preferable, because it transmits its messages much more quickly. The speed
with which the attendants upon these instruments read off the signals made
by the needles is really marvellous: they do not in some cases even wait
to spell the words letter by letter, but jump at the sentence before it is
concluded; and they have learned by practice, as Sir Francis Head says in
"Stokers and Pokers," to recognize immediately who is telegraphing to
them, say at York, by the peculiar _expression of the needles_, the long
drawn wires thus forming a kind of human antennæ by which individual
peculiarities of touch are projected to an infinite distance. To catalogue
the kind of messages which pass through the room, either on their way from
London or in course of distribution to it, would be to give a history of
human affairs. Here, from the shores of this tight island, comes the
morning news gathered by watchers, telescopes in hand, on remote
headlands, of what ships have just hove in sight, or what craft have
foundered or come ashore--to this room, swifter beyond comparison than the
carrier-dove of old, the wire speeds the name of the winner of the Derby
or the Oaks. How the four winds are blowing throughout the island; how
stocks rise or fall every hour of the day in all the great towns and in
the continental capitals; what corn is at Mark Lane, and what farmer Giles
got a quarter of an hour since in a country town in Yorkshire, are equally
known in the telegraph room. Intermixed with quotations of tallow and the
price of Wall's End coals, now and then comes a love-billet, which excites
no more sympathy in the clerk than in the iron that conveys it; or a
notice that the sudden dart of death has struck some distant friend, is
transmitted and received as unconcernedly as an account of the fall in
Russian stock. When business is slack the telegraphists sometimes amuse
themselves by an interchange of badinage with their distant friends. Sir
Francis Head informs us that an absolute quarrel once took place by
telegraph, and the two irritated manipulators were obliged to be separated
in consequence.
In addition to this private message department there is, below stairs, an
intelligence office, in which news published in the London morning papers
is condensed and forwarded to the Exchanges of Liverpool, Bristol,
Manchester, Glasgow, &c.[37] A few years since the company opened
subscription rooms in all the large towns of the north, in which
intelligence of every kind was posted immediately after its arrival in
London; but the craving for early intelligence was not sufficient to
induce the people to incur the expense, and, with the exception of the
room at Hull, the establishments have all been shut up.
On Friday evening especially this department is very busy condensing for
the country papers the news which appears in that exciting column headed
"By Electric Telegraph, London, 2 A.M." Thus the telegraph rides express
through the night for the broadsheets of the entire kingdom, and even
steps across from Portpatrick to Donaghadee into the sister country, with
its budget of latest intelligence, by which means the extremities of the
two islands are kept as well _up_ in the progress of important events as
London itself. Upwards of 120 provincial papers each receive in this
manner their column of parliamentary news of the night; and the _Daily
Mail_, published in Glasgow, gets sometimes as much as three columns of
the debates forwarded whilst the House is sitting. A superintendent and
four clerks are expressly employed in this department; and early in the
day, towards the end of the week, the office presents all the appearance
of an editor's room. At seven in the morning the clerks are to be seen
deep in the _Times_ and other daily papers, just hot from the press,
making extracts, and condensing into short paragraphs all the most
important events, which are immediately sent off to the country papers to
form "second editions." Neither does the work cease here; for no sooner is
a second edition published in town, than its news, if of more than
ordinary interest, is transmitted to the provinces. For instance: whilst
we were in the company's telegraph room a short time since, the following
intelligence was being served out to Liverpool, York, Manchester, Leeds,
Bristol, Birmingham, and Hull:--
"EASTERN WAR--BATTLE ON THE DANUBE--FROM EVENING EDITION OF THE
'MORNING CHRONICLE.'
"_Vienna, Saturday, April 8th._
"The journal _Fremden Blatt_ announces, under date of Bucharest, 4th
April, that a great battle was being fought at Rassova, about midway
between Hirsova and Silistria, in the Dobrudscha. The result was not
known. Mustapha Pasha is at the head of 50,000 men."
Arrived at the above-mentioned places, swifter than a rocket could fly the
distance, like a rocket it bursts, and is again carried by the diverging
wires into a dozen neighbouring towns. The announcement we have quoted
comes opportunely to remind us that intelligence thus hastily gathered and
transmitted has also its drawbacks, and is not so trustworthy as the news
which starts later and travels slower. The "great battle of Rassova" has
not yet been fought, and the general action announced through the
telegraph was only a sanguinary skirmish.
