THE TELEGRAPH SYSTEM OF THE UNITED STATES UNPARALLELED FOR ITS EXTENT AND EFFICIENCY.
Mr. Washburne says, “There is abundant reason to believe that the telegraphic system of Great Britain, which is declared a failure on such high authority, is, in all respects, greatly superior to our own”; but he fails to give any of his reasons for this belief, and we are compelled to assert that it has no intelligent explanation except in a strangely morbid hostility to this company, which exhibits itself on every offered occasion. In all respects the telegraph lines of this country are equal to those of any other, and in some important ones superior. They extend from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, connecting in one unbroken chain more than four thousand cities and villages, forming a system by which every event of importance happening in any section of our vast territorial limits is published within a few hours in every other; through which verbatim reports of the speeches in Congress are transmitted from the capital to the metropolis, and full abstracts of them to every considerable town in the nation, on the day of their delivery; which supplies the metropolitan journals with more telegraphic news every day than is contained in the combined press despatches of Europe. Such a system, in its vastness, skilful manipulation, and the rapidity of its unceasing development, we believe merits the public approbation, and is not unworthy of the American name.
Our system of telegraphy is unique. Nowhere else can there be found such an extent of lines under one control. The lines of the Western Union Telegraph Company, extending throughout the United States and portions of the Dominion of Canada, enables it to transmit messages between every section of the country, without undergoing the delay of checking or booking at intermediate points; and between most of the large cities without retransmission. This work, over a territory so vast, although only two years have elapsed since the confederation of lines was effected which made it possible, is fast assuming, under increased care and enlarged experience, the certainty and uniformity of mechanism. In all its effective features, the world may safely be challenged to produce anything to compare with it. The extent of lines and wire belonging to the Western Union Telegraph Company is more than twice that of France, three times greater than that of Prussia, and equals the aggregated systems of Austria, Prussia, and the lesser German States, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and Switzerland, and it is increasing in larger ratio than any European system. The Western Union Telegraph Company alone has added to its lines, during the year 1868, more than five thousand miles of wire, or as much as the entire system of Belgium, leaving unsatisfied demands for an equal extension in the year to come.