The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-08-14
TELEcRAPHY IN CHINA.
Operators Must Know How to Send
Ten Thousand Characters.


Ten Thousand Characters.
Some of the peculiarities and diff
culties attending the construction,
maintenance and use Of the telegraph
in China are thus described in Cosmos
paris. July 1857
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 ef-
fective protection of the lines, and
malicious persons are free to overturn
the posts, break the insulators and cut
the wires. Besides, this fanaticism finds
very natural encouragement in the
cupidity Of the race. as the posts fur
nish excellent firewood. and the wires
can be utilized in a hundred ways They
are especially appreciated when they
are of copper, and therefore We may
predict that long distance telephone
communication will not be established
In most Of the provinces for a long
time to come.
Nevertheless, when the authorities
do desire to act, they reach excellent
results very quickly; the excessive Sc
certify of the penal code in China gives
them an opportunity. The following an
ecdote Is told Of an event in the en-
virons of Shanghai. The lines there
We're 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
head should be cut off among those Of
the inhabitants who lived in the Vicin-
ity 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 TO
death, the posts were afterward let Sc
verely alone. But such radical mea-
sures are not taken everywhere, and
telegraphic communication would be
often entirely interrupted If the great
ports were not all connected by SUBJ
| marine cables, owned by Europeans,
which, from their situation escape the
enterprise of evil-doers.
eAs the Chinese written language is
not alphabetic, and as each word in it
is represented by a special character,
none Of the telegraphi6 systems gener-
ally in use can be employed in China.
Usually each character is represented
by a number, and it is this
number which has never more
than four figures, that is transmitted.
ITO bring about this result a code
of 40 pages has been established, eae
page having 10 columns of 20 chara
tiers, so that $500 characters are dis
posed Of; all the words commonly used
are inserted and few places are kept
blank for new ones. When dispatch
is to be sent. an employee translates it
into figures and at the receiving sta
ton an inverse operation puts it back
into Chinese characters. OF course
this is a 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 tel
egraph lines have greater capacity than
our own. In the western tongues five
or six signals, on the average, are ne
| cessary to express 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 a message by means of numbers
gives generally very little satisfaction,
while 1t is complicated by a double
translation which Is evidently danger
Gus. Literary Digest.