Morris tribune., 1896-05-06
CHINESE TOPOGRAPHY.
Numerals Are Flashed Over the Wire anG
Then Translated by Code.

Numerals Are Flashed Over the Wire ant
Then Translated by Code.
All the principal cities of China
are connected with one another and
with Picking, the capital, by tele.
graph. Recent visitors to China say,
however, that telegraphing there is
a laborious and an expensive process,
and that the lines area charge upon
the state treasury instead of source
of revenue.
The dispatches are, of course, sent
in Chinese, for not one in many
thousands of the natives knows any
language except his own. But the
Chinese have no alphabet. Their lit
erary characters, @artly topographic,
partly phonetic, number many thou
sands. 1t is simply impossible to
invent telegraphic signals that
would cover the written language.
Here was an obstacle in the way of
using the telegraph at all.
The difficulty was obviated by in
venting a telegraphic signal for each
of the cardinal mum bers, and so
numbers or figures might be tele
graphed to any extent. Then code
dictionary was prepared, in which
each number from one up to several
thousands stood for particular
Chinese letter or telegraph. 1t is,
in fact, cipher system. The sender
of the message need not bother him
self about its meaning. He may tel
egraph all day without the slightest
idea of the information he is send
ing, for he transmits only numerals.
1t is YER & ferent with his friend,
the receive. He has the code die
tionary as his elbow, and after each
message is received he must trans
late it, writing each literary charao-
ter in place of the mineral that
stands for it. Only about an eighth
of the words in the written language
appear in the code, but there are
enough of them for all practical pur-
poses.
But the Chinese system has its
great disadvantages. Men Of Or
binary education have not sufficient
acquaintance with the written Ian
guage to be competent telegraph re-
ceivers, and the iterati are notseek-
ing employment in the telegraph
Offices any more than our college
professors are. So the government
recruits its employees with much
difficulty. Besides the patrons of
the telegraph are comparatively few
in number. There are almost no
Chinese who have business relations
all over the country, as is the case
with many thousands of our bust
ness men. The public is not invited
to buy stock in the Chinese telegraph !
lines, and if it was nobody at pres
ent would buy with view to divi-
dends. The receipts do not equal the
and the government makes
up the deficit.
There is another great disadvan-
tage of the Chinese telegraph sys-
tenn. All over the world the move
enents of railroad trains are regu-
lated by telegraph. The orders re-
ceived by the station agent are filed
in plain view of the employees, and
if need be the switohman may take
temporary charge and carry out the
instructions from the central Office.
Railroads have been introduced into
China to a very small extent, and
there is talk of greatly extending
the service. But how about running
the trains?
A writer in LIE Movement Colo
NAL Of Paris says that if railroads
are introduced to any extent in Chi
ma the personnel must be exclusive
~ European and American or re-
cruited from the literary class. He
says the Chinese government will
not take foreigners into it's service,
and that the educated men of China,
who alone among the people have
sufficient knowledge of the written
language to be intrusted with the
actual running Of trains, would re-
fuse most emphatically to be either
trainhands or station agents.
This is one of the many small
stumbling blocks in the way of Chi
mas progress, but it is quite effective
in it's way.-Statesman' s Year Book.
Wanted Full Equivalent.
What people in the country don't
know about their neighbors may
safely be put down as not worth
knowing. Some city people who had
gone to the country to live were in