The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-10-30 00:00:00

A LENGTHY ACT OF PARLIAMENT.

One of the longest Acts of Parliament passed in the
recent session was one relating to the manufacture
and sale of spirits, extendinv to sixteen sections
besides schedules. The Act, which will come into
force on the ISt of January, is divided into three
parts. Among the penalties it is enacted that if any
person hawks, sells, or exposes for sale any spirits,
otherwise than on premises for which he is licensed to
sell spirits, he is liable to a fine of £lOO, and the for
of the spirits.. A distiller is bound to provide
" spirit store," and to have it properly secured.
The tern.' "spirits "means spirits of any description,
and includes all liquors mixed with spirits, and all
mixtures„ compounds, or preparations made with
.'spirits.

BY JOB TROTTER'S BROTHER. —When is it possible
to mistake a horse for a hypocrite? When you take
him for a canter.—Punch.

TEN YEARS' TELEGRAPHY.

Under the above heading, The Vinci of Ttiesday pub-
lishes an interesting letter from a Correspondent, from
which we make the following extracts :

It is beginning to be apparent that Mr. Scudamore
did not, after all, make so very bad a bargain for the
country when he purchased the business of the old
telegraph companies. Though the measure authoriz-
ing the purchase was condemned as reckless and
extravagant, the event has proved that the telegraph
companies had really something valuable to sell
—something which contained within itself a great
capacity for develoement ; and although it may be
doubted whether the railway companies, or some of
them, have not been overpaid, it should be bbrne in
mind that the conciliation of a great and powerful
opposition was worth something at the time when the
negotiations were in progress. It is tolerably certain
that, had the negotiations failed, a fusion of telegraph
interests, leading to a powerful monopoly, would have
taken place, and thus an important social and com,.
rnercial reform might have been. postponed in-
definitely.
One has only to read carefully the last report of the
Postmaster-General to see how vast and far-reaching
have been the results of this reform. Wiltn the tele-
graph companies disappeared from the scene there
was something fewer than 2,500 telegraph offices, of
which nearly 500 were at railway stations, in the
United Kingdom. At the close of the year ended the
31st of March last there were close upon 4,000 post-
offices and more than 1,400 railway stations open
for telegraph business, making the total number of
telegraph offices within the United Kingdom .5,331.
Large as has been the increase in the number of
offices during the ten years since the Post Office ac-
quired the control of the system, it would seem that a
very large proportion of this increase must have
occurred during the earlier years of State manage-
ment. Attention has but recently been directed to
the fact that whereas in those earlier years England
stood foremost among the European countries in this
respect, she is now gradually dropping behind, and is,
in fact, becoming so far stationary that only some 70
additional offices were opened for the transaction of
telegraph business during the year ended ia March
last. How far Mr. Scudamore's original intention to
make every money-order office a telegraph office would
have been in advance of public wants we do not
know; but at leastoit would have helped to sooner
abolish the odious " guarantee " system of the old
companies.
On taking over the telegraphs, the Post Office
inherited some 5,600 "miles of telegraphic line, repre-
senting something like 49,000 miles of wire; and we
now learn that these figures have increased to up-
wards of 23,000 miles of line, embracing more than
100,000 miles of wire. There remain to be added to
this mileage of "land line "upwards of 700 miles of
submarine cables, which compare with less than 140
miles ten years ago. "Justice to Ireland" has no
doubt, had something to do with this very consider-
able increase of submarine cables, although the Post
Office has contributed a good deal towards perfecting
communication with the Channel Islands and Scilly,
as well as with Orkney and Shetland.
The number of instruments in use by the telegraph
companies was 2,200, exclusive of those worked on pri-
vate wires. This number has increased to 8,150 in use
by the Post Office, and of these upwards of 170 are on
the Wheatstone automatic principle, as compared with
only four of a similar improved description worked by
the old companies
The total number of telegraphists employed by the
companies was somethino. over 2,500, of whom less
than 500 were women; and to this number fall to be
added nearly 1,500 messenger boys, making a total
of just under 4,000 'Arsons. The Post Office, it
appears, employs uwvards of 5,600 telegraphists, of
whom more than 1,500 are women, while the number
of mes.senger boys exceeds 4,600. In all, considerably
more than 10,000 persons are employed in the tele-
graph work of the United Kingdom, not reckoning
the large number of " uncovenanted " persons of the
telegraphist and messenger class employed at the
smaller post-offices throughout the country.
A valuable adjunct to the telegraph is to be found
in the pneumatic tube, which has been largely extended
in recent years. It might have been inferred, from a
discussion which took place in Parliament towards
the close of the Session, that this method of communi-
cation was comparatively new and but little under-
stood in this country, and required study at a great
distance from home in order to make its advantages
understood and appreciated. But the Postmaster-Ge-
neral has reassured us on this point, for it appears that
whereas in 1870 the telegraph companies onlyused the
system in Manchester and Birmingham, besides in Lon-
don, and only possessed altogether some 4,800 yards of
tube, the Post Office has'extended it to four other prin-
cipal towns, and has a length of tub& at its command
exactly ten times greater than that existing ten years
age. London alone has upwards of 37,000 yards' or
more than 21 miles, of leaden pipes buried beneath its
streets, through which open telegrams are being blown
or sucked at all hours of the day; the system should
be extended so as to include the transmission of closed
communications. What is wanted in London is what
they already enjoy in Paris and Berlin—a. pneumatic
post, or, as they call it in Germany, a "blow-post,"
which would carry express letters from one end of the
metropolis to the other, and deliver them, say, within
half an hour, for a charge of sixpence now and less
by-and-by
Having thus reviewed the means of telegraphic com-
munication provided by the Post Office, as compared
with that bequeathed to it by the telegraph companies,
let us look for a moment at the results achieved.
Between them, the telegraph and railway companies
forwa, ded some six-and-a-half millions of messages
annually ten years ago. Last year the Post Office
forwarded more than twenty-six millions and a half,
so that the business has increased four-fold. The total
number of provincial telegrams originating in England
and Wales was something under twelve and a
half millions, while the total number originating
in London alone approached ten millions. Scot-
land originated rather more than 2,700,000 messages,
and Ireland something less than 1,600,000, these
figures comparing with 1,080,189 and 606,285 respec-
tively ten years ago. The total general increase in
the year 1879-80 over that of 1878-79 was upwards of
two millions of messages' notwithstanding that there
was a decrease of nearly 700,000 in the months of June
and July, 1879, and March, 1880. In November,
1879, there were nearly 400,000, and in February,
1880, nearly 430,000 more messages sent than in the
corresponding months of the previous year; and alto-
gether there would seem to be a corresponding ac-
tivity in this branch of the national business to that
existing in the Post Office proper.

