Part 36

A problem of great scientific interest as well as of practical importance in connection with the electric telegraph had still to be solved. The experiments of Dr. Watson on Shooter's Hill, in the middle of the last century, proved, it is true, that _a shock of electricity_ passed along a four mile circuit without any appreciable loss of time, but nothing was definitely known about the speed at which it really travelled. This difficult question was answered by Professor Wheatstone. His beautiful investigations on the subject were made by means of a very rapidly revolving mirror, upon which the passage of the electric fluid, at different and distant parts of a severed wire, was indicated by sparks, which appeared as lines of light on the rapidly turning glass, on the same principle that a bit of lighted charcoal whirled round and round in the air appears as a circle of fire. By this instrument, which we cannot render intelligible to the general reader, but for a fuller account of which we refer him to the Philosophical Transactions of 1834, he made it evident to the eye that one spark or leap of the electric fluid did occur before the other--thus proving that its transit along the wire _was_ a matter of time. The manner in which he took measure of this infinitesimal period was extremely ingenious. By attaching a hollow piece of metal--a metallic humming-top as it were--to the spindle of his revolving mirror, and at the same time directing a current of air against it, he was enabled to test its speed by the pitch of the sound produced: this once known, the measuring of time that elapsed between the different sparks was easy. Thus he forced the lightning to tell how fast it was going. His admirably-contrived apparatus has since proved of considerable use to philosophers in measuring very minute parts of time, and scientific men can now with the greatest ease ascertain the period a flash of light takes to traverse a distance of 50 feet--and light, be it remembered, travels at the speed of 200,000 miles a second!

By this experiment it appeared that electricity travels through a copper-wire with at least the velocity of light through the celestial space, though the recent experiments made for Professor Bache, director of the national survey of America, have proved that the velocity of the current through suspended _iron_ wires is not more than 15,400 miles per second. The philosophic proof of the marvellous rate at which the electric current moved, doubtless turned many minds once more in the direction of the long sought for telegraph, and it is not surprising that the eminent elucidator of the fact was among the number. A short time after this he insulated four miles of wire in the vaults of King's College, on which he performed most of his subsequent experiments.[34] Thus in the silence of these gloomy vaults, as early as 1836, the lightning that was to flash with intelligence round the world--the nervous system so shortly destined to spread itself through two hemispheres, string together continents and islands, and carry human thought under the wide-spreading seas, was slowly being trained to the service of man by one of the most distinguished of the many philosophers who have contributed to the development of this branch of science.

Following up his experiment, Professor Wheatstone worked out the arrangements of his telegraph, and having associated himself in 1837 with Mr. Cooke, who had previously devoted much time to the same subject, a patent was taken out in the June of that year in their joint names. Their telegraph had five wires and five needles; the latter being worked upon the face of a lozenge-shaped dial inscribed with the letters of the alphabet, any one of which could be indicated by the convergence of two of the needles. This very ingenious instrument could be manipulated by any person who knew how to read, and did not labour under the disadvantage of working by a code which required time to be understood. Immediately upon the taking out of the patent, the directors of the North Western Railway sanctioned the laying down of wires between the Euston Square and Camden Town stations, and towards the end of July the telegraph was ready to work.

Late in the evening of the 25th of that month, in a dingy little room near the booking-office at Euston square, by the light of a flaring dip-candle, which only illuminated the surrounding darkness, sat the inventor, with a beating pulse and a heart full of hope. In an equally small room at the Camden Town station, where the wires terminated, sat Mr. Cooke, his co-patentee, and among others, two witnesses well known to fame, Mr. Charles Fox and Mr. Stephenson. These gentlemen listened to the first word spelt by that trembling tongue of steel which will only cease to discourse with the extinction of man himself. Mr. Cooke in his turn touched the keys and returned the answer. "Never did I feel such a tumultuous sensation before," said the Professor, "as when all alone in the still room I heard the needles click, and as I spelled the words I felt all the magnitude of the invention, now proved to be practical beyond cavil or dispute." The telegraph thenceforward, as far as its mechanism was concerned, went on without a check, and the modifications of this instrument, which is still in use, have been made for the purpose of rendering it more economical in its construction and working, two wires at present being employed, and in some cases only one.

A frequently renewed and still unsettled controversy has arisen upon the point of who is to be considered the first contriver of the telegraph in the form which made it available for popular use. Two names alone are now put forward to dispute the claim with Wheatstone--Steinheil of Munich and Morse of New York.

