The telegraph and telephone wires in this district are chiefly erected and maintained by soldiers of the Royal Engineers. Sixteen military telegraphists, members of the Royal Engineers, are attached to the Bristol Post Office, and kept in training for telegraph service with the army. Twelve of them are now—November, 1899—in South Africa on active service, in connection with the troubles in the Transvaal.
In the great hurricane which occurred in January, 1899, the telephone and telegraph wires radiating from Bristol were blown down in all directions. In consequence Bristol was entirely cut off from direct telephonic communication with Birmingham for 21 hours, and had only one wire instead of two for 9¼ hours; from Bath for 18 hours, and had only one wire instead of two for 5½ hours; from Cardiff for 18 hours, and had only two wires instead of three for 10½ hours; from Weston-super-Mare entirely for 24½ hours; from Taunton for 28½ hours; from Exeter for 27 hours; from Sharpness for 26 hours. There was only one wire instead of two to Gloucester
for 26¼ hours, to London for 6 hours, and to Newport for 20¾ hours.
The trunk telephone lines were more or less interrupted for a week, caused by the working parties engaged on repairs.
The telegraph wires for the counties of Gloucester, Somerset, Monmouth, Warwick, Shropshire, Worcester, Wilts, Devon, Cornwall and Lancashire were those chiefly deranged.
It is believed that there is only one telegraph cable in the Bristol district, and that cable does not belong to the Postmaster-General. It crosses the river Avon at a point adjacent to Pill and Shirehampton, and was used by the Commercial Rooms in connection with reports of the arrival of vessels. Up to the time of its introduction, as already stated, "warners" were employed. The last of the old running "warners" were Gerrish and Case. These men lived at Pill, and on hearing news from pilots-men of the arrival of a ship in the Bristol Channel they started off on foot to Bristol and warned the merchants and wives of sailors of the vessel's arrival in the Channel, getting, of course, fees for their trouble,—a guinea from the merchants, and so on,
down to the shillings of the sailors' wives,—and fifty years ago these fees were willingly paid, and the heavy postages too. The runners were men of some little mark.
The Post Office at Avonmouth, a Bristol sub-office, is much used for telegraph purposes by persons on board vessels passing up and down the Kingroad in the Bristol Channel. The Bristol Corporation placed outside the port a large white notice board with "TELEGRAPH OFFICE" painted upon it in black letters, to attract the attention of mariners. The messages are chiefly received from vessels with cargoes consigned to Sharpness, which in neap tides have often to lie in the roads for days.
Telegrams for vessels lying in Kingroad are often taken out by boat at midnight or in the early hours of the morning. This is often in consequence of the tide not serving, or being too strong for the boatman to go out at seasonable hours.
Lundy Island, in the Bristol Channel, is connected with the mainland by a submarine cable, which is considered to be one of the most perfect of its kind. Letters for Lundy, from Bristol and elsewhere, are carried across by boat from Instow once a week. The