The telegraphic organization of London, meagre as it is at present, would
form alone a curious paper: "a province covered with houses," it demands a
special arrangement, and accordingly we see day by day new branches opened
within its precincts, by which means every part of the metropolis is being
put in communication with the country and Europe.
The branch stations are, London Docks (main entrance); No. 43, Mincing
Lane; General Post Office, St. Martin's-le-Grand; No. 30, Fleet Street;
No. 448, West Strand; No. 17_a_, Great George Street, Westminster; No. 89,
St. James's Street; No. 1, Park Side, Knightsbridge; No. 6, Edgeware Road;
Great Western Railway Station; London and North-Western Railway Station;
Great Northern Railway Station; Highbury Railway Station; Eastern
Counties' Railway Station; Blackwall Railway Station; London and Brighton
and South Coast Railway Station; and the London and South-Western Railway
Station; of these only two are open night and day. The central office,
strange as it might appear, is closed at half-past 8 o'clock P.M., and its
wires are put in connection with those at the Charing Cross Station, which
takes upon itself the night work--a singular proof, by the way, that
London proper is deserted shortly after the hours of business are over.
The Eastern Counties' office is also open at night, and forms the East End
office of the company. These stations communicate with the central office
in Lothbury, and form, in fact, direct feeders to it, just as the hundred
suckers do to the zoophyte.
We have yet, however, to notice the special telegraphic communication
which exists in the metropolis between place and place, either for
governmental purposes or for social convenience. The most curious of these
lines is the wire between the Octagon Hall in the new Houses of Parliament
and the St. James's Street Commercial station. They should name this line
from the "whipper-in" of the House, for it is nothing more than a
call-wire for members. The company employ reporters during the sitting of
Parliament, to make an abstract from the gallery of the business of the
two Houses as it proceeds; and this abstract is forwarded, at very short
intervals, to the office in St. James's Street, where _it is set up and
printed_, additions being made to the sheet issued as the MS. comes in.
This flying sheet is posted half-hourly to the following clubs and
establishments:--Arthur's; Carlton; Oxford and Cambridge; Brook's;
Conservative; United Service; Athenæum; Reform; Traveller's; United
University; Union; and White's; hourly to Boodle's Club and Prince's Club;
and half-hourly to the Royal Italian Opera. The shortest possible abstract
is of course supplied--just sufficient, in fact, to enable the
after-dinner M.P. so to economize his proceedings as to be able to finish
his claret, and yet be in time for the ministerial statement, or to count
in the division.
The wire to the Opera is a still more curious example of the social
services the new power is destined to perform. An abstract of the
proceedings of Parliament, similar to the above, but in _writing_, is
posted, during the performance, in the lobby; and Young England has only
to lounge out between the acts to know if Disraeli or Lord John Russell is
up, and whether he may sit out the piece, or must hasten down to
Westminster. The Opera House even communicates with the Strand Office, so
that messages may be sent from thence to all parts of the kingdom. The
Government wires go from Somerset House to the Admiralty, and thence to
Portsmouth and Plymouth by the South-Western and Great Western Railways;
and these two establishments are put in communication, by means of
subterranean lines, with the naval establishments at Deptford, Woolwich,
Chatham, Sheerness, and with the Cinque Ports of Deal and Dover. They are
worked quite independently of the Company, and the messages are sent in
cipher, the meaning of which is unknown, even to the telegraphic clerks
employed in transmitting it. In addition to the wires already spoken of,
street branches run from Buckingham Palace and Scotland Yard (the head
police-office) to the station at Charing Cross, and thence on to Founder's
Court; whilst the Post-office, Lloyd's, Capel Court, and the Corn Exchange
communicate directly with the Central Office.
The function, then, of the Central Office is to receive and redistribute
communications. Of the manner in which these ends are accomplished nothing
can be gained from a glance round the instrument-rooms. You see no wires
coming into or emerging from them; you ask for a solution of the mystery,
and one of the clerks leads you to the staircase and opens the door of
what looks like a long wooden shoot placed perpendicularly against the
wall. This is the great spinal cord of the establishment, consisting of a
vast bundle of wires, insulated from each other by gutta percha. One set
of these conveys the gathered-up streams of intelligence from the remote
ends of the continent and the farthest shores of Britain, conducts them
through London by the street lines underneath the thronging footsteps of
the multitude, and ascends with its invisible despatches directly to the
different instruments. Another set is composed of the wires that descend
into the battery-chamber. It is impossible to realize the fact by merely
gazing upon this brown and dusty-looking bundle of threads; nevertheless
so it is, that they put us in communication with no less than 4,409 miles
of telegraph, which is coterminous with the railway system of the island,
and forms a complete network over its entire surface, with the exception
of the highlands of North Wales. It penetrates already into the wilds of
Scotland, as we see the wire is carried on from Aberdeen to Balmoral.