From a communication of M. Arago to the French Academy of Sciences, it appears that the telegraph of Steinheil was in operation, for a distance of seven miles, on the 19th of July, 1837, the same month in which Wheatstone put his own contrivance to the test upon the North Western Railway. But besides that the patent of Wheatstone was taken out in the preceding June, and was itself founded upon previous and thoroughly successful experiments, there is another material circumstance which gives him a claim to priority over Steinheil, viz., that the latter published no description of his instrument until August, 1838, that he altered and improved it in the interval, and that the only accounts we have of his contrivance describe its amended and not its original form. It was, however, a very meritorious performance, and, in addition to its other excellences, Steinheil was the first who employed the earth to complete the circuit--a most important fact, which we shall explain hereafter. Still his telegraph was inferior in its mechanical arrangements to that of Wheatstone, and the inventor himself soon abandoned it in favour of a modification of the instrument of Morse.

Morse dates his claim to _the invention of the telegraph_ from the year 1832, when the first idea of such an instrument, he tells us, struck him as he was returning home from Havre in the ship Sully. A fellow-passenger, Professor Jackson, it appears, was in the habit of amusing himself, in common with the rest of the passengers, with some accounts of the wonders of electricity; and when Morse later developed his contrivance, Professor Jackson not only claimed it as a plagiarism from his own conversation, but added that Morse was so ignorant as to ask, upon hearing the term Electro-Magnetism, "In what does that differ from ordinary Magnetism?" The telegraph was at best, on the part of both of them, a crude idea; and it was not till September, 1837, that Professor Morse was able to exhibit his still imperfect machinery in action. He ultimately succeeded, as we have before stated, in producing a telegraph of first-rate excellence; and, out of 15,000 miles of wire which had been erected by 1852 in the United States, 12,124 were worked on the system of Morse.

The question of priority is, in our opinion, after all, of no sort of importance, at least as regards the rival claims of Wheatstone and Steinheil. When the progress of science has prepared the way for a great discovery, two geniuses will occasionally take the step together, because each is able to take the step of a giant. It was thus that the Calculus was found out by both Newton and Leibnitz, and the place of Neptune in the heavens by both Adams and Leverrier. It was the same with the telegraph. The investigations of Wheatstone and Steinheil were entirely independent of each other, and it cannot lessen the merit of either that there was a second man in Europe who was equal to the task.

There are some who dispute Professor Wheatstone's claim, by urging that, inasmuch as all the main features of the telegraph existed before he took out his patent, there was nothing left to invent. It is true that much had been done, but it is equally certain that there was much to do. When Wheatstone first directed his attention to electricity as a means of communicating thoughts to a distance, the telegraph was a useless and inoperative machine. He and his partner established as a working, paying fact, what had hitherto been little better than a philosophic toy. To those who now disparage the Professor's labours we think it sufficient to reply by the admirable saying of the French _savant_, M. Biot, "Nothing is so easy as the discovery of yesterday; nothing so difficult as the discovery of to-day."

Let us return, however, to the history of the telegraph in England, from which we have digressed. After the successful working of the mile-and-a-quarter line, the Directors of the London and Birmingham Railway proposed to lay it down to the latter town if the Birmingham and Liverpool Directors would continue it on their line; but they objected, and the telegraph received notice to quit the ground it already occupied. Of course, its sudden disappearance would have branded it as a failure in most men's minds, and, in all probability, the telegraph would have been put back many years, had not Mr. Brunel, to his honour, in 1839, determined to adopt it on the Great Western line. It was accordingly carried at first as far as West Drayton, thirteen miles, and afterwards to Slough, a distance of eighteen miles. The wires were not at this early date suspended upon posts, but insulated and encased in an iron tube, which was placed beneath the ground.

The telegraph hitherto had been strictly confined to railway business, and in furtherance of this object Brunel proposed to continue it to Bristol as soon as the line was opened. Here, again, the folly and blindness of railway proprietors threw obstacles in the way, which led, however, to an unlooked-for application of its powers to public purposes. At a general meeting of the proprietors of the Great Western Railway in Bristol, a Mr. Hayward, of Manchester, got up and denounced the invention as a "new-fangled scheme," and managed to pass a resolution repudiating the agreement entered into with the patentees. Thus within a few years we find the telegraph rejected by two of the most powerful railway companies, the persons above all others who ought to have welcomed it with acclamation.

