TELEGRAPH LINKS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 230, 28 September 1935, Page 12 (Supplement)

TELEGRAPH LINKS.

THE INITIAL WONDERS. NO FANFARE OF TRUMPETS. FIRST • CHANNEL AND ATLANTIC CABLES. Each one of the following messages marked the beginning of a new telegraph era. The first was in 1837, when Charles Wheatstone and William Cooke patented their needle and disc telegraph, and established communication between Euston and Camden Town Railway Stations in London. The second was in 1850, when the first cross-Channel electric telegraph cable was laid between"Dover and' Calais*. Tlio third was in 1858, when tho Agamemnon arrived in Valentia Harbour with the European end of the frst Atlantic cable, and the Niagara carried the American end to the shores of Newfoundland. Wheatstone and L'or>l:o were too busy— or too lacking in publicity sense—to concoct memorable first messages in 1837, Their communications between Euston and Camden Town were experimentally businesslike. Nor is there any record of a roy.al opening for the next inland development—the telegraph between Paddington and West Drayton, augurated ill 1838. The first important publicity for the now telegraph was in 1844; when the Paddington-West Drayton lino, extended to Slough, made itself useful and popularly known by detecting a murderer. Mishap to Channel Cable. In 1850 the laying of the Channel cable inflamed imagination. A contemporary record speaks of "the importance

with which, in international respects, the great experiment is viewed, not only in London, but in all the European capitals, since, if successful it will have the almost necromantic cfTect of placing their cabinets and commerce in almost instant communication with one another." The experiment was not immediately successful, for, after the little paddle-steamer Goliath'had unrolled her 30 miles of cable between Shakespeare's cliff and Cape Grisnez in 'one day, the cable snapped, and had' to be laid again in 1851. Before the cable snapped, however, the first message passed between England and France on the evening of August 28, 1850. "Capo Grisnez, coast of France, halfpast eight p.m.,", it ran. "The Goliath lias just arrived in safety, and the complete connection of the under-water wire with that left at Dover,this morning is being run up the face of the cliff. Com-, plimentary interchanges arc passing between France and England under the straits and through it for the first time." "By" 1858, when telegraphic communication was first established between Europe and America, royalty was ready to lend it full first-message dignity. Actually however, the first use of the cublir was sternly practical. It was a message from America on the afternoon of August 20, announcing the collision of two steamships, Europa and the Arabia, At 5 p.m. London asked for "further particulars." "The message," so the record runs, "sped with more than the speed of thought beneath the ocean, and at 7.30 p.m., two hours and a half, the answer was received." Exchange of Messages. Then followed an intercliagc of compliments between Queen Victoria and President Buchanan, of the United States. The Queen's message read: — "The Queen desires to congratulate the President on tlic successful completion of this great international work, in which the Queen has taken tho greatest interest. The Queen is convinced that

the President will join with her in fervently hoping that the electric cable which now already connects Great Britain and the United States will prove an additional link between the two nations, whoso friendship is founded upon their common interest and reciprocal esteem. The Queen has _ much pleasure is thus directly communicating with the President, and in renewing to him her best wishes for the prosperity of the United States." President Buchanan's response was even more elaborate. After "cordially reciprocating" and calling , the Atlantic cable "a triumph more glorious, because more useful to mankind, than was ever won by a conqueror on the field. of battle," he added: "May the Atlantic telegraph, under the blessing of heaven, prove to bo a bond of perpetual pcace and friendship between the kindred nations, and an instrument destined by Divine Providence to diffuse religion civilisation, liberty, and law throughout tlio world." He ended with an equally verbose plea for telegraphic neutrality: — "In this view will not all the nations of Christendom spontaneously unite in the declaration that it shall be for ever neutral, and that its communications shall be held sacred in passing to the place of their destination even in the midst of hostilities?"