MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH. 45 



could have been formed to exploit it. The time had 

 not yet come; nor could it come until railroads were 

 built, and the exchange of material things had 

 been rendered easy. 



In Europe, where money and railroads were more 

 abundant, the telegraph was first put into practical 

 use. Wheatstone and Cooke, in England, in 1838, 

 having first, however, seen and talked with Henry 

 on the subject in 1837,* after they had first de- 

 cided the thing to be impossible, established a 

 practical commercial telegraph line between Pad- 

 dington and West Dayton, a distance of thirteen 

 miles ; and a shorter line was in Munich.f In 

 this country private capital could not be raised 

 for the purpose at all ; not because there was 

 any doubt that the thing could work, but because 

 no one supposed it would repay the investment ; 

 as it certainly would not have done in those early 

 days. At last Congress was induced to do what 

 private enterprise refused, and in 1844, six years 

 after the English lines had been in practical oper- 

 ation, and seven years after the Bavarian, money 

 was appropriated for the line between Baltimore 

 and Washington. This was accomplished, after 

 great exertions, by persons hoping for the reward 

 which a patent for some of the contrivances con- 

 nected with that particular plan promised. 



* See Appendix, Note U. 

 t See Appendix, Note V. 



