We consider it our duty to say a word concerning the swarm of
adventurers who are canvassing the country for subscriptions to utterly
worthless telegraph stock, and who are besieging the halls of Congress
every year for some recognition or advantage which shall enable them the
more readily to impose upon the public.
The National Telegraph Company is an example in point. This concern,
which claims to have organized two years ago under an act of Congress,
and which has filled the country with runners begging for subscriptions
to its stock, has never set a pole.
The losses which have occurred in the operation of competing lines are
enormous. The country is full of people who have lost money in these
schemes, which, after a brief existence, are wound up and their effects
disposed of by the sheriff.
The present condition of all the opposition lines is very precarious.
The Franklin Company was made by a consolidation of the Insulated
Company, having four wires between Boston and Washington, and the old
Franklin Company, having two wires between Boston and New York. The
capital of the former was $1,250,000, and of the latter $500,000. The
new organization has been in operation about two years, during which
time its receipts have fallen so far below its expenses that it has
contracted a debt of $125,000; and its lines have deteriorated to such
an extent that a large sum would have to be expended to put them in
proper condition for business. The stock of such companies is valueless
as an investment, and, in respect to some of them, it is doubtful if
their property could be sold for a sum sufficient to pay their
indebtedness.
The Atlantic and Pacific Company has a line from New York to Chicago,
_via_ Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, and Sandusky, averaging about two
wires for each line. Its lines are built under a contract to take stock
in payment, at the rate of $1,666.66 per mile for a line of two wires.
The operation of these separate and irresponsible lines, during the
brief period of their existence, retards the progress of legitimate
telegraphy, and impairs the general unity of the system. Any legislation
of Congress which is made to further such schemes has the direct effect
of aiding a class of speculators to fleece a credulous public, by
inducing them to invest their money in the construction of lines which
never have paid, and never can pay, the expenses of operating them, and
which are of no benefit to any persons but those who originate them, and
profit by their construction.