The physiologist, minutely dissecting the star-fish, shows us its nervous
system extending to the tip of each limb, and descants upon the beauty of
this arrangement, by which the central mouth is informed of the nutriment
within its reach. The telegraphic system, already developed in England,
has rendered her as sensitive, to the utmost extremities, as the
star-fish. Day by day and hour by hour everything that happens of
importance is immediately referred to its centre at Lothbury, and this
centre returns the service by spreading the information afresh in every
direction. Thus, should an enemy appear off our coast, his presence, by
the aid of the fibre, is immediately felt at the Admiralty, and an
immediate reply sends out the fleet in chase. Should a riot occur in the
manufacturing districts, the local authorities communicate with the Home
Office, and orders are sent down to put the distant troops in motion. Does
a murderer escape, the same wire makes the fact known to Scotland Yard,
and from thence word is sent to the distant policemen to intercept him in
his flight. The arm is scarcely uplifted quicker to ward off a sudden
blow--the eye does not close with more rapidity upon an unexpected flood
of light, than, by the aid of the telegraph, actions follow upon
impressions conveyed along the length and breadth of the land. But, says
our reader, suppose these wires should be severed or damaged, your whole
line is paralyzed; and how are you to find out where the fault may be?
Against these eventualities human foresight has provided: by testing from
station to station along the line, the office soon knows how far the wires
are perfect; and if the breach of continuity should be in the subterranean
street wires, there are iron testing-posts at every 500 yards distance, by
the aid of which the workman knows where to make his repairs. Whilst all
is being made right again, however, a curious contrivance is brought into
play, in order to keep the communication open. Every one is acquainted
with the action of the railway "switch," by which a train is enabled to
leave one line of rails and run on to another. The telegraph has its
switch also, and thus a message can be transferred from one line to
another, or can be sent right _throuyh_ to any locality, without making a
stoppage at the usual resting-place on its way. By this device, then, the
"sick wires" can be altogether avoided. Suppose, for instance, that some
accident had happened to the direct Bristol line, and it would not work in
consequence, then the clerk at the Lothbury station would signal to
Birmingham to switch the wire through to Bristol, or, in other words, to
put him in communication with that place; this done, the message would fly
along the North-Western line, look in at the Birmingham station, and
immediately be off down the Midland wire to Bristol, arriving, to all
perception, in the same latitude as quickly as though it had gone direct
by the Great Western wire. Every large station is provided with a
switching apparatus, and the Lothbury office has several. Here also there
is a very curious contrivance called the "testing-box," which enables the
manipulator to connect any number of batteries to a wire, in order to give
extra power, without going into the battery vault.
These switches, testing, and battery boxes are of great service in certain
conditions of the atmosphere. For instance, a thunderstorm, or more often
a fog, will now and then so affect the conducting power of a wire, working
through a long distance, that it is found impossible to send a message
along it, in which case the clerk "dodges" the passing storm or fog by
switching the dispatch round the country through a fine-weather wire. If
however the foggy weather should continue, the manipulator has only to go
to the battery box and couple on one or more batteries, just as fresh
engines are put on a train going up an incline when the rails are
"greasy." By thus increasing the power of the electric current the message
is driven through the worst weather. Sometimes as many as six or eight
24-plate batteries are necessary to speed a signal to Glasgow. The more
general way in such cases, however, is to transmit the dispatch to some
intermediate station, where the message is repeated.
Let us now descend into the battery vaults--two long narrow chambers,
situated in the basement of the building. Who would think that in this
quiet place, night and day, a power was being generated that exerted its
influence to the very margin of this seagirt isle, nay, invaded the
territories of Holland, Belgium, and France? Who would think that those
long dusty boxes on the shelves were making scores of iron tongues wag
hundreds of miles off? There are upwards of sixty Daniel's batteries in
full employment in these vaults. They are ranked as sixes, twelves, and
twenty-fours, according to the number of their elements or plates; and
just like guns, the higher they rank the further they carry. The powerful
twenty-fours work the long ranges of wire, and the smaller batteries the
shorter circuits. Of course some of these batteries have harder work to do
than others, and the "twenty-fours" working the North-Western line have
much the busiest time of it. Considering the work done by them, their
maintenance is not very costly. A twenty-four, when in full work, does not
consume its zinc plates under three months, and a gill of sulphuric acid,
diluted, is its strong but rather moderate allowance of liquid per month.
