The proposed union of the telegraph and postal systems / Statement of the Western Union Telegraph Company

by Western Union Telegraph Company

RUSSIA.

European Russia, with a population considerably more than twice as great as the United States, contains but 308 offices, or one to 230,000 of people; and sends annually but 838,653 messages, or one to each 80,723 of her population.

Any person examining the telegraphic map of Russia will be satisfied that the rose-colored descriptions of government telegraphs as illustrated in Russia are overdrawn. The lines radiating from St. Petersburg, and extending to Warsaw, Moscow, Odessa, Sebastopol, Nichni-Novgorod, to the Persian frontier, and to Kiakhta in Siberia,—all important military points,—and with scarcely any connecting interior lines, suggest anything but a desire to afford ample telegraphic facilities to the people.