Many of us remember, from the vivid descriptions written by the special correspondents of the daily newspapers, how terrible were the sufferings of the British troops in the Crimea during the winter of 1854-5, engaged in trench-work and other siege-operations under almost every kind of privation. But we also know how impossible it would have been to learn the news quickly in England and to send instructions, without the aid of telegraphy. An electric cable was for this very purpose submerged in the Black Sea from the Turkish mainland to the Crimea; while on land, wires were set up from Balaklava to the headquarters outside Sebastopol. Thus it was that daily messages could be exchanged between Lord Raglan's headquarters and the War Office in London--also between the special correspondents of the daily papers and their employers in Fleet Street or Printing House Square. So in like manner, during the struggle arising out of the Indian Mutiny, the advancing British columns contrived, wherever possible, to maintain unbroken telegraphic communication with Calcutta, whereby the viceroy was kept informed of what was going on. Of course the mutineers or rebels destroyed or disrupted the wires wherever and whenever they could; and to repair the damage thus inflicted formed no small part of the arduous duties of the British officers. Our little but expensive war in Abyssinia in 1868, marked by a less shedding of blood than almost any other war in modern times, was an engineers' war from first to last. A wild and unknown country was surveyed and accurately mapped out, four hundred miles of road constructed, tube-wells sunk, photographs of various useful kinds taken, and a telegraphic system established. The telegraphic arrangements first made had to be abandoned, owing to the scantiness of the facilities for transporting the necessary materials. The more restricted plan actually adopted was difficult enough, so limited were the means of obtaining wood for telegraph poles. On approaching Magdala, however, Captain St John (who had the management of this part of the engineering) succeeded in laying down from five to ten miles a day. Short as was the war, this telegraph conveyed more than seven thousand eight hundred messages during the five months of its working, and aided most materially in giving effect to General (now Lord) Napier's well-planned and successful scheme of operations.