The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1872-02-03
THE PACIFIC
Commercial AOOertlser,
SATURDAY. FEBRUARY 3
The Telegraph.

As is perfectly natural in a small community,
isolated from all the world, as Is this Of Homo
lula, our people are constantly on the gUi TIRE
for news from abroad. The report that d vessel
with n mail flag flying Is " coming past Coco
Head, - sends a thrill through the entire commu-
nifty, and everybody begin to direct their thoughts
and their feet down town 10 the neighboThoOd Of
a. Printing House Square" Now, however, there
is no telegraph to report coming vessels, and they
are right of the port before it Is known that they
are coming. The other day, the bark COnpet,
from California, about which there was some
solicitude felt on account of her long passage in
stormy weather, came past Diamond Head and
down the reef before she was announced in town,
and as there was no pilot boat out to meet her,
or any other bat, the master was a good deal at
a loss to guess at what was the matter on shore,
until, after a long delay, the pilot coming out
informed him that the telegraph pole had been
blown down. Some one Of these days, when
perhaps our community is expecting important
news, a clipper ship will unannOunced come
bowling along down the reef, looking in vain for
a shore boat into which 10 drop letters and
papers, and finding none, square away before the
wind on her voyage to China. Or, a vessel may
be disabled and in distress in the channel, out of
sight of the city, and some disaster happen that
might have been prevented by the transmission
of intelligence. Then, il is probable, something
would be done to rc-establish the Honolulu
marine telegraph.
There is some force in the remark Of a CORE
s%pondent in this journal last week, to the effect
that were this telegraph affair some pet project
of the Ministerial the lack of three hundred dol
lars. or even as many thousand dollars, would
not be allowed to stand in the way Of it's compile
ton a single day. But the will wanting to ac-
commodate tile public, they have the very con-
yenient and doubtless plausible excuse that there
is no provision in the appropriation bill for any
such expenditure. 1t is to be hoped that who
ever is elected to the next Legislature for Homo
lulu will use their endeavoIs to procure the in
sertion of an item providing for the erection and
maintenance of the telegraph. 1t is a necessity
for the commercial interests of the port, and as
such should be provided for out of the public
funds. In these days, when the world over in
t~elligence is transmitted with lightning speed
from point to point, it is assuming an extremely
90 low down" position to say that Honolulu can
not afford even a marine telegraph.
We would go a step farther in this telegraph
enterprise, and advocate the establishment of an
electric telegraph between the city and Coco Head.
The entire apparatus, including a wire, it is esti-
mated would not cost over a thousand dollars. 1t
would be the entering wedge in the business of
electric telegraphy in these islands. Lines would
be speedily laid in other directions, and in time
the different islands be connected by submarine
cables. The cheapness of electric telegraph lines
at the present day is something surprising. All
this is in the not very distant future.