But to whatever amount the electric telegraph, used in the manner we have described, may facilitate the commerce and strengthen the defences of the empire, there remains to be delineated an application of the discovery which, there can be no doubt, forms the most extraordinary feat which the ingenuity of man has hitherto performed.
In a corner of one of the attics in which the eight electric instruments are placed there stands a small very ordinary-looking piece of cheap machinery composed of a few wheels, giving revolution to a small cylinder, upon which there has been wound a strip of bluish paper half an inch wide and about 60 yards in length.
As this insignificant thread of paper slowly unrolls itself, the stranger observes, with feelings of curiosity rather than of surprise, that as it passes along a small flat surface it receives from a little piece of steel wire about a quarter of an inch long, and about the size of a large needle, a series of minute black marks, composed of “dot and go one,”—two dots,—two dots and a line,—two lines and a dot,—three little lines and a dot,—and so on.
Now many of our readers will, no doubt, gravely exclaim, But who makes these dots?
The answer in a few words explains the greatest mechanical wonder upon earth. The little dots and lines marked upon the narrow roll of paper revolving in a garret of the London Central Telegraph Station, are made by a man sitting in Manchester, who, by galvanic electricity, and by the movement of a little brass finger-pedal, is not only communicating to, but is HIMSELF actually printing in London information which requires nothing but a knowledge of the dotted alphabet he uses to be read by any one to whom it may either publicly or confidentially be addressed!!
Upon this fact comment is unnecessary. It humbles rather than exalts the mind. Of such an invention it can only be said
“Non nobis, Domine, sed nomini tuo da gloriam.”
To supply this instrument with paper there has been invented one of the most beautiful little toys we ever beheld, consisting of two iron fluted rollers four feet long, which, by revolving against each other, draw between them on one side, and emit from the other in a shower of fantastic writhing shreds, a hundred strips of paper half an inch broad at a time.
Before leaving the attics in which the electric printing as well the eight telegraphic instruments are stationed, we may observe that the boys who work the latter form that amount of acquaintance with the workers of the distant instruments with which they have been in the habit of communicating, that, if from any reason their usual correspondents are removed, they instantly discover by the movement of the needles that they have to form an acquaintance with a new comrade, from whom, in leisure moments, they probably soon ascertain the fate of the old one; indeed, so completely is this description of acquaintance established, that it is not uncommon to hear a telegraph boy in the London attic suddenly exclaim, as he looks with joy at the quivering vibrations of his needles, which are working say from Manchester, “Oh! here is Bill * * * come back!” There are, of course, however, exceptions to these kindly feelings, and accordingly two clerks who had been employed at remote stations on the * * * line were lately separated because they were constantly electrically quarrelling and abusing each other by telegraph.
The working of these instruments requires, as may be supposed, undivided attention, and accordingly there is very properly affixed to the wall of the chamber in which they stand the following notice, which we implicitly obeyed:—