ADDRESS. 
xliii 
that, in the words of the Report of Mr. Wilkinson to my distinguished friend 
bis Excellency Sir Wm. M. G. Colebrooke, the Governor of New Brunswick, 
to which I have just adverted, “ No schedule of telegraphic lines can now be 
relied upon for a month in succession, as hundreds of miles may be added 
in that space of time. So easy of attainment does such a result appear to 
be, and so lively is the interest felt in its accomplishment, that it is scarcely 
doubtful that the whole of the populous parts of the llnitcd .‘“'tates will 
within two or three years be covered with a telegraphic network like a 
spider’s web, suspending its principal threads upon important points along 
the sea-board of the Atlantic on one side, and upon similar points along the 
Lake Frontier on the other." I am indebted to the same Report for another 
fact, which I think the Association will regard with equal iiitere*:" 'I’lie 
confidence in the efficiency of telegraphic coranmnication has now become 
so established, that the most important commercial transactions dsilv trans¬ 
pire by \ts means between correspondents several hundred miles apart. 
Ocular evidence of ibis was afforded me by a communication a few minutes 
old between a merchant in Toronto and his correspondent in New York, 
distant about 632 miles.” I am anxious to call your attention to the advan¬ 
tages ivhieh other classes also may experience from this mode of cummuni- 
catioii, as I find it in the same Report. When the Hibernia steamer arrived 
in Boston, in January 1847, with the news of the scarcity in Great Britain, 
irel^d and other parts of Europe, and with heavy orders for agricultural 
produce, the fanners in the interior of the states of New York, informed of 
the Slate of things by the magnetic telegraph, were thronging the streets of 
Albany with innumerable team-loads of grain almost as quickly after the 
arrival of the steamer at Boston as the news of that arrival could ordinarily 
nave reached them. I may add, tiiat, irrespectively of all its advantages 
to the general commimity, the system appeurs to give already a fair return 
01 interest to the individuals or companies who have invested ihcir caniial 
in Its application. ^ 
The larger number of the members of this Association have probably 
already seen m London an exhibition of a patent telegraph which prints 
alpbabeUcal letters as it works. Mr. Brett, one of the proprietors, obli- 
gingly showed it to me, and stated that he hoped to carry it into effect on 
e gieatest scale ever yet imagined on the American continent. Professor 
oiw, however, does not acknowledge that this system is susceptible of 
quality with his telegraphic alphabet for the purpose ol’ rapid comniunica- 
lon , and be conceives that there is an increased risk of deranffciiient in tbo 
mecUanism emploved, 
I cannot refer to the extent of the lines of the electric telegraph in Ame- 
nca without an increased feeling of regret that in our own country this great 
(iiscovery has been so inadequately adopted. So far at least as the capital 
15 concerned, tlie two greatest of our railway companies liavc not I believe 
yet earned the electric telegraph further from London than to Watford and 
olough. 
In England, indeed, wc have learnt the value of the electric telegraph as 
a measure of police in more than one remarkable ease; as a measure of 
government it is not less important; from the illustration which I have 
fawn from America, it is equally useful in commerce; but as a measure 
a most of social intercourse in the discharge of public business it is not witli- 
out Its Uses also. The day before yesterday I had an opportunity of exa- 
Riiuing the telegraph in the lobby of the House of Commons, by wiiich com¬ 
munications are made to and from some distant committee-room. As a 
