The Portland daily press., 1899-07-15
THE COST OF CABLING.
Each Message from Otis Costs ss25, or
About ssa,oOo Monthly.
(Chicago Journal. }

(Chicago Journal)
Each one Of those optirnistic little dis
patches from General Otis costs the gov
ernnent about s2s5. The cable toll are
ss.s5 word. and these '.encouragers'
average about one hundred words in
length. Sometimes they are little long
or. From May 10 to e3 an actual count
of words gave total Of S21. As IL hap
pened there was no casualty lists in the
dispatches counted, and, OF course, thsre
were censored portions which had to be
omitted from the count. Supposing the
censored parts to amount to no more than
i've hundred words in q week, and adding
q similar number of casualty iists (which
require q large number Of worde, and
have to be SAINT In full) ths total number
Of words received from Otis In week
would be In the neighborhood of two
thousand. II Is admitted by the War n.-
partment thnt ms much gees to Otis in
The way of inquiries. Instructions, etc.,
as comes from him. Ibis would bring
up the correspondence to four thousand
words a week. Now, this doris not iu-
Glide the service messages sent aud re.
ceived by the commissary and quarter
Greely. who has charge of the signal SER
vice, says these will equal the correspon-
dence above alluded to, which makes the
weekly total eight thousand words q
week. AT 81 20 a word the weekly tele-
graph bill is SIS, COO. In a month it reach
es So. .000 and for the period since the
beginning of notunl hostilities SIPS, ,0u0
The above Is rough estimate of what
the little Aguinaldot affair Is costing
Uncle Sam In the war of telegraph tolls.
IL is probably inside the aotual figures
The latter cannot be had for several reas-
ons. In the lrst place the accounts are
very much behind and the auditor for the
War Department himself does not know
how the bills have bseR running for the
last thres months. There is at least $f59.-
900 now due the Western Union company
and u thiId as much due the Postal
Cablegrams from Manila are relayed
eighteen times in transmission from
Washington. They are handled by opera
-ors OF many different nationalities aud
speaking many different languages The
relying points are as follows: Washing
ton 10 New York thence to Canso, Nov a
Scetia; thence to Valencia, Irish coast; /;
themes to Plymouth, Eugland; thence TO
Lisbon. Portugal; from there TO Tangiers,
Morocco, north, coast Of Africa; themes to
Malta, in the Mediterranean sea; thence
to Alexandria. Egypt; thence TO Port
Said; thence to Suez; thence to Alden,
Arabia; thence to Bombay; thence to
Penang; thence to Singapore, Malay
peninsula; thence to Labuan, Borneo
thence to Hong Kong, ana from Hong
Kong to Manila. The time required to
make this circuit, in ordinary cases Is
three hours and twenty minutes. For a
long message the time required for trans.
mission must tie added. The Eastern
Cable Company has ''rush" arrange
ment by which a short message paid for
at triple rates may he put ahead of all
other business. This viii get 1t through
in one hour. The distance travelled Is APP
proximately IS, 00l miles. II there were a
cable from San Francisco via Honolulu
the distance would be only about s.eC0
miles.