Although the London police have strict orders to allow no one to impede the thoroughfare of the public, and accordingly are everlastingly mumbling the unphilosophical monotonous exhortation of “_Get on, Sir!_” “_Move on, Ma’am!_” yet it is almost impossible for any ruminating being to walk the streets without occasionally pausing to reflect not only on the busy bustling scenes which glide before his eyes, but on those which, at very different rates, are at the same moment flowing beneath his feet. In our metropolis, there is scarcely a street which does not appear to take pride in exposing as often as possible to public view a series of pipes of all sizes, in which fire of various companies, pure water of various companies, and unmentionable mixtures, abominable to all, pass cheek by jowl with infinitely less trouble than the motley human currents flow above them. But among all the subterranean pipes laid bare before us there is certainly no one which has more curious contents than the three-inch iron pipe of the Electric Telegraph Company; and yet, of all the multitudes who walk the streets, how few of them ever care to reflect what a singular contrast exists between the slow pace at which they themselves are proceeding, and the rate at which beneath their feet forty-five electric wires are transmitting in all directions, and to a variety of distances, intelligence of every possible description! How singular is it to reflect that, within the narrow space of the three-inch iron pipe which encases them, notice of a murder is flying to London papers, passing news from India going into the country; along another wire an officer is applying for his regimentals, while others are conducting to and fro the “price of stocks,” “news of the Pope,” a speech from Paris of the “collapsed poet,” &c. &c. &c. In case, from the abrasion of the cotton that surrounds the numerous copper wires within the pipe, any of them come into contact with each other, the intelligence which each is conveying is suddenly confounded; in which case other wires must instantly be substituted. Indeed, even as regards the strong galvanised iron wires which in the open air run parallel with our arterial railways, if in wet weather, in spite of the many ingenious precautions taken, the rain should form a continuous stream between the several wires and the ground, the electric fluid, escaping from the wires, is conducted by the water till it “finds earth,” the best of all conductors; and therefore, instead of the intelligence going on, say to Edinburgh, it follows the axiom of electricity by selecting the shortest road, and, thus completing its circuit through the earth, it returns to London. Sometimes, instead of going “to earth,” it flies back to the office in London along another wire, to which, by means of a continuous line of water or of entanglement of the two wires, it has managed to escape; in which case, the messages on both wires wrangling with each