THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 



Eastern lines, there were not less than 429 messages respecting 

 special trains, that is at the rate of about five per day. 



248. In the general management of the traffic upon an active 

 line of railway, an incalculable amount of capital and current 

 expenditure is saved by the telegraph. "Without it rolling stock 

 would require to be provided in much greater quantity, and a far 

 greater unprofitable wear and tear by useless trips, of what in 

 railway language are called "empties," would take place. By 

 the telegraph, as we have stated, each station-master is ubiquitous 

 so far as the line is concerned. He knows where carriages, 

 waggons, trucks, sheets, and engines are to be found, and how 

 many of them, and he calls by the telegraph so many, and no 

 more than he wants, and at the time he wants them, from the 

 nearest or most convenient station where they are to be obtained. 



Before the establishment of the telegraph, some of these objects 

 were imperfectly attained by means of pilot engines, that is engines 

 taking no vehicle, which habitually run along the line to carry 

 messages from station to station. As an evidence of the immense 

 saving effected by the telegraph in the practical working of rail- 

 ways, Mr. Walker states, that the cost of maintaining and working 

 a single one of those pilot engines, (all of which have been super- 

 seded by the telegraph,) amounted to a greater sum than is now 

 required to defray the expense of the entire staff of telegraph 

 clerks, and the mechanics and labourers employed in cleaning and 

 repairing the instruments and maintaining the integrity of the 

 line wires. 



