Money orders to the amount of 50 rix-dollars can be paid at all post-offices by means of the telegraph. The sum being deposited at the original office, an official telegram is sent to the place designated, ordering payment.
For this service the sender has only to pay the tariff on the official telegram. Messages can be sent from points where there are no telegraphic stations, by sending them by post or by any other mode of transportation to the nearest telegraph station. These telegrams can be paid by a postage-stamp affixed to a designated part of the form. These forms are the same as the printed envelopes, and can be procured at all post and telegraph offices. At the top of these forms is printed an extract from the rules for the transmission of despatches. The stamps are detached from the forms and sent to the Department of Finances at the same time that the other reports are forwarded. It is proposed to extend these privileges to the private and railroad telegraph stations.
From 1863 to 1867 the telegraphic intercourse between the Scandinavian countries has increased each year twenty-five per cent.
ENGLAND.
England was among the first countries in Europe to adopt the electric telegraph; and, next to the United States, is the foremost nation in the world in the extent of her lines, the number of her offices, the cheapness of her rates, and the number of messages annually transmitted. With a population about three quarters as large as that of France, she possesses nearly twice as many telegraph stations, and annually transmits more than twice as many messages.
There are in operation in Europe fifty-five submarine cables, varying in length from three to 1,500 miles, and containing a total length of over 11,000 miles of insulated wire, nearly all of which were laid and are owned by English capitalists. The success of the Atlantic cables, also laid by English companies, is another illustration of what can be accomplished by private enterprise untrammelled by governmental interference; and affords a striking contrast to the fate of the Red Sea cable laid by the British government, and which has proved one of the greatest failures recorded in the annals of submarine telegraphy. This cable, which was to connect Suez and Kurrachee, 3,500 miles in length, was laid in five sections, but never worked a day through its entire length.
For some unexplained reason the British post-office department has been determined to absorb the telegraph system of the United Kingdom, and through the indefatigable efforts of Mr. Scudamore, one of the secretaries of the department, the British government was finally induced to purchase the property of all the telegraph companies in the kingdom, and thus monopolize the business. The price to be paid for the lines is twenty times the net earnings of the companies for the past year.
That the English government has made a serious mistake in assuming the control of the telegraph we have no question; but its operation will be better in its hands than it would be in that of our government, for the reason that its employees are not removed with every change of administration, as government officials are in the United States.
| Statement showing the Progress of Telegraphy in Great Britain and Ireland. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year. | No. of Offices. | No. of Miles of Line. | No. of Miles of Wire. | No. of Messages. |
| 1860 | 1,032 | 10,854 | 51,556 | 1,863,839 |
| 1861 | 1,391 | 11,538 | 55,004 | 2,123,589 |
| 1862 | 1,616 | 12,711 | 57,879 | 2,676,352 |
| 1863 | 1,755 | 13,944 | 65,726 | 3,186,724 |
| 1864 | 1,831 | 14,981 | 72,374 | 3,924,855 |
| 1865 | 2,040 | 16,066 | 77,440 | 4,662,687 |
| 1866 | 2,151 | 16,588 | 80,466 | 5,781,189 |