The population of Europe being nearly ten times greater than that of the United States, as is also its accumulations of years of civilization, while, according to Mr. Washburne, its telegraph facilities vastly outstrip ours, it should, of course, possess far more than ten times the number of telegraph offices.

But, in truth, there is not even an approximation to this provision of telegraphic convenience based on population; for while the United States alone possess 4,126 telegraph offices, all Europe contains but 6,450, of which 2,151, or more than one third of the whole number, belong to Great Britain, where the telegraph has heretofore been free from government control.

It is significant of American enterprise that continental Europe, with a population of 260,000,000, possesses but one hundred and seventy-three more telegraph offices than the United States, with her 31,000,000 of widely scattered people. While in the United States there is a telegraph office to every 7,549 of its inhabitants, in continental Europe there is only one to every 60,249!

The following table will serve to show the proportion of telegraph offices to population in the principal countries of Europe and of the United States, the number of miles of line, and amount of telegraph business of each.

TABLE A.
Statistics of the Telegraph in Europe and America for the year 1866, from official reports.
Countries.Number of Stations.Miles of Line.Miles of Wire.Total Number of Messages Transmitted.Population.[[1]]Proportion of Offices to Population.
Austria85624,61873,8542,507,47239,411,3091 to 46,311
Belgium3562,1876,1461,128,0054,530,2281 to 12,416
Bavaria 2,1154,945
Denmark89 2,515308,1501,684,0041 to 18,921
France1,20920,62868,6872,842,55438,302,6251 to 31,681
Great Britain and Ireland2,15116,58880,4665,781,18929,591,0091 to 13,750
Italy5298,20020,1201,760,88924,550,8451 to 49,000
Norway73 269,3751,433,4881 to 19,773
Prussia53818,38655,1491,964,00317,739,9131 to 32,955
Russia30812,01322,214838,65368,224,8321 to 221,508
Switzerland2521,8583,715668,9162,534,2401 to 10,000
Spain1428,87117,743533,37616,302,6251 to 100,000
United States4,12662,782125,56412,904,77031,148,0471 to 7,549
Dominion of Canada3826,7478,935573,2193,976,2241 to 10,400

[1]. From the Annual Cyclopædia. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1868.

In large sections of the United States the proportion is much greater. Thus, the Pacific States embrace an area of 600,000 square miles; Belgium, 11,000. The former provide an office to every 2,500 of their population; the latter, one to every 12,416. Thus, the Pacific States sustain five times as many offices in proportion to population as Belgium, to say nothing of the great disparity in the condition of service by the vast range of wild territory occupied by the one, and the fine roads and cultivated area of the other.

In view of the facts shown in the preceding table, how can it be said that in America the telegraph is less practically provided to the people than in any other civilized country on the globe?

THE COMPLAINT OF INDIFFERENCE TO PUBLIC CONVENIENCE WITHOUT FOUNDATION.

“Instead of an auxiliary to the postal system, controlled, like it, by the state, sought, like it, to be made useful to the great masses of the people without regard to the pecuniary profit to be secured, as in nearly every civilized country in the world, we see the system in this country in the hands of rival companies, anxious only for profit, extending their lines only to prominent places where such profits are to be secured, and too indifferent to the public convenience. In short, the popular verdict of the people of this country, if it could be heard, would be that the telegraphic system, in view of what it is in other countries and might become in this, is practically a failure.”