The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1896-07-21
TELEaRAPHY OF THE CHINESE.
Numerals Flashed Over Wire and Trans.
lated by Code.

| (Hrom the San Francisco Chronicle.)
According to the Statesman's Year
Book, all the principal cities of China
| are now connected with ono another and
with Picking, the capital, by telegraph.
Recent visitors to China say, however,
that tlegraphing there is laborious and
an expensive process, and that the lines
| are charge upon the state treasury in
| stead OF source of revenue.
| The dispatches are, of course, sent il
Chinese, for not one in many thousands
OF the natives knows any language except
his own. But the Chinese have no alpha
bet. Their literary characters, partly
Geographic, party phonetic, number
many thousands. 1t is simply impossible
TO invent telegraphic signals that would
cover the written language. Here was
an obstacle.in the way of using the tele-
graph at all.
The diff culty was obviated by invent
ing telegraphic signal for each of the
cardinal numbers, and SO numbers or
figures might be telegraphed to any ex-
tent. Then o code dictionary was pre-
pared, in which each number from | ND
to several thousands stood for perei Gu
lar Chinese letter or Telegraph. Ii is, in
fact, cipher system. The sender OF the
message need not bother himself about
Its meaning. He may telegraph all day
without the slightest idea OF the infor-
motion he is sending, for he transmits
only numerals.
IL Ia very different with lis friend, the
receiver. He has the code dictionary at
h H. al how aud ,fA
ce1ved be must translate 1t, writing each
liGerary character in place of the numeral
that stands for it. Only about an eighth
Of the words in tho written language ap-
pear in the code, but there are enough of
them for all practical purposes.
But the Chinese system has its great
disadvantages. Men Of ordinary educa-
ton have not sufficient acquaintance with
the written language to be competent
telegraph receivers, and the literati are
not seeking employment in telegraph
ofhoes any more than our college profess
sors are. So the governments recruits its
employees with much difficulty. Besides.
the patrons of the telegraph are compera-
lively 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 business mon.
The public is not invited to buy stock in
the Chinese telegraph lines, and if it
was. nobody at present would buy with
view. to dividends. The receipts do not
equal The expenses, and the government
makes up the deficit.
. There is another great disadvantage of
the Chinese telegraph system. All over
the worldsthe movement of railroad trains
is regulated by telegraph. The orders re-
ceived by the station agent are filed in
plain view of the employees, and if need
be, the switchman may take temporary
charge and carry out the instructions
from the entral Office. Railroads have
bsen introduced into China TO very
small extent, and there is talk of greatly
extending the service. But how about
running the trains?
A writer in LIE Movement Colonial of
Paris says that If railroads are intro
duced to any extent in China, the per-
sonnet must be exclusively European and
American, or recruited from the literary
GLASS. 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 suffi-
cient knowledge of the written language
to be intrusted with the actual running
OF trains, would refuse most e1nphatically
to be either train hands or station agents.
This is one of the many small stumbling
blocks in the way OF China's progress.
but ii is quite effective in it's way.