TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION G. 783 



Casein and d'Arlincourt, and the latter improved by Eobertson and Elislia Gray, 

 has yet reachpd the practical stage. 



The perfection of telegraphy has been attained by that chief marvel of this 

 electrical age — the speaking telephone of Graham Bell. The reproduction of the 

 human voice at a distance, restricted only by geographical limits, seems to have 

 reached the confines of human ingenuity ; and though wild enthusiasts have dreamt 

 of reproducing objects abroad visible to the naked eye at home, no one at the 

 present moment can say that such a thing is possible, while in face of the 

 wonders that have been done no one dare say that it is impossible. 



The commercial business of telegraphy, when our thoughts and wishes, orders 

 and wants, could be transmitted for money, was inaugurated in this country by the 

 establishment of the Electric Telegraph Company in 1846, and until 1870 it 

 remained in the hands of private enterprise, when it was purchased by the 

 Government, and placed under the sole control of the Postmaster-General. It has 

 been the fashion to decry the terms of purchase of the various undertakings then 

 at work by those who have not understood the question, and by those who, being 

 politically opposed to the Government in power at the time, saw aU their acts, not 

 only through a glass darkly, but through a reversing lens. A business producing 

 550,000/. per annum was bought at twenty years' purchase, and that business has 

 now increased to 2,000,000/. per annum. 6,000,000 messages per annum have 

 increased to 53,400,000. 



Every head post office has been made a telegraph office, every village of any size 

 has its wire ; messages which used to cost 12s. (5d. are now sent for Gd. ; a tariff which 

 was vexatious from its unfair variation is now uniform over the United Kingdom, 

 and no one can justly complain of error or delay in the transmission of their mes- 

 sages. Silly complaints are sometimes inserted in the press, of errors which the 

 most elementary knowledge of the Morse alphabet would detect, and little credit 

 is given to the fact that the most perfect telegraph is subject to strange disturbances 

 from terrestrial and atmospheric causes which admit sources of error beyond the 

 control of the telegraphist. A flash of lightning in America may cause an extra 

 dot in Europe, and mine may become tvine. An earthquake in Japan may send a 

 dash through France, and life would become tvife. A wild goose flying against a 

 telegraph wire might drive it into momentary contact with another wire, and aic/ht 

 might become night. Everyone should know his Morse alphabet, and people 

 should learn how to write. Nine-tenths of the errors made are due to the execrable 

 caligraphy of the present day. As a matter of fact, in ninety-nine cases out of a hun- 

 dred, the telegraphist delivers to the editor of a newspaper ' copy ' far more accurate 

 than the first proof of his own leader submitted by the printer. The quantity of news 

 transmitted is enormous, on an average 1,-538,270 words are delivered per day. The 

 recent convention in Chicago, when the Republican party of the United States nomi- 

 nated their candidate for the presidentship, created so much business that every 

 American paper has chronicled this big thing as unique. 500,000 words were sent 

 on one night ; but we in England, when Mr. Gladstone introduced his celebrated 

 Home Rule Bill on April 8, 1886, sent from the Central Telegraph Office in London 

 1,500,000 words. 



The growth of business has led to vast improvement in the carrying capacity of 

 the wires. Cooke and Wheatstone required five wires for their first needle instru- 

 ment to work at the rate of four words per minute. One wire can now convey six 

 messages at ten times the speed. The first Morse apparatus could work at about 

 five words a minute ; we now transmit news at the rate of 600 words a minute. 

 Even in 1875 it was thought wonderful to transmit messages to Ireland at 80 words 

 a minute. When I was recently in Belfast I timed messages coming at the rate of 

 461 words a minute. Duplex working — that is, two messages travelling on the 

 same wire at the same time in opposite directions, the invention of Gintl, of Vienna — 

 is now the normal mode of working; Edison's quadruplex is common; and the Delany 

 system of multiplex working is gradually being introduced, by which sLx messages 

 are indiscriminately sent in either direction on one wire. The telegraphic system 

 of England has been brought to the highest pitch of perfection. AVe have neither 

 neglected the inventions of other countries, nor have we been chary of exercising 



