182 A SAGA OF THE SEAS 
dom, not knowing how the market might turn, so that when 
the costly fabrics arrived, he might find that he had ordered 
too many or too few. A China merchant sent his ship round 
the world for a cargo of tea, which returned after a year’s ab- 
sence, bringing not enough to supply the public demand, leav- 
ing him in vexation at the thought of what he might have 
made, ‘if he had known,’ or, what was still worse, bringing 
twice too much in which case the unsold half remained on his 
hands. ‘This was a risk against which he had to be insured, 
as much as against fire or shipwreck. And the only insurance 
he could have was to take reprisals by an increased charge on 
his unfortunate customers. 
“This double risk was now greatly reduced, if not entirely 
removed. The merchant need no longer send out orders a 
year beforehand, nor order a whole shipload of tea when he 
needed only a hundred chests, since he could telegraph to his 
agent for what he wanted and no more. With this opportunity 
for getting the latest intelligence, the element of uncertainty 
was eliminated, and the importer no longer did business at a 
venture. Buying from time to time, so as to take advantage of 
low markets, he was able to buy cheaper, and of course to sell 
cheaper. It would be a curious study to trace the effect of the 
cable upon the prices of all foreign goods. A New York mer- 
chant, who has been himself an importer for forty years, tells 
me that the saving of the American people cannot be less than 
many millions a year. 
“But the slender cord beneath the sea had finer uses than to 
be a reporter of markets, giving quotations of prices to count- 
ing rooms and banking houses; it was a link between hearts 
and homes on opposite sides of the ocean, bearing messages 
of life and death, of joy and sorrow, of hopes and fears. One 
of its happiest uses was the relief of anxiety. A ship sailed for 
England with hundreds of passengers, but did not arrive at 
her destination on the appointed day. Instantly a thousand 
hearts were tortured with fear, lest their loved ones had gone 
