The Electric Telegraph is unquestionably one of our most valuable
public utilities.
In commercial life the telegraph has revolutionized business methods.
Transactions are now effected between New York, London and other
financial centres in minutes, which formerly occupied weeks, and even
months, to accomplish. In social life the advantages of telegraph
communication are equally apparent; travel where we may, we are always
within reach of friends or kindred at a distance by means of the
telegraph wires.
The daily Press is now enabled to record the moving accidents on flood
and field in all parts of the world, a few hours or even minutes after
their occurrence.
The dreadful catastrophe at Martinique, with the loss of thousands of
human lives; the fire in a Chicago theatre, and the loss of hundreds
of women and children through culpable negligence; the shocking loss
of life on the excursion steamer “General Slocum” through lack of
life-saving appliances is gruesome reading, but the public demand it;
the more pleasing event of King Edward’s visit to President Loubet,
on his mission of Peace, and the return visit of the latter to London
are a few examples of news carried over the wires, all within the
purview of the humblest reader. There are few who cannot afford the
price of a daily paper, and thus keep in touch with current events,
but no very long time ago a daily newspaper was beyond the reach of
all but the comparatively wealthy. The advent of the telegraph with
its multifarious budget of news from every quarter of the Globe caused
a large increase in circulation, and a decrease in price naturally
followed.
During the Crimean war, when telegraph communication had been
established with the army headquarters, the working men of a
manufacturing concern near Glasgow, in which the writer was employed,
clubbed together to defray the cost of a daily newspaper, the price
then being four pence halfpenny, much beyond the means of a single
individual. During the dinner hour he read to an interested and
attentive audience the latest despatches from the seat of war, many
of whom would forego dinner rather than miss the daily pabulum of war
news. Now all this is changed, the poorest laboring man can afford
the price of a daily paper, formerly only enjoyed by his more opulent
countrymen.
Still earlier, Macaulay, in his History of England, tells us of the
news letter, the predecessor of the modern newspaper, wherein he says:
“The news letter within a week after its arrival had been thumbed over
by twenty families, and furnished the neighboring squires with matter
for talk over their October, and the Rector with topics for sharp
sermons.”
The news letters were collated in London, for the benefit of provincial
readers. The price was no doubt high, and the contents probably
consisted of gossip or scandal in high life, details of a cocking
main, an affair between my Lord Tomnoddy and a Captain of the Blues,
or affairs of Church and State. Now the four quarters of the earth is
ransacked daily and news collected at immense labor and enormous cost
by the associated press, and retransmitted to all points of the compass.
Wireless telegraphy, the latest marvel in applied science, is surely
and steadily forging ahead, and will cover areas of land and sea, where
the land and cable wires do not operate.
The writer feels that no apology is necessary in publishing the
following brief outline of telegraph history, a subject which he
believes will interest both the old as well as younger readers.
The data of English telegraph history is largely derived from an early
edition of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, while that of the American is
taken from a voluminous work published about a quarter of a century
ago, by James D. Reid, a friend and associate of Professor Morse. The
facts relating to Canadian history are taken from original records,
while that of submarine and wireless telegraphy is from numerous
sources of contemporary literature and personal knowledge.
While admitting there is nothing strikingly original in the work, the
writer ventures to hope that the style will commend itself to those who
prefer brevity to wearisome detail.
_The Telegraph in England._
CONTENTS OF SECTION ONE.
PAGE
EXPLANATORY 10
TELEGRAPH, ELECTRIC 11
THE NEEDLE TELEGRAPH 22
BRITISH GOVERNMENT ACQUIRES TELEGRAPHS 29
TELEGRAPH DEVELOPMENT 36
SIR WILLIAM FOTHERGILL COOKE 37
SIR CHARLES WHEATSTONE 39
_The Telegraph in the United States._