It is not so easy to compare the financial results of
the ten years working under the Post Office with
those achieved by the companies, because there are no
exact data as to what the telegraph revenue was prior
to 1870. But it seems probable that the combined
receipts of the companies did not greatly exceed, if
they at all exceeded, half a million sterling, and we
find that in the first complete year of the postal ad-
ministration of the system the total revenue was a
trifle under £700,000. Last year it was £1,452,489, or
more than double, and of this £1,111,547 went in
working expenses, leaving a net revenue of £340,942,
or an increase of £83,442 on the net revenue of the
preceding year, not reckoning more £15,000-worth of
work performed for other Government departments
without payment.
It has been estimated that the profit of the tele-
graphic service for the current year will be £450-,000,
-whicali will yield something like 4i per cent, on the
entire capital expended in the service. If it be borne
in mind how long the Post-office revenue was in re-
covering itself after the introduction of the penny
post, notwithstanding that Sir Rowland Hill had no
capital account" to contend with, this result of
shilling telegraphy, brought about in the brief space
of ten years, must be admitted to be satisfactory
in the extreme, and such as even the sanguine
spirit who conceived the enterprise could hardly
have hoped for. The public now ask for a cheaper
service, and in so doing they but point the way to
increased prosperity. Mr. Fawcett has been placed
at the head of the Post Office at a time when one
branch of the service at least requires " moving
on." He has already practically intimated his con-
currence in the reasonableness of the demand for
telegraphic reform, and only the problematical result
of a decreased revenue has hitherto deterred him from
taking a hold step in this direction.