The Sun.
London, England, 1869-11-20 00:00:00

THE TELEGRAPHS.

At the present time, the eve of the Government
taking over the telegraphs, it is worthwhile, in the
interests of all concerned, to consider a method of
telegraphic communication, the adoption of which
the Postmaster-General has lately sanctioned. To
the casual sender and receiver of telegrams the
system now in vogue for theirtransmission is all very
well. Not so, however, is it with the merthant, banker,
&c., who send and receive on an average some
ten or a dozen messages a day, as out of that num-
ber at least a few arrive unreliable or useless.
There is one grievance in connection with the tele-
graphs which the public has borne in silence for
years, namely, the publicity of telegraphic matter.
During the evidence taken before the Committee
on Telegraphic Communication, Mr. Green said—
"On the 20th of June we telegraphed
them Buy linseed for 565. ; rapeseed and
poppy-seed 535., saltpetre declining.' They tele-
graphed Buy linseed 535.,' leaving out rapeseed
and poppy-seed altogether, and put in Saltpetre

Our attention has been forcibly brought to bear
upon those matters by a pamphlet now before us
describing Major Bolton's telegraph code. In
this we find almost everything that can pos-
sibly be invented by human mind to
meet the requirements of a secret telegraph
service. Ills system, although simple, is at the
same time ingenious, and with a little application
can be understood by any ordinary person. It
consists in giving a number of words, and the
most frequent occurring sentences in a language
or individual number. The code embraces the
whole English language, that is to say, every con-
ceivable sentence and phrase it contains. These
stand in alphabetical order, numericallly arranged
under the head of a certain page. Now, if we re-
quire to scud this message, " Cotton is falling, and
I should not advise you to buy," we look under the
letter C for cotton, and this is found at page 030,
and the exact sentence we wish for is numbered 7,
so we write 0307, and in this form the message is
signalled, and reaches its destination, where it is
" keyed," and the purport arrives beyond the chance
of being tampered with. This is the boon to the public
Let us see how the Post-office gains or loses by the
use of this code. It would appear at first sight
that they are to be losers on all that business which
is known as " excessed," or, in other words, on

those telegrams containing more than twenty, or
the prescribed number of words allowed by the dif-
ferent telegraphic companies for certain priced
messages. Granting this—that the Post-office
would be losers on such traffic being trans-
acted by the code system, let us inquire how
much will be the gain on ordinary messages
that are and must always be under twenty
words. 'The gain is simply thin, that a message
of twenty words can be transmitted by the code in
a. group, or at the most two groups of figures,
containing ev,u more than five each, or, in plain
English, twenty ,t‘ords are signalled by means of
ten figures. Now it is a well-known fact that the
latter travels with thrice the rapidity and safety
that words can be transmitted over telegraph
wires ; and the fact is patent to every one that since
five letters are the mean of words in the English
language, a group of five figures should b.: accepted
and charged for as a word; not only for this very
important reason, but on account of immense sav-
ings these groups effect for the Post-office in time
and labour for working their telegraphs.

But the Postmaster-General's sanction is some-
what marred by the demand that figures must be
exprtssel in voids, and so paid fur. Can there be
anything wore extraordinary than this request, as,
supposing a Continental figure message left Lon-
fur it over English
tap
over and St. ldon ne
s,
Peters-
burg it would be accepted and charged for as five
wasewshoordulsd, while
hr
lt e hbaevt ew
eoeup
figures to the word? This decision is likely to be
remedied, however, and the public are to have the
advantage of the Bolton code system, as no doubt
the Post-office authorities, in commencing work,
will assimilate the charges for figures with those
regulating the telegraphs between England, the
Continent, and other countries.
Major Bolton's code has been some time em-
ployed in the naval and military branches of the
state, and has been found to answer remarkably
well. We have to congratulate bim on his gaining
the sanction of Lord Harlington for the public
use of his code, and therefore his victory over those
gentlemen, the managers of the present telegraph
companies, who have so long refused its adoption
to the telegraphing public.

LIFEBOAT SERVICE.

BARMOUTH, NORTH WALES, Nov. 19.

A large vessel was observed this morning on the
outer end of St. Patrick's Causeway, about twelve
miles from the shore (says Mr. John Jenkins, of
her Majesty's Customs), and two boats from her
were seen to be making for the land. It was
blowing fresh from the north-west at the time.
The Barmouth lifeboat Ellen, of the National
Lireboat Institution, was promptly taken out
to meet the boats, and fortunately succeeded
in getting outside the broken water before
they had arrived at the Bar on which a heavy sea
was breaking, which they could hardly have passed
through in, safety. Some of the 17 mea in the two
boats were then taken into the lifeboat, part of
whose crew went into the boats and isteered them
ashore, all landing in safety. The vessel was the
barque Medoc, of Bordeaux, 604 tons; Roux mas-
ter, bound from Havannah to Liverpool, with a
cargo of sugar. She had gone on the Causeway at
two o'clock in the morning. The vessel has got off
afloat again and
is drifting to the southward, and
at the request of the master the lifeboat has taken
him and a portion of his crew off to his ship, it not
being safe for any other boat to venture out.