TABLE L.

Statement showing the Progress of Telegraphy in Prussia.
Date.Number of Messages.Gross Receipts in Thalers.Average Cost per Message in Thalers.
185248,751114,5392.350
185385,161209,9442.460
1854116,313328,5062.820
1855152,820434,1222.840
1856221,411591,0382.670
1857241,545726,5173.010
1858247,202730,5842.950
1859349,997808,5212.310
1860384,335791,1012.060
1861459,002875,7831.988
1862660,501954,5501.450
1863877,5831,039,9611.180
18641,259,5901,150,0080.913
18651,527,4551,242,4890.812
18661,964,0301,275,7850.656

It will be observed that the number of messages transmitted in 1852 was 48,751, and in 1860, 384,335, being an increase in nine years of nearly 800 per cent, although there was no reduction in the average tariff during this period. From 1860 to 1866 there was an increase of only 500 per cent, notwithstanding a reduction in the rates from 2.06 to 0.656 thalers per message.

Prussia was among the earliest of Continental countries to adopt the electric telegraph, and it is still far in advance of most of its neighbors in the practical development of the enterprise; and yet, with a population more than half as great as the United States, she only transmits one sixth as many messages per annum. Were the system left to private enterprise, as in this country, there can be no doubt that this enlightened and thrifty people would greatly extend the system, and in place of the meagre supply of 538 offices she would have upwards of 2,000, and in place of 1,964,030 messages per annum would transmit seven or eight millions.

RUSSIA.

European Russia, with a population considerably more than twice as great as the United States, contains but 308 offices, or one to 230,000 of people; and sends annually but 838,653 messages, or one to each 80,723 of her population.

Any person examining the telegraphic map of Russia will be satisfied that the rose-colored descriptions of government telegraphs as illustrated in Russia are overdrawn. The lines radiating from St. Petersburg, and extending to Warsaw, Moscow, Odessa, Sebastopol, Nichni-Novgorod, to the Persian frontier, and to Kiakhta in Siberia,—all important military points,—and with scarcely any connecting interior lines, suggest anything but a desire to afford ample telegraphic facilities to the people.

SWITZERLAND.

The situation of Switzerland, in the centre of Europe, and forming the pathway between nations, places her in a peculiar position with reference to the transmission of messages from one country to another. Just as Belgium is situated in relation to intercourse between France and Germany, so Switzerland is placed in regard to telegraphic communication between France and Italy, and Italy and Germany. Switzerland, from many circumstances, is a country in which telegraphic communication is eminently useful. In the first place it is a mountainous country, over which postal communication is necessarily slow, and conducted at all seasons under disadvantages. Besides all this, Switzerland, at certain seasons of the year, is a country full of travellers and tourists from all parts of the world, who find great advantage and convenience in being able to transmit short messages from one place to another, respecting hotel accommodations, baggage arrangements, lost packages, horses, places in the diligence, and general matters relating to their route, as well as business and social messages to their relatives, friends, and agents at home.

Switzerland is in the same position with Belgium in respect to the means of cheap telegraphic communication. The railways of the country all belong to the state; so that every railway is available, without charge, for the passage of wires along the line, and every railway official may be employed for telegraphic service, at the pleasure of the government, for nothing. It is scarcely necessary to point out how different must be the working of such a system from that of the United States, where the railways are in the hands of private companies, and with whom terms have to be made for the right of way.