 Company, as a specimen of the uses which the public make of this 

 mode of communication. 



It is obvious that the uses, whether personal or commercial, of 

 the telegraph, are restricted by the tariff, and by the necessity of 

 disclosing the contents of the dispatches to the telegraph agents. 

 In England, the latter obstacle may in some cases be surmounted 

 by the use of a cipher. The cipher must, however, always consist 

 of a transposition of the letters, since the telegraphic signs only 

 express letters, and besides this, it can never be used on sudden 

 emergencies, inasmuch as it supposes a previous concert between 

 the corresponding parties. 



244. The obstacle to the extension of the uses of the telegraph, 

 created by the tariff, has been of late greatly lessened by the 

 considerable reduction of the prices of transmission, and it may be 

 hoped that ere long the companies and the public will discover 

 that the interest of the one and the convenience of the other will 



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