KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



83 



the ceiling ; and as the cafe is always open, they 

 rapidly wing their way in and out, joyfully twit- 

 tering, and bringing food to their young, without 

 betraying the slightest fear of the smoke of the 

 chibouques, or of the presence of the smokers, 

 whose fez, or turban, they sometimes graze with 

 their dark wings. The young birds — their heads 

 out of the nest, watch quietly with their bead- 

 like eyes the guests who go and come ; and sleep 

 to the sound of the water gurgling in the 

 narghilehs. 



This confidence of the bird in mankind — these 

 nests in the cafe, it is pleasant to see. The 

 Orientals, often cruel to mankind, are very 

 merciful to animals; and know how to make 

 themselves beloved by them. Thus animals 

 willingly associate with them. They do not, like 

 Europeans, alarm them by their turbulence, their 

 loud shouts, and perpetual laughter. 



FORESTIERA. 



[We have often observed with regret, the 

 extreme persecution to which the swallow is 

 subjected in our country. Vain are his over- 

 tures to secure the friendship of the family, 

 beneath whose roof he seeks to dwell in 

 amity. Few nests, comparatively, escape de- 

 struction ; they are knocked down, either 

 by the boys (who are reared to consider birds 

 a lawful sport), or the gardener receives 

 orders to destroy them, as they are completed. 

 The savageness of an Englishman's heart, in 

 the matter of our little annual feathered 

 visitors, is (thank God) without a parallel 

 abroad.] 



THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH,— 



ITS PROGRESS IN AMERICA. 



Important as we may deem the Eng- 

 lish and Continental telegraphs, they have 

 (from various causes) been far exceeded by 

 those of America, especially in the department 

 of newspaper reporting. The first report of 

 this kind was transmitted no further back 

 than 1846 ; it consisted of an account of a ship 

 launch at Brooklyn, and was telegraphed at 

 New York for insertion in a Washington 

 paper. 



As the expenses were at first very heavy, 

 only a few leading newspapers adopted 

 this mode of transmitting news, but the great 

 interest felt in the Mexican war, and in the 

 rapid transmission of news of several victories, 

 gradually brought electro-telegraphic report- 

 ing into great favor. After a time, the New 

 York and Boston papers clubbed to obtain 

 early telegraphic news from England. When 

 the mail steamers arrived at Halifax, they ran 

 an express coach from thence to Annapolis, 

 thence an express steamer to Portland, and 

 thence transmitted the news by electric tele- 

 graph to Boston and New York ; this system 

 cost them about 1 000 dollars per mail. When 

 the railways and the telegraph lines became 



extended further east, the cost was of course 

 much diminished. 



At the outset, there was a want of system 

 in the collection, transmission, and distribution 

 of telegraph news for the press. The clerks 

 in the telegraph offices being occupied in the 

 immediate duties of their vocation, could not 

 be expected to collect news from various 

 points. It was after a time determined to 

 organise a corps of telegraph reporters, whose 

 business it should be to collect and transmit 

 news. These reporters devised a new kind of 

 cipher, by which they could transmit com- 

 mercial and market news with great brevity ; 

 the produce, the sales, and the prices of va- 

 rious commodities in the inland states, were 

 transmitted to the merchants of New York in 

 very condensed forms ; and other ciphers or 

 systems of short-hand were afterwards em- 

 ployed on other commercial routes. Ten 

 words in cipher made about fifty or sixty 

 words when written out in full. 



Mr. Jones, in his recent work relating to 

 the electric telegraphs of America, gives an 

 instance to illustrate the curious nature of a 

 cipher employed by hirn as a telegraphic re- 

 porter. Suppose the message to consist of 

 the following nine words — " bad, came, aft, 

 keen, dark, ache, lain, fault, adapt ; " this 

 would convey the following commercial in- 

 formation : — " Flour market for common and 

 fair brands of western is lower, with moderate 

 demand for home trade and export. Sales, 

 8,000 barrels. Gennesse, at 5.12 dollars. 

 Wheat, prime, in fair demand, market firm, 

 common description dull, with a downward 

 tendency ; sales, 4,000 bushels, at 1.10. dollars. 

 Corn, foreign news unsettled the market ; no 

 sales of importance made. The only sale 

 made was 2,500 bushels at 67 cents." The 

 nine words are thus almost as comprehensive 

 in their significance, as Lord Burleigh's cele- 

 brated shake of the head. The use of short- 

 hand in these despatches arose chiefly from 

 considerations of economy ; the companies 

 charge so much per word for transmission, and 

 it thus becomes important to make each short 

 word signify as much as possible. Newspaper 

 despatches are charged one cent (a halfpenny) 

 per word from New York to Boston, and 14 

 cents per word from Washington to New 

 Orleans. The same system of short-hand was 

 carriedinto legislative reporting; for instance, 

 the word battle was understood to mean " The 

 Senate agreed to a house proposition for a 

 committee of conference on — ;" the word cave 

 implied, " The resolution referring the Presi- 

 dent's message to appropriate committees was 

 then called up ;" and so forth. 



The press at first, owing to the expense, 

 would not agree to receive more telegraphic 

 news for each number than would fill half a 

 column to a column. Persons used to supply 

 them under a weekly contract, the contractor 



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