A £2 PER WORD CABLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 21, 25 January 1934, Page 20

A £2 PER WORD CABLE.

"When the Atlantic cable was first available for the conveyance of messages many people on each side of the ocean would not believe in the apparent miracle which had been accomplished. The first cable, which was completed in 1858, broke down, as everyone knows, after it had been in existence for only a 'day or two. It is to the second cable, which was not finished until August 3, 1806, that the following story refers. The news of the successful laying spread rapidly all over the United States, but was not entirely credited, save, perhaps, in New York. On the next day Governor John Gilpin, of Colorado Territory, chanced to enter the telegraph office at Denver, where he was told that he could, if he pleased, cable to Europe. He laughed at the assertion, but when it was repeated he negligently scrawled a message on a scrap of paper, and said: "There! I guess you may send that." They sent it. The dispatch had. in those times, to be wired-to New York and forwarded from there by steamer to Newfoundland, whence it was cabled. It read:— Denver, Col., August 4.-186(5. To Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. Emperor, Tuileries, Paris, France. Please leave Bohemia alone. No interference will be tolerated by this Territory. John Gilpin, Governor. Of course, if the incredulous Westerner had believed in the completion of the cable he would not have indulged in the piece of impertinence. But he did not believe until the bill for the conveyance of the message was presented to him. Then he opened his eyes upon seeing a demand for £58, the original tariff being ten dollars (or about £2) a word.