Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1899-09-12
ELECTRICITY In JAPAN.
The Yankees Of the Orient Are Pro
gressive People

I
Prof. T. B. Croker, who has beef
taking note Of the electrical feature
of Japan during a tour through tn
! country, remarks that, although
American electrical supplies are con
stantly met with, there is abundan
room for more The japanese have
already brought telegraphy, tele
phony and electric lighting to fairly
advanced state, and are making ex.
cellent progress in electric railroads
electrical manufacturing and electric
education Both the telegraph and
the telephone are operated by the gov
crnment The telegraph lines ex-
tend the length and breath of the
empire, connecting all the larger and
most of the smaller towns. The dis
tances are very considerable. For in
stance, the straight line from Naga-
saki, near the southwestern extrem-
ity of the island of Kyushi, to the
most northern point of the island Of
Yeso is about 1900 miles. But the
lines are too small for the traffic.
which is increasing at the rate OF
about 20 per cent. per annum, and the
japanese parliament is to be asked
to spend $15,0O0,000 to expand the
service. To Americans the cost of
message seems absurdiy low. A mes
sage of ten kama (characters) can be
sent between any two stations in the
empire for Is sen ~ cents). The adj
dress is not charged for, and delivery
to any point within "a miles of the
station is even a greater source Of
wonder One can send a ten kama
message, including delivery, for p
cents. In the mary cases when it is
only desired to send a few words the
japanese rates are not more than a
quarter as much as In America, and
there is the additional fact to consider
that the same charge applies to dis
tances of 500 miles or more. The
system has to be operated cheapiy to
make the 334 per cent, profit whichis
expected from it at such low rates.
The secret is cheap labor. Operators
receive Is to 20 cents a day, and
the salaries of the higher officers, as
well as the wages of lnemen and
other employees, are in the same pro-
portion. Many of the supplies
wire, insulators, poles, tools, instru-
ments, etc.-are from America, so no
saving can be made on them. Prof.
Croker says that many of the keys,
switchboards, etc., which are of Eu-
ropean make, are so clumsy that they
carry him back to his earliest elec-
trical studies, and the pictures in an
old-fashioned Natural Philosophy"
The levers Of the keys and saunders
look as if they were made for bear
trap. Telegraphic transmission is
more rapid by the japanese than by
the English code; that is to say, a
greater amount of information or YER
bal material can be conveyed in the
same time. This is explained by the
fact that each kama is equivalent to
about two English letters. Moreover,
the japanese operators employ no
punctuation, and this gives a further
slight saving in time. Prof. Croker
traces the development of the Japan
csc telegraph code from the picture
writing of the very ancient Chinese,
thousands of years before the Chris
tan era. In course Of time these pic
torial representations were modified
to make them more adaptable for or
binary use, and thus the various Chi
nese characters were born. Then the
japanese kama were derived from
Chinese characters corresponding
more or less to similar sounds in the
two languages. Finally these kama
were translated into the Morse tele-
graphic code, and, strange to say, are
found to lend themselves to it better
than the English and other European
alphabets. ...r
Concerning the Editor