St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1899-11-25
rELEGRApHY IN CHINA.
the Celestial Operator Has
to Contend.

The great difficulty about operating
telegraphs properly in this country is
the lack of police in the greater part of
the empire. The authorities, who are
perhaps as hostile to innovations as the
common people, do nothing for the eff
fective protection of the lines, and ma
licious persons are free to overturn the
posts, break the insulators and cut the
wires. Besides, this fanaticism finds
very natural encouragement in the GU
pidity of the race. as the posts fur
Eish excellent firewood, and the wires
can be utilized in hundred ways.
They are especially appreciated when
they are of copper, and. therefore, we
may predict that long-distance tele-
phone communication will not be estab-
lished in most of the provinces for
long time to come.
Nevertheless, when the authorities do
desire TO act. they reach excellent re-
suits very quickly; the excessive severn
ty Of the penal code in China gives
them an opportunity. The following
anecdote is told of an event in the en-
virons of Shanghai. The lines there
were continually destroyed; the Taotai,
who was in frequent relations with the
Europeans and had become tired OF
hearing their complaints. declared SIM
ply that for each post pulled down a
head should be cut off among those OF
the inhabitants who lived in the vicini-
ty. AS DEGREES of this kind are exc
cuted very literally in China. the result
was that. in spite of the fatalistic spirit
Of the Chinese and their indifference &c
death, the posts were afterward let Sc
verely alone. But such radical meas
ures are not taken everywhere. and tel
cgraphic communication would be
often entirely interrupted if the great
ports were not all connected by sub
marine cables, owned by Europeans.
which, from their situation, escape the
enterprise of evil-tloers.
As the Chinese written language is
not alphabetic. and as each word in il
is represented by special character.
none of the Geographic system gener-
ally in use can be employed in China.
Usually each character is represented
by number. and it is this number.
which has never more than four figures.
that is transmitted.
To bring about this result a code OF
40 pages has been established. each page
having ten columns of 90 characters.
so that $500 characters are disposed OF
all the words commonly used are in
serted and few places are kept blank
for new ones. When a dispatch is to
be sent an employee translates it into
figures, and at the receiving station an
inverse operation puts it back into Chi
nese characters. OF course this is
rather long process, but it is simply
necessary to employ enough persons
and in China, as with us, the educated
unemployed are numerous. Owing to
this system the Chinese telegraph lines
have greater capacity than our own. In
the western tongues five or six signals
on the average are necessary to express
a word; in China four are sufficient
1t is true that, on the other hand. the
chances of error are greatly increased
and the sending of message by means
of numbers gives generally very little
satisfaction, while it is complicated by
a double translation, which is evident
" dangerous.-Cosmos