Other batteries of the same force are satisfied with 1 lb. of sulphate of
copper per month, with a little sulphate of zinc, and salt and water. The
entire amount of electric power employed by the Company throughout the
country is produced by 8000 12-plate batteries, or 96,000 cells, which are
lined with 1,500,000 square inches of copper, and about the same of zinc.
To work these batteries six tons of acid is yearly consumed, and
fifty-five tons of sand; the principal use of the latter is to prevent the
chemicals from slopping about, and the metal plates from getting oxidised
too rapidly. The language of the "wire," with respect to the working of
the telegraph, is very curious. For instance, when a distant station-clerk
finds that a battery is not up to its work, by the weak action of the
needles, he sends word that it requires "refreshment," and it is
accordingly served with its gill of aquafortis, and, totally opposed to
the doctrines of temperance, a "long-lived battery" owes its vitality to
the strongest drink.
We have followed the wires down to one pole of their respective
batteries, and now we have to pursue them out of the opposite pole until
they take to "earth." No electricity will flow from the positive pole Z of
the battery (Fig. 2) unless the wire D K A B is connected, either by being
itself unbroken, or by the interposition of some other conductor where a
gap occurs, to the negative pole C. In the earlier telegraphs it was usual
to have a return-wire to effect this purpose. But, strange as it may
sound, it was discovered that the earth itself would convey the current
back to the negative pole, and thus an entire length of wire was saved.
Accordingly the earth completes the two hundred and odd different
circuits, which pass their loops, as it were, through the central office.
In order to get a "good earth" a hole was dug deep in the foundations,
until some moist ground was found, _dry_ soil being a very bad conductor,
and into this a cylinder of copper, four inches in diameter and 40 lbs. in
weight, was sunken, surrounded by a mass of sulphate of copper in
crystals. All the earth wires of the establishment were then put in
connection with this mass of metal, or earth plate.
[Illustration: Fig. 6]
The non-scientific reader will perhaps require a figure to explain to him
our meaning, when we say that the earth is capable of completing the
"circuit." In the accompanying diagram (No. 6) we have a battery, U V, in
the central office in London, deflecting a needle N, say in Liverpool. The
fluid passes from the positive pole of the battery U, traverses the wire
of the North-Western Railway, and after working the telegraph in
Liverpool, descends into the earth by the wire B, which has a metal or
earth-plate attached to it. From this point the electric fluid starts
homewards, through the solid ground, and finding out the earth-plate[38]
under the foundations at Lothbury, ascends along the wire A, into the
negative pole of the battery V. By reversing the current, it flows first
through the earth from V A to B, and returns by the wire to the opposite
pole U.
Nothing in telegraphy impresses the thoughtful mind more than the fact
that the electric fluid, after spanning, maybe, half the globe, should
come back to its battery, through adamantine rocks, through seas and all
the diverse elements which make up the anatomy of the globe. The
explanation of the phenomenon is still a matter of pure speculation.
Indeed, it may be objected that our flight of the electric principle is
altogether a flight of fancy--that there is in fact no flow of electricity
at all, but that its progress through bodies, according to the generally
received theory, is owing to opposite poles of contiguous particles acting
upon each other. The hypothesis, however, first received in science gives
birth to its language, which usually continues the same, although it may
have ceased to be an adequate expression of the current doctrine of
philosophers.
The traveller, as he flies along in the train, and looks out upon the
wires which seem stretched against the sky like the ledger lines of music,
little dreams of these invisible conductors that are returning the current
through the ground. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, indeed, the
wires and their sustaining posts represent to the spectator the entire
telegraph. The following conversation between two navigators, overheard
the other day by a friend, gives the most popular view of the way the
telegraph works. "I say, Jem, how do 'em _jaw_ along them wires?" "Why,
Bill, they pulls at one end, and rings a bell at t'other." Others again
fancy that messages are conveyed by means of the vibrations of the metal,
for on windy days they sometimes give out sounds like an Æolian harp: a
fact which, according to Sir Francis Head, called forth the remark from a
North-Western driver to his stoker, "I say, Bill, aint they a giving it to
'em at Thrapstone?" The more ignorant class of people actually believe
that it conveys parcels and letters, and they sometimes carry them for
transmission to the office.