The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1868-08-21
The Talking WIRES.

have ALREADY hasn constructed L. tiso sissSo
various countries which haye adopted
steam locomotion, within the last
fifty years, and the extent OF teIe-
| graphic Communication by the cleo
trio wire is still greater. Both are
increasing at the rate of 10000 miles
each, of rail and wire, every year,
and the probability is that this pro-
portion will be doubled within the
coming decade. Half century,
therefore, will not have elapsed ere
the whole earth will be enveloped in
a network Of iron, thrilling with the
movement and the thought OF huma-
nifty. In fact, the reticulation of the
railroad tracks and the telegraphic
line, crossing, re-orossing, combin-
ing and branching off in every sense,
viii, III no slight degree, resemble
the arrangement of blood vessels and
nerves in the living body, AMI a
future generation may see half real
lied that old Hindoo notion that
makes the ball we inhabit an animate
creature.
The talking wire" is no fanciful
term to use in treating of this won
derful agency. 1t has an eloquence
that is all the more overpowering,
that it knows no limit of time or
distance, and that it as accurately
narrates the decline of price in the
market, as it does the fall of an en-
pire. It has the faculty, too, of
making trivial matters great by the
time and the circumstances of its an
nouncements. A very little thing
occurring here to-day, if it can be
made known at the Antipodes before
another dawn, may prove to be
something of the highest value.
Every business man can illustrate
this assertion by many cases that will
occur, at once, to him.
The benefit that our race has reap
ed from this invention, even during
the few years that have elapsed since
its adoption, is incaloulable. The
advance of civilization has been more
than quadrupled in celebrity and ease,
and attainments have been placed
within our reach which were deemed
impossible generation ago. Nations
have been enabled to hold hourly
converse with each other through
the telegraphic dispatches of their
governments and their merchants,
and misunderstanding and difficult
ties that might have led to fresh wars
have been avoided or cleared away.
Indeed, it is impossible to say too
much for triumph of genius that
has conferred such universal benefit.
We can but commiserate the ages
that fingered and struggled without
it.
Telegraphic, like railroad, enter
prise, grows bolder with every stride
that it makes onward. 1t has under
girdled one ocean and now talks of
doing as much, to all. Britain is
about to lay her wire direct from
London to Ispahan and thence to
Bombay, and France will connect
Paris, via Brest, with New York,
before another twelve-month shall
have passed. From. New York to
San Francisco is but the first stretch
of the great line which must present
ly be laid, by way of the intervening
islands and promontories, from San
Francisco to the cities of Asiatic and
European Russia on the one hand.
and to Pekin and Jeddo on the
other. The plans for these continu.
ations are already sketched, and their
execution is q question of no great
length of time.
South America, Australia and the
Colonies in Africa are doing their
best to complete o telegraphic sys.
tenn. and: in doing so, will supply