USES OF THE TELEGRAPH. 



In the trains have been left a pair of spectacles, and a pig ; an 

 umbrella, and Lay arc? s Nineveh ; a purse, and a barrel of oysters ; 

 a great-coat, and a baby ; and boxes and trunks, et id genus 

 omne, without number." 



252. Independently of the direct use made of the electric 

 telegraph by the general public, for the transmission of 

 private despatches, the several companies have established, 

 in various principal places, news rooms, where intelligence is 

 from hour to hour posted, as it arrives from all parts of the 

 world. 



The Electric Telegraph Company, soon after its establishment, 

 opened subscription news rooms in the chief towns of England, 

 especially those of the northern counties, in which intelligence of 

 every description which could interest the general public was 

 posted from hour to hour during the day, immediately on its 

 transmission from London. These establishments did not, 

 however, receive the necessary public support, and with one or 

 two exceptions they have been discontinued. There is, however, 

 in the Lothbury establishment, besides the private message 

 department, a general intelligence office, in which the news 

 published in the morning journals is condensed and transmitted 

 to the exchanges of Liverpool, Bristol, Manchester, Glasgow, and 

 other chief provincial centres of business. 



On the evenings of Fridays, the London news is collected, con- 

 densed, and transmitted to the offices of upwards of 120 provincial 

 Saturday papers, which thus receive during the night before 

 their publication the most recent intelligence of every sort 

 received by telegraph from all parts of Europe besides the current 

 news of London to the latest moment. An example of the extra- 

 ordinary efficiency of this department is given in the case of one 

 of the Glasgow Saturday journals, which often receives as much as 

 three columns of the debates, transmitted while the Houses are 

 still sitting. A superintendent and four clerks are exclusively 

 engaged in the business of this department, and in the latter days 

 of the week their office presents all the appearances of the editor's 

 room of a widely circulating journal. " At seven in the morning 

 the clerks are to be seen deep in < The Times' and other daily 

 papers, just hot from the press, making extracts and condensing 

 into short paragraphs all the most important news, which are 

 immediately transmitted to the country papers to form second 

 editions. Neither does the work cease here, for no sooner is a 

 second edition published in London than its news, if of more than 

 ordinary interest, is transmitted to the provinces." Arrived at 

 the chief places in direct communication with London "swifter 

 than a rocket could fly the distance, like a rocket it bursts and is 



85 



