Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1879-09-24

1
| DoLLAR-ENGINEERs SAID TO BI
JOINING NEW YORK, PHILADELPHIA
| WASHINGTON, EAST AND WEST.
| From the Philadelphia Times Of the 9TH inst
THE AMERICAN RAPID" TELEGRAPH
The American rapid" telegraph
was organized into company in New
York last February, and its whole
capital of three million dollars was
all subscribed during the following
month-when a simple announcement
of its organization in the New York
journals, with the. Hon. Edwin Reed,
of Bath, Maine, wealthy shipping
merchant, as President, the Hon.
Thomas Wallace, of Ansonia, Con
necticut, one of the largest manufac-
turers of that State, as Vice Presi-
dent, and a small board of trustees
of equal wealth and respectable
ity-is all that the public has been
permitted to know of its business pur-
poses. And even now, six months
after this public announcement of the
organization of the company, nothing
is publicly known of it except that its
own machine shop in New Y York, aided
by Colts extensive machine works at
Hartford, Connecticut, are actively
occupied in turning out large number
of novel machines, which are intended
to accomplish thirty, sixty and even
ninety thousand words per hour-say
from forty to one hundred times more
than can be telegraphed over three
hundred-mile circuit by the Morse sys-
TEN now in general use. From fifteen
to forty columns of the Times tele-
graphed in sixty minutes Your daily
has twenty-eight and the Sunday fifty
six columns; at this rate there will be
nothing to hinder the Times from pub
fishing simultaneously at New York,
Boston, Baltimore, Washington, Rich
mond, Charleston, New Orleans, Gin
cinnati, Chicago, Louisville and st.
Louis. ! cannot refrain from putting
an exclamation mark after this rehec-
ton: What a fruitful future for busi-
ness enterprise this second era of tele-
graphy-the machine period-opens
up!
In the building of their line the COM
pany are acting on the principle that
Col. Thomas A. Scott (who by the
way, examined into and heartily en-
dorsed the principle of 'the electro
mechanical system" just before his
departure for Europe) adopted when he
built the new Market street bridge, a
few years ago, in thirty days; that is,
they have recognized the Importance of
engineering skill in building with
celerity and with solidity. The main
difficulty with all the telegraph lines
throughout the United States at pres
ent is that they have been built in a
slipshod manner by contractors and
spectators, with the aid of uneducated
laborers; so that besides the disadvan-
tages, especially to the commercial
public, during stormy weather, they
make costly item on the profit and
loss account under the head of repairs
and maintenance According to the
official reports of the Western Union
the yearly cost of the company's wires
averages about SS per mile of poles,
an item which aggregates between
100000 and 100000 per annum.
The Western Union Company and
their newly purchased Atlantic and
Pacific Company's wires, now run by
the Vanderbilt clique, are understood
to number about thirty-three between
Boston and Washington, about thirty
between New York and Chicago, and
about twenty between Philadelphia
and Baltimore and the southwest,
within the range of Pennsylvania,
Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri, say
about 10000 miles of wire, which, at
the average cost of maintenance,
officially reported by the Western
Union Company for some years past,
would aggregate about 100000 per
year. By the employment of engi-
neering skill, with the use of Canadian
red cedar posts and electro-plated steel
wires, the "rapid" company claim that
they can build telegraph lines that will
very rarely, if ever, be out of order
and never from storms, sleet, winds
or other atmospheric disturbances.
Neither poles nor wires will break
down or the conductivity be inter-
rupted for moment, so that it will
not require even one-tenth part of the
sum for maintenance that is re-
quired by the existing lines of the
Western Union.
Taking all these advantages into
consideration-mac as against
handwork and the saving in mainte-
nance-the American Rapid" Com
pany do not now hesitate to state the
fact that when the Washington and
Boston line is open to the public it will
be possible for them to do profitable
business at ten cents per hundred
words, and so on at the same rate,
without regard to distance, as the line
extends throughout the United States.
Indeed, it is confidently expected by
them within the next three years to
be able to telegraph ordinary business
letters to and from all points in the
country for ten cents each, and yet,
within the recollection of the middle
aged reader, the postal charge on a
halfounce letter from New York to
Boston or Washington was eighteen
and three-fourths cents, and to more
distant points twenty-five cents. Those
were the days when the mails were
transported by stage coaches and like
conveyances of similar capacity.
1t will not require the "Rapid"
company to construct between New
York and other cities of the Union
more than three of their low-resistance
wires to transmit and receive a vol
ume of telegraphing tenfold greater
than is now transmitted over all the
wires of the Western Union and At
lantic & Pacific telegraph companies
by the Morse or any other form of
hand-key telegraphing now in use.
The official reports of the Western