The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-01-10

we repeat, is the guardian of our jurispru-
dence and our judicial morals, andif it is going
to resolutely refuse the trust, and even its
foremost men take for their motto "The
Devil take the hindmost, the people ought to
know of it in time.
THE TELEGRAPH OPERATORS STRIKE
From the NJ Y. World.
Telegraph operators are commonly more
intelligent class than so-called working-men,
yet there has been for many months among
the latter class no strike so needless and so
incapable to command public sympathy as
this of the former class, on their own show
ing, appears to be.
The right of telegraph operators or any
other wage-receiVers to combine to resist
reduction of wages, or to obtain an increase
of wages, we do not dispute, but, on the con-
trary, would uphold if it were powerfully
disputed. This right, however, is not to be
dissociated from their duty not to infict such
evil upon themselves and inconvenience upon
the public as they are now inhicting, without
sufficient and certain cause. 1t cannot have
been the duty of the operators organization
to order strike before every reasonable at
tempt was made to effect with their employ
ers fair Cancellation of differences. 1t can
never be the duty of that or any other SINH
lar organization to claim, as they imphedly
claim, exclusive power to settle the amount
of wages they will receive. That is as palpa-
bly, unjust claim as if the Western Union
Company should claim exclusive power to
settle the amount of work they will receive
or wages they will pay.
Wage-receivers in this country will never
advance themselves to the position of
strength and public respect which they
should deserve and receive until they can
learn to consider themselves as but one of two
parties to bargain-entitled, indeed, to an
equal voice which only the power to combine
and to strike work if need be can render
audible to narrow-minded and avaricious en-
ployers, but not entitled to more than an
equal voice, not entitled to an exclusive
voice. The workingmen of Great Britain un-
derstand their interests better. Strikes are
there growing more infrequent every year;
courts of Cancellation or arbitrament are null
tiplying.
On the state of facts disclosed by the ope-
rators for themselves, and by the company
for itself, public sympathy, which is reason
ing and desires to be just, will go with the
company. The officers of the company
scarcely claim what they are entitled to claim
"a right to have half voice on the question Of
wages and work. They claim the right to an
exclusive voice on the question of how many
men in this office, how few men in that, a
thrifty conduct of their business joins them
to employ. Under the limitation suggested,
have but half voice remains unaltered, this
exclusive right cannot be denied them by
operators or anybody else. 1t is needful to
the good management of their business-is
an essentially cardinal part of it. 1t is the
hinge of profit or loss. AS towards wage
receivers, it may be regarded as analogous to
the right maintained by them of withdraw
ing many men from work, under the con-
| straint of organization, who would prefer in
fhair MT 70 work
at wages repudiated by the striking autho-
rity
| One result of this telegraph strike is likely
enough to be renewed impulsion given to the
invention of labor-saving instruments, en-
abling telegraph companies to dispense with
a good many brigades in their present army
| of operators 1t is claimed, indeed, that such
an instrument has been invented by Mr..
| Little, and that it will be put in operation
over the wires of the National Telegraph
Company when those wires got themselve,
built
Mr.. Little's invention is now attracting
considerable attention from experts in tele
graphy, and the philosophy of it is worth
stating briefly. Intelligence is sent over tele
graph wires by continuous electric current
broken at longer or shorter intervals, the
breaks, too, varying in length. These breaks
and these intervals between the breaks made
at the transmitting end, or heard or recorded
at the receiving end, constitute a sign Ian
guage, easily translated from dots and dashes
into letters and words. The present limits
upon the speed of transmitting this sign Ian
guage are two. The human hand canno
make more of the needful muscular oontrac
tions in an honr than those required of al
operator in sending say 1000 words. A
the receiving end the capacity of tn
ear to discriminate sounds from silence
and sounds of varying length from eacl
other, may pass the muscular limit o
the hand, but certainly it has a limit o
its own. Little's invention undertakes tn
extension of both limits. He breaks the cur
rent ten times faster than figures can pusl
and withdraw. He records these breaks, il
all their variety of interval and of length
faster than the ear can hear. 1t hears onl
a continuous hum at either end. The break
are made by passing properly perforate
paper, itself non-conducting, through tn
course of the current. They are recorded o.
properly sensitized paper in which the chem
calls are decomposed by the electric curren
and leave stain corresponding to every pei
foration in the paper-ribbon at the transmit
ting station and, of course, are as easily rea(
An essential part of the invention is the pc
forating machine, which, since it can worl
not much faster than Morse operator, mus
be reduphcated and each manned by sep
rate operator to keep even one wire busy
The saving is expected to be in the cost
the less skilled labor required for the perfor
tors and the fewer wires required to carry
given amount of business.
| SHALL WE FUND OUR DEBT IN A
AMERICAN CONSOL?
? From the NJ Y. Tribune
Great Britain owes four thousand million