170 COAST ARTILLERY IN ACTION. 
their craft all day and every day, untrammelled by garrison fatigues and employ- 
ments. He can rarely get hold of sufficient of his own men for gun drill, and yet 
he knows that the gun is a more important factor in coast defence than the mine. 
Is it to be wondered at, that he applies to be transferred as soon as possible to 
the more favoured branch of the Regiment. Simplify Coast Artillery drill as 
much as possible, remove from it all superfluous mathematics and let him have 
his men to train and take a pride in, then will the Coast Artillery subaltern have 
the interest and lose the unrest of which Colonel Jocelyn speaks. 
Masor H. C. L. Hotpen, R.A., who was prevented from attending the lecture, 
has sent the following for publication :— 
There is one point in Colonel Jocelvn’s lecture that I would offer a few remarks 
upon, and that point is the subject of electric communications, and my excuse for 
these remarks must be first of all the great importance of the subject, and 
secondly, the fact that the matériel of the great telegraph and telephone systems 
of the world has been my special study for the past twenty years, during which 
time I have had almost exceptional opportunities of judging of their efficiency and 
suitability for the various purposes of the service. 
Any system for electric communication between two or more points must 
consist of — 
(1) The conductors, whether they be lines, wires, or cables. 
(2) The instruments, and their actuating source of electricity. 
As to (1). The conductors should always consist of two wires and not one 
wire and an earth returm; there are many reasons in favour of the two wires, and 
but one against them, viz:—the expense; in the case of telephones being used it 
is of prime importance that the best arrangements be made to prevent induction 
from other wires. 
(2). The instrument. 
First of all there is the Morse telegraph, recording its message in dots and 
dashes, and the sounder which is practically the Morse stripped of its recording 
mechanism. 
Secondly, there is the Wheatstone A.B.C. telegraph, in which a pointer moves 
round a dial and spells out the message letter by letter. I do not forget the 
various type-printing and writing telegraphs, but they are at present too costly 
and complicated to be considered at all. 
Thirdly, there is the telephone (either the simple magneto-telephone, acting 
as a transmitter or receiver, or the magneto-telephone used as a receiver only 
combined with a microphone transmitter) which transmits the actual message 
spoken into it. 
Let us consider the merits and demerits of these three classes of instruments 
separately. 
The Morse recorder has one great advantage in that it leaves an indisputable 
written record of the message letter by letter, thus fixing responsibility in case of 
a mistake, against it are the facts that it requires a specially trained operator to 
work it, and that it is slow compared to a telephone if the message has not to be 
written down. The sounder, which is in effect a Morse instrument without 
recording mechanism, has all the disadvantages without the advantage of that 
instrument. 
Next in order comes the Wheatstone A.B.C. telegraph, this instrument, which 
has been eulogised by one of the speakers, is quite unsuitable, to my mind, for our 
coast defences ; it is not only extremely complicated and costly, but very delicate 
and likely to get out of order, requiring when it does so not only an electrician 
but a watchmaker to put it right again, since the introduction of the telephone it 
has almost completely disappeared, except perhaps in places where it had been 