To keep the wires on the ground, Mr. Cooke proposed to maintain it at his own expense, and was permitted by the directors to do so on condition of sending their railway signals free of charge, and of extending the line to Slough. In return, he was allowed to transmit the messages of the public. Here commences the first popular use of the telegraph in England, or in any other country. The tariff was one shilling per message. The effect of this low charge was to develop a class of business which seems beneath the notice of the powerful company now in possession of most of the telegraphic lines in the kingdom. The transactions of the retail dealers are considered too petty, perhaps, for their attention; but there can be no doubt that the comfort of the public would be vastly increased, and also the revenues of the company, if they would only condescend to take a lesson by the commercial experience of this shilling tariff, the working of which we will illustrate by transcribing from the telegraph book at Paddington a few specimens of the messages sent:--

"Commercial News. 1844, Nov. 1, Slough, 4.10 P.M.--'Send a messenger to Mr. Harris, poulterer, Duke-street, Manchester-square, and order him to send twelve more chickens to Mr. Finch, High-street, Windsor, by the 5.0 P.M. down train, without fail.' Answer: Paddington, 5.5 P.M.--'The chickens are sent by the 5.0 P.M. train.'

"Slough, 7.35 P.M.--'A Mr. Thomas B., a first-class passenger, 6.30 P.M. train, left a blue cloak with a velvet collar in first-class booking-office. Send it by mail train if found.'

"Paddington 7.45 P.M.--'There are two such cloaks in the booking-office: has Mr. B.'s any mark on any part of it?' Slough, 7.47 P.M.--'Mr. B.'s has the mark × under the collar, inside.'

"Paddington, 7.55 P.M.--'Cloak found, and will be sent on as requested.'

"Slough, Nov. 11, 1844, 4.3 P.M.--'Send a messenger to Mr. Harris, Duke-street, Manchester-square, and request him to send 6 lbs. of white bait and 4 lbs. of sausages, by the 5.40 train, to Mr. Finch, of Windsor they must be sent by 5.30 down train, or not at all.'

"Paddington, 5.27 P.M.--'Messenger returned with articles which will be sent by 5.30 train, as requested.'"

The first application of the telegraph to police purposes took place about this time on the Great Western Railway, and, as it was the first intimation thieves got of the electric constable being on duty, it is full of interest. The following extracts are from the telegraph book kept at the Paddington station:--

"Eaton Montem day, August 28, 1844.--The Commissioners of Police have issued orders that several officers of the detective force shall be stationed at Paddington to watch the movements of suspicious persons, going by the down-train, and give notice by the electric telegraph to the Slough station of the number of such suspected persons, and dress, their names if known, also the carriages in which they are."

Now come the messages following one after the other, and influencing the fate of the marked individuals with all the celerity, certainty, and calmness of the Nemesis of the Greek drama:--

"Paddington, 10.20 A.M.--'Mail train just started. It contains three thieves, named Sparrow, Burrell, and Spurgeon, in the first compartment of the fourth first-class carriage.'

"Slough, 10.48 A.M.--'Mail train arrived. _The officers have cautioned the three thieves._'

"Paddington, 10.50 A.M.--'Special train just left. It contained two thieves: one named Oliver Martin, who is dressed in black, _crape on his hat_; the other named Fiddler Dick, in black trowsers and light blouse. Both in the third compartment of the first second-class carriage.'

"Slough, 11.16 A.M.--'Special train arrived. Officers have taken the two thieves into custody, a lady having lost her bag, containing a purse with two sovereigns and some silver in it; one of the sovereigns was sworn to by the lady as having been her property. It was found in Fiddler Dick's watch-fob.'"

It appears that, on the arrival of the train, a policeman opened the door of the "third compartment of the first second-class carriage" and asked the passengers if they had missed anything? A search in pockets and bags accordingly ensued, until one lady called out that her purse was gone. "Fiddler Dick, you are wanted," was the immediate demand of the police-officer, beckoning to the culprit, who came out of the carriage thunderstruck at the discovery, and gave himself up, together with the booty, with the air of a completely beaten man. The effect of the capture so cleverly brought about is thus spoken of in the telegraph book:--

"Slough, 11.51 A.M.--'Several of the suspected persons who came by the various down-trains are lurking about Slough, uttering bitter invectives against the telegraph. Not one of those cautioned has ventured to proceed to the Montem.'"

Ever after this the lightfingered gentry avoided the railway and the _too_ intelligent companion that ran beside it, and betook themselves again to the road--a retrograde step, to which on all great public occasions they continue to adhere.

The telegraph, even up to this period, was very little known to the great mass of the public, and might have continued for some time longer in obscurity but for its remarkable agency in causing the arrest of the quaker Tawell. This event, which took place on the afternoon of Friday, January 3rd, 1845, placed it before the world as a prominent instrument in a terrible drama, and at once drew universal attention to its capabilities.

