As fast as the various messages for delivery, flying one after another from the ground floor up the chimney, reach the level of the instruments, they are brought by the superintendent to the particular one by which they are to be communicated, and its boy, with the quickness characteristic of his age, then instantly sets to work.

His first process is, by means of the electric current, to sound a little bell, which simultaneously alarms all the stations on his line; and although the attention of the sentinel at each is thus attracted, yet it almost instantly evaporates from all excepting from that to the name of which he causes the index needle to point, by which signal the clerk at that station instantly knows that the forthcoming message is addressed solely to him, and accordingly by a corresponding signal he announces to the London boy that he is ready to receive it. By means of a brass handle affixed to the dial, which the boy grasps in each hand, he now begins rapidly to spell off his information by certain twists of his wrists, each of which imparts to the needles on his dials, as well as to those on the dials of his distant correspondent, a convulsive movement designating the particular letter of the telegraphic alphabet required.

By this arrangement he is enabled to transmit an ordinary sized word in three seconds, or about twenty per minute. In case of any accident to the wire of one of his needles, he can, by a different alphabet, transmit his message by a series of movements of the single needle at the reduced rate of about eight or nine words per minute.

While a boy at one instrument is thus occupied in transmitting to—say Liverpool—a message written by its London author in ink which is scarcely dry, another boy at the adjoining instrument is, by the reverse of the process, attentively reading the quivering movements of his dial, which by a sort of St. Vitus’s dance are rapidly spelling to him a message, viâ the wires of the South-Western Railway, say from Gosport, which word by word he repeats aloud to an assistant, who, seated by his side, writes it down (he receives it about as fast as his attendant can conveniently write it) on a sheet of paper, which as soon as the message is concluded descends to the “Booking Office;” where, inscribed in due form, it is without delay despatched to its destination by messenger, cab, or express, according to order. The following trifling anecdotes will not only practically exemplify the process we have just described, but will demonstrate the rapidity with which the Company are enabled to transmit messages.

Some little time ago, a gentleman, walking into the reception-hall of the London office, stated that he had important business to communicate to his friend at Edinburgh, who by appointment was, he knew, at that moment waiting there to reply to it in the Company’s Telegraphic Office. On being presented with the half-sheet of paper, headed with its printed form as described, he wrote his query, which, after passing through the glass window to “the Booking Office,” flew upwards to the Instrument department, from whence with the utmost despatch it was transmitted to Edinburgh, and, the brief reply almost instantly returning to the instrument, it was committed to writing, and then lowered down to the “gentleman in waiting,” who thus quietly walked off with his answer, which we were informed at the office he obtained within the space of five minutes, a considerable portion of which had been consumed by himself and his friend in writing the few words which had passed between them, for, during their passage and return, the electric wires had only detained them exactly the three hundred and fiftieth part of one second!

In a dull foggy day an engine on the London and North-Western Railway, tired of idly standing still with its steam up, suddenly ran away, and, without any one to guide it, proceeded at a rapid rate towards the Euston Station, where every one who witnessed its start expected it would create an amount of damage almost incalculable: but the electric telegraph, soon overtaking and passing the fugitive, conveyed intelligence to Camden Station in abundant time for full preparations to be made there for its reception, by turning the points of the rails into a sideway containing only a few ballast waggons.

In like manner a “gentleman” who had taken for himself and his family only second-class tickets, but who with them had been comfortably enjoying a first-class carriage, was greatly astonished on arriving at his destination to see standing at the window of his carriage, almost before the train had stopped, the Company’s station clerk, who very loudly said to him, in presence of his fellow-travellers, “Mr. ——, I’ll trouble you for excess of fare for yourself and party!”

Besides the transmission of private messages at charges averaging, say one-fortieth of a penny per mile per word, the Electric Telegraph Company have, in central situations in the principal towns of the kingdom, established stations, whence and where information, messages, and despatches of a public character may be forwarded and received to and from all the other stations of the Company.

In each of these stations a room for subscribers has been established, in which is posted as fast as it arrives all intelligence of commercial or public interest; such, for instance, as—