Stokers and pokers : $b or, The London and North-Western Railway, the electric telegraph, and the railway clearing-houseHead, Francis Bond, Sir
History
Stokers and pokers : $b or, The London and North-Western Railway, the electric telegraph, and the railway clearing-house
Head, Francis Bond, Sir
London and North-Western Railway; Railway Clearing House (London, England); Telegraph -- Great Britain
As this insignificant thread of paper slowly unrolls itself, the
stranger observes, with feelings of curiosity rather than of
surprise, that as it passes along a small flat surface it receives
from a little piece of steel wire about a quarter of an inch long,
and about the size of a large needle, a series of minute black marks,
composed of “dot and go one,”--two dots,--two dots and a line,--two
lines and a dot,--three little lines and a dot,--and so on.
Now many of our readers will, no doubt, gravely exclaim, _But who
makes these dots?_
The answer in a few words explains the greatest mechanical wonder
upon earth. The little dots and lines marked upon the narrow roll
of paper revolving in a garret of the London Central Telegraph
Station, are made BY A MAN SITTING IN MANCHESTER, who, by galvanic
electricity, and by the movement of a little brass finger-pedal, is
not only communicating to, but is HIMSELF actually PRINTING IN LONDON
information which requires nothing but a knowledge of the dotted
alphabet he uses to be read by any one to whom it may either publicly
or confidentially be addressed!!
Upon this fact comment is unnecessary. It humbles rather than exalts
the mind. Of such an invention it can only be said
“NON NOBIS, DOMINE, SED NOMINI TUO DA GLORIAM.”
To supply this instrument with paper there has been invented one of
the most beautiful little toys we ever beheld, consisting of two
iron fluted rollers four feet long, which, by revolving against each
other, draw between them on one side, and emit from the other in a
shower of fantastic writhing shreds, a hundred strips of paper half
an inch broad at a time.
Before leaving the attics in which the electric printing as well the
eight telegraphic instruments are stationed, we may observe that
the boys who work the latter form that amount of acquaintance with
the workers of the distant instruments with which they have been in
the habit of communicating, that, if from any reason their usual
correspondents are removed, they instantly discover by the movement
of the needles that they have to form an acquaintance with a new
comrade, from whom, in leisure moments, they probably soon ascertain
the fate of the old one; indeed, so completely is this description of
acquaintance established, that it is not uncommon to hear a telegraph
boy in the London attic suddenly exclaim, as he looks with joy at
the quivering vibrations of his needles, which are working say from
Manchester, “_Oh! here is Bill * * * come back!_” There are, of
course, however, exceptions to these kindly feelings, and accordingly
two clerks who had been employed at remote stations on the * * *
line were lately separated because they were constantly electrically
quarrelling and abusing each other by telegraph.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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