The Hawaiian gazette., 1896-10-06

watched the operators at WOfh, anu
think it is wonderful that they are able
to select the message at all. The line
as it runs up and down is crossed and
recrossed by other lines coming from
earth currents and the thousands and
one sources from which a stray cur
rent gets in. 1t is simply impossible
for me to pick out the real message.
Yet those fellows do it every time and
with comparative ease"
IT DIFFERS FROM ORDINARY
TELEGRAPHY.
Now, not only is this complimentary
to the skill of the cable operators but
it calls attention to department Of the
public service and a class of workers
of which most persons know little or
nothing says the Washington Star. The
cable station is after all the most Won
derful institution in the whole tele-
graphic system The method of its
operation is totally different from that
of the land telegraph office. The guam
titles are less exact; greater mental
force is required of the operator.
Moreover, the mechanism of the sys-
TEN is more picturesque.
There is more human interest in
transmitting characters 5000 miles
under the sea and eventually setting
them down in black and white than
there is in clicking series of dots
and dashes over land wire. For this
is what cabling across the ocean
amounts to. When the operator in the
New York cable station gives an i'm
pulse to this key, he knows that he is
practically writing with an elongated
pen which reaches out undisturbed
through miles of alternate tempest and
calm and sets down on a strip of paper
letters and words which have all the
peculiarities of his own chirography.
Nor is this at all overdrawn. Opera
tors at each end of the line recognize
each other by the characteristic shapes
of the curved lines which they cause to
be traced on the long strips OF paper
at the receivers desk.
1t is common event nowadays for
arbitrage brokers on the New York
cotton exchange to send a cablegram
TO the Liverpool cotton exchange Or
dering a sale of future" cotton, have
the sale made and receive a receipt
announcing the conclusion of the trans
action in two minutes from the time
the first message was handed to the
clerk. The significance of this will be
realized when it is pointed out that
there is a class of brokers who depend
for business solely on the half minute
or so of Geographic time which exists
between here and Europe. If cotton
is quoted at the same price on the New
York and Liverpool or other exchanges,
but should subsequently drop half a
point, arbitrage brokers with connec-
lions abroad are sure TO cable their
agents to sell out before the official
change in the quotation is sent across
the sea. The aim is to save the differ
ence in price between the two quota
lions.
Many brokers make all their profits
in this way and the tendency of it has
been to quicken the business methods
of the exchanges. So much has this
become the fact that a delay of one
half minute in the sending of cable
gram is sure to cause loud and threat
ening. protest from the brokers. One
firm, in fact, instituted suit for dam
ages against leading cable company
because of delay OF ten minutes in
sending; suit was eventually withdrawn
but the incident serves to show at
what a break-neck pace business is
now done in our exchanges-quite
contrast to the relays of couriers
which were used to carry the news of
the battle of Waterloo TO Rothschilds.
DESCRIPTION OF APPARATUS.
The reason a waving line printed on
a strip of paper is used in cabling in
stead of the Morse code of dots and
dashes is because of the peculiar con-
struction of the cable itself and of a
certain eccentricity of the electric cur