Although the ordinary rate at which electric communication is now effected has above been easily expressed by a few figures, it is evident that it is a velocity which the human mind has not power to comprehend.
When Shakspeare, in the exercise of his unbounded imagination, made Puck, in obedience to Oberon’s order to him—
“be here again
Ere the leviathan can swim a league,”
reply—
“I’ll put a girdle round the earth
In forty minutes”—
how little did our immortal bard think that this light, fanciful offer of “a fairy” to “the king of the fairies,” would, in the 19th century, not only be substantially realised, but surpassed as follows.
The electric telegraph would convey intelligence more than twenty-eight thousand times round the earth while Puck, at his vaunted speed, was crawling round it only once!
On every instrument there is a dial, on which is inscribed the names of the six or eight stations with which it usually communicates. When much business is to be transacted, a boy is necessary for each of these instruments; generally, however, one lad can without practical difficulty manage about three; but as the whole of them are ready for work by night as well as by day, they are incessantly attended in watches of eight hours each by these satellite boys by day, and by men at night.