The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-02-13 00:00:00

TELEGRAPHING THE ROYAL SPEECH.

(From The Times.)

In the days of telegraphy the transmission of the
Queen's Speech was regarded as the telegraphic feat
of the year. Later, the Budget and Mr. Bright's
annual speeches at 'Birmingham were added to the
list of special achievements; but the Royal Speech
always carried the palm for interest and importance in
the telegraphic mind. In those early days there was a
reason for this specialty which can hardly be said to
exist now. The means of communication were
limited; the method of signalling was comparatively
slow, and there was always a doubt whether certain
distant places could be supplied without re-trans-
mission at one or more intermediate points. For
instance, Edinburgh could never be quite certain
whether it would receive the speech from London
direct, or whether it would have to fall back on York
or Newcastle for an echo of the Royal utterances.
Necessarily, under such conditions, the speech was
only transmitted to a few of the most important towns
throughout the kingdom. The speech of Friday last
was transmitted to no fewer than 183 towns, of which
Oban, Campbeltown, Peterhead, Wick, Thurso, and
Tralee may be taken as the most remote, if not the
least important. Of these 183 towns, the speech was
signalled direct from the Central Telegraph Station
to 57, and by one or other of these it was re-trans-
mitted to the remaining 126. All was in readiness
by two o'clock, but it was not until 2.8, when the
signal was received from the House of Commons
to start, that the operation of signalling com-
menced. At that moment some dozens of nimble
fingers grasped the " keys " of their instruments, and
the Wheatstone transmitters were set in motion. But
a very short time was necessary to dispose of the speech
by the Wheatstone process. To York and Leicester,
where it was finished first, the transmission only
occupied six minutes, giving an average speed
of more than 160 words a minute. To Falmouth it
was finished within ten minutes; to Birmingham,
Manchester, and Liverpool on one wire, and Notting-
ham, Sheffield, Leeds, and Bradford on another, in 11
minutes- and the majority of the principal towns, in-
cluding Brighton and the West of England, within a
quarter of an hour; to Scotland and Ireland, including
Aberdeen, Dundee, Belfast, and Cork it was finished
within 20 minutes; and to the great majority of
places within half an hour. The quickest transmission
by hand in the "Morse "instrument was to Southamp-
ton, Reading, and Bath, where a speed of 44 words a
minute was attained. The curious in statistics
might extract some interesting facts from such an
operation as that of Friday. For inst.nce,
the speech contained 983 words; and, making an
allowance for punctuation, 4,800 letters. Taking
the telegraphic test word, "Paris," as a standard, it
would be found that in preparing the speech for trans-
mission by the Wheatstone process upward of 50,000
separate holes would have to be perforated or
"punched," as it is called, on a strip of paper, and
that nearly 14,000 separate symbols would be recorded
in ink at the distant end of the wire. In like manner.
all the operators who transmitted the speech by hand
'would have to make 14,000 depressions of the "key"
or lever in completing the operation. Perhaps, under
these circumstances, one would rather not be the clerks
who transmitted the speech to Southampton, Reading,
and Bath, in the short space of 22 minutes.