The Express.
London, England, 1866-08-24 00:00:00

AMERICA.

(Er avuoreso TTL 1101•11.)
NEW YORK, Amon' 20, EVENING.
Gold, 148{. Exchange on London, 1584. Five-Twenty
United States Bonds, 110}. Middling upland, 344 c.

The message was moreover put into code and read
off without a moment's delay or a single error ;
and the general reader will understand the enor-
mous saving implied when he learns that " ele-
ments" in the Morse alphabet are the "dots" and
" dashes " which go to form the letters, so that 60
of theserepresent a considerably less number of cha-
racters. Nor is there any difficulty in mastering
this startling system of abbreviation, or
imparting its mysteries to telegraphic ope-
rators. Since Columbus bruised the egg,
there has been nothing simpler or more
effective than Captain Bolton's mode of ren-
dering whole sentences by a few symbols, and
long words in a couple of characters. Another
curious thing is, that any language under the sun,
provided it is expressed by the English alphabet,
can be transmitted by this code. Neither the ope-
rator who transmits the message, nor the clerk who
transfers it to paper, need comprehend a syllable
of the tongue they are conversing m ; mere nonsense
words can be expressed with a like facility ; and the
whole charm can be learnt in a few minutes. In-

deed this experiment might be easily tried. If a
few gentlemen were, we will say, given facilities
for inquiring into the working of the code—none
of whom had seen or investigated it before—and
were asked what languages they wore acquainted
with, selections might be made and messages
written out and distributed in such a way that
each man should hold a sentence he could
not read. Five minutes' explanation of
the system, and the means of working it,
would enable every one present to express the sen-
tence he was unable to comprehend in the symbols
of the code. These symbols can always be read off
with ease by those acquainted with the method,
and thus the absurd and annoying telegraphic dia.
culties respecting foreign words and places seem to
be at an end.
An order for a banquet to the celebrated Fran-
catelli, sent the other day by the ordinary tele-
graphic method, came out thus :
Frank Atelli,

and, it is unnecessary to add, was seriously
delayed in consequence. The paragraph re-
cently quoted by a contemporary shows the havoc
made by the Indian telegraph of native names,
and few of us at home use the wires frequently
without learning how easily a simple English mes-
sage may be transposed and its meaning lost. By
the code under consideration these mistakes are
impossible. At present it is necessary to use the
English alphabet—s stipulation leaving an enor-
mous margin ; but the system could be employed
to any extent and in any character or cypher. On
the 26th of last June the following message was
sent through 2,374 miles of Atlantic cable by re-
versals in this code, and transposed into Hin-
dustani without a single slip or repeat :—"Aj
k-yalt calm hi hanko maioum nay room guddah pur-
sand lii."

But the vast practical value of the invention is
the greater speed and cheapness which can be
secured for ordinary messages. Not one of the
morsels of news published in the newspapers per
Atlantic wire but might be sent at a saving
which is incalculable. The President's and the
Queen's oongratulatioos we have seen coded, and
they would have been worked across at a redact.
tion of nearly a hundred per cent in the number
of words used. The commercial items supplied by
Mr. Renter might, as we have shown above, be