It must not be imagined, however, that Mr. Wheatstone's was the only patent taken out for a telegraph in the year 1837. A number of inquiring minds were simultaneously with the Professor wandering in the tangled wood of doubt, and when he burst his way through, others speedily emerged at different points, one after another. Consequently, the year 1837 was distinguished by a complete crop of telegraphs, any one of which would perhaps have held its ground had it stood alone, but not one of them was practically equal to the first, and they have all long since departed to the tomb, already stored with the abortive results of so many merely ingenious minds.

The rapidity with which the needle instrument transmits messages, the small amount of electricity required to work it, and the simplicity of its construction, are its chief recommendations. Upwards of 200 letters can be forwarded by it within the minute. Its great drawback--a drawback that will appear greater every year--is that it can only be worked by a system of signs, which requires some practice to understand. As long as the public is content to send its messages open to the light of day, this plan will hold its ground, as a practised manipulator can indicate the letters as fast as it is possible to read, much less transcribe them, at the other end of the wire; but immediately that the public come to demand secrecy--to put a seal as of old on its letters--this telegraph will, we predict, fall into _public_ disuse; and the revolving dial telegraph, invented by Mr. Wheatstone, in 1840, or the recording telegraph of Bain or Morse, or, more likely still, the American printing telegraph of House, will come into play.

This latter instrument appears to contain within itself capabilities of very high excellence; for instance, it requires no one to interpret, and then to re-write its messages--this it does itself. In fact it extends the compositor's fingers as far as the wire can be stretched. Messages are thus printed at the rate of fifty letters a minute, say at five hundred miles distance, in common Roman characters, on long slips of paper similar to those used on the recording instrument. Any description of its complicated mechanism would be utterly unintelligible to general readers. "While the arrangements of the telegraph of Morse," said Mr. Justice Woodbury, of America, in giving judgment in a patent case, "can be readily understood by most mechanics and men of science, it requires days, if not weeks with some, thoroughly to comprehend all the parts and movements of the telegraph of House." His system is in use for thousands of miles of the American lines. Bakewell's copying telegraph is naturally suggested by the telegraph of House, from the fact that it reproduces its messages, although in a different manner. The sender of the message may be said to write with a pen long enough to stretch to the most distant correspondent; that is, he not only forwards instantaneously the substance of a message, but it is conveyed in his own handwriting. The principle is similar to that of Davy's chemical recording telegraph. The person sending the message writes it on a piece of tin foil with a pen dipped in varnish or any other non-conducting substance; this message is then placed round a metal cylinder, which is made to revolve at a certain regulated pace. In contact with this cylinder is a blunt steel point, which, by the action of a screw, makes a spiral line from the top to the bottom of the cylinder, thus touching every portion of the written message enveloping it. In connection with the steel point is the conducting wire, and at the end of the wire is a similar steel point working spirally upon a like cylinder. It will be at once seen that the current will always be transmitted, except at those portions of the tin foil which are covered with the non-conducting varnish, and which, therefore, cut off the flow of electricity, and the handwriting will appear at the other end of the telegraphic wire upon a piece of chemically-prepared paper rolled upon its cylinder, and moving synchronously with it. The transmitted letter appears to be written in white upon a dark ground, the white parts, of course, indicating where the current has been broken, and where, consequently, no decomposition of the chemical paper has taken place.

To return, however, to our subject after this little digression. At the same time that the first working telegraph was being simplified and improved, the system was gradually spreading, and, by the end of the year 1845, lines exceeding 500 miles in extent were in operation in England, working Messrs. Wheatstone and Cook's patents. In the following year, capital, as represented by the powerful Electric Telegraph Company, commenced its operations, and an immediate and rapid development of the new method of carrying intelligence was the result.

"A period of eight years has elapsed," as they say in a certain class of drama, and let us now look upon the condition of electric-telegraphy in England. We left it exerting its influence in a disjointed manner over a few railways, and striking out its wires here and there at random, without governing head or organization; and how do we find it?

Jammed in between lofty houses, at the bottom of a narrow court in Lothbury, we see before us a stuccoed wall, ornamented with an electric illuminated clock. Who would think that behind this narrow forehead lay the great brain,--if we may so term it,--of the nervous system of Britain, or that beneath the narrow pavement of the alley lies its spinal chord, composed of hundreds of fibres, which transmit intelligence as unperceived as does the medulla oblongata beneath the skin? Emerging from this narrow channel, the "efferent" wires branch off beneath the different footways, ramify in certain plexuses within the great centre of intelligence itself, and then shoot out along the different lines of railway until the shores of the island would seem to interpose a limit to their further progress. Not so, however:--beneath the seas, under the heaving waves covered with stately navies, they take their darksome way, until, with the burden of their moving fire, they emerge once more upon the foreign strand, and commence afresh their career over the wide expanse of the Continent.