Twenty-five years after the government had declined to take the telegraph at the price of $100,000, a project was started to establish lines of telegraph to be used by the government as part of the mail postal system. And in 1873 the Postmaster-General, Mr. Cresswell, said in his report that the entire first cost of all the lines in the country, including patents, was less than $10,000,000; but the property of the existing telegraph company was already well worth $50,000,000. Morse's position was far easier than it had been for many years. His old friends, the artists of New York, rallied in force and laid before Congress a petition that the professor be employed to execute the painting to fill the panel at the Capitol assigned to Inman, who had been removed by death. But it came to nothing. Morse was never again to take the brush in hand. The first money that he received from his invention was the sum of $47, being his share of the amount paid for the right to use his patent on a short line from the Washington Post-office to the National Observatory. The use he made of the money was characteristic of the man. He sent it to the Rev. Dr. Sprole, then a pastor in Washington, requesting him to apply it for the benefit of his church. Early in June, 1846, the line from Baltimore to Philadelphia was in operation, and that from Philadelphia to New York. Abroad the system was working its way steadily into favor. In France an appropriation of nearly half a million francs was made to introduce the Morse system. But meantime violations of Morse's rights were beginning to crop up on every side, both at home and abroad. In a letter to Daniel Lord, his lawyer, Morse says: "The plot thickens all around me; I think a dénouement not far off. I remember your consoling me under these attacks with bidding me think that I had invented something worth contending for. Alas! my dear sir, what encouragement is there to an inventor if, after years of toil and anxiety, he has only purchased for himself the pleasure of being a target for every vile fellow to shoot at, and in proportion as his invention is of public utility, so much the greater effort is to be made to defame that the robbery may excite the less sympathy? I know, however, that beyond all this there is a clear sky; but the clouds may not break away till I am no longer personally interested, whether it be foul or fair. I wish not to complain, but I have feelings, and cannot play the Stoic if I would." [Illustration: The Siphon Recorder for Receiving Cable Messages--Office of the Commercial Cable Company, 1 Broad Street, New York.]