SPEED OF CABLE MESSAGES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 4258, 17 July 1895, Page 5

SPEED OF CABLE MESSAGES.

The special cable message to the 'Age' announcing the result of the English Derby came through with unusual rapidity. This message was lodged in the London office at 3.45 p.m., which was 1.45 a.m. Melbourne time. It reached Adelaide at 2.47 Melbourne time, and was received in the Melbourne Telegraph Office and thence telephoned to the ' Age' office at 2.51 a.m. The time occupied in transmission from London to the * Age ' office was thus one hour six minutes. There is no information to hand as to the interval between the running of the race at the course and the arrival of the news at the London office, but this would not be more than a few minutes. The transmission of the message in one hour six minutes was unusually fast, especially as no special preparations were made to clear the lines, as in the case of test messages, like that from the Prince of Wales to the Earl of Hopetoun, mentioned recently. Mr W. Croft, the Melbourne telegraph manager, has taken out the records of twelve ordinary messages from London to Melbourne, selected at random. These show that the average time occupied in transmission is from three hours to three and a-half hours. The fastest time noted in the twelve messages is one hour thirty -four minutes, so that the Derby message record was remarkably good. So far as the Australian lines are concerned, the Adelaide telegraph manager reports, in answer to inquiry, that the message took less than two minutes in passing from Port Darwin to Melbourne. Hitherto considerable time has been occupied in the repetition of messages at certain points ; but automatic repeaters now being fixed will, it is expected, reduce the time of transmission to forty or sixty minutes. A number of these repeaters have already been placed in position, and possibly the 1 Age ' message had the benefit of their use. It will be a great stride in the progress of modern civilisation to bring London and Melbourne within an hour's time of each other, as a matter of ordinary business, and this will probably be attained at an early date.