The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1895-08-23

Puck's promise to "put a girdle
about the earth in forty minutes" was
rendered possible of fulfilment in 1871,
when a great telegraphic circuit was
completed by uniting HOngkong and
Singapore. Thereby hangs tale, and
Henry Muir tells it in McClure's Mag
azine, July, in connection with much
other interesting information about
the telegraph system of the world.
Here Is the story:
ERussia had finished the land lines
across Siberia-the line which, it will
be remembered, was intended to be
part of the route so long projected into
the United States by Boring Strait.
But the American end of the project
had failed, and Russia found she had
an interminable stretch of line across
her barren steppes, and now had moth
ing to attach the end to. In fault OF
anything better to do with the stray
Cling terminus, it was carried to
VIadivostok.
HThe Northern Telegraph Company
of Denmark saw the possibility of
munication with China and Japan.
Not that China and Japan had eX-
pressed desire for such a union. The
willy Danes took care not to ask per-
mission, but slipped the land end of
their cables into shore in inoffensive
drain pipes, and quietly made their
connections until they had a cable
running from HongkoDg to Annoy!
GotZlaff, WoO-Sung, Nagasakl
(Japan), and connecting with the
land line at Vladivostok.
HWhen the Chinese wakened up to
the presence of the cable it was too
late to object. They simply protested
themselves utterly skeptical of its use
fulness, and refused to have anything
to do with it. However, they soon
had O practical demonstration of its
capabilities. An Oriental more bold
than his compatriots, resolved to act
on the price of rice telegraphed down
to Shanghai from Picking and to buy
I'D quantity. He did SO, and made
a big sum. Soon after, lottery
drawing came off in Picking, in which
many residents of Shanghai were in
terested. The lucky numbers were
telegraphed down, but the majority of
the holders felt it unorthodox to trust
to the impious Western continuance
which disdained time and space, two
things which the Imperial Dragon
himself had always respected, and
they let their skepticism go 80 far that
they sold their tickets for song to
more progressive gamblers. The next
arrived, the report of the telegraph
was confirmed. The new continuance
could not have had a more impressive
advertisement.
"The Great Northern Company, in
yenturing into the Chinese waters to
pick I'D the useless end of the Russian
land line at Vladivostok, left float
ing end at Hongkong, but immedi-
ateIy another daring company came
on to meet it.
"The year before, 1870, the famous
Eastern Telegraph Company, the
cable company which today possesses
nearly twice as many miles OF cable as
any other in the world, had laid its
lines from Lands End to Gibraltar,
thence to Malta, and on to Alexandra.
1T had also laid a line from Ande to
Bombay. On the other side of the
Indian peninsula, the Eastern Tele-
graph Company, today the second
largest in the world, had picked up
the end laid down at Bombay, and
had run cable from Madras to Pc
nang, and from Penang to Singapore.
When, the next year, the Great
Northern appeared in Chinese waters,
III WAS au easy lndllCI " Aoh up ~
Hongkong to meet it, and thus was
furnished the last link in the tremen-
dous circle which, beginning in Eng
land, crosses the north of Europe and
Asia, passes down the eastern seas of
Asia, and through the Gulf of Bonn
bay, the Indian Ocean, the Mediter-
ranean Sea, and the east Atlantic,
back to England"
Mr.. Muir also tells an incident that
pertains to large portion of this cir
cult, and which has become famous IN
tie telegraphic world 1t is as follows:
"Some years ago, at a telegraph1c
soiree in the Albert Hall, London, a
feature of the evenings amusement
was the sending of message to Te'
heran, in Persia, and back. A send
ing and q receiving instrument had
been put up in the hall and connected
with the wires of the Indo-European
Telegraph Company. This line cross
ed the Channel by cable to Germany,
and then by land lines ran over Ger
many, South Russia, Caucasus, Ar
menia, and Persia, to Teheran. Al
Teheran the wire was Joined to sec
ond line of the company, returning &c
London by the same route.
"The lines were cleared for the ex'
pertinent, and, at given s1gnal, the
key Of the sender was pressed by the
Prince of Wales. The instant tha'
the button of the instrument was
touched, click went the receiver.
The current had been to Persia ano
back"