Before the close of the Eighteenth Century, a British Embassy was sent to China, to interview the then Emperor of that always difficult country. The Ambassador and his suite were received with elaborate politeness, at the end of their tedious voyage. China was verbally polite then, as now. But an intimation followed, warning the visitors that, if they wished to escape unpleasant consequences, they had better take themselves off so soon as might be. Which they had to do, since no Army was at hand to back them up against a good many millions of yellow barbarians. The story of all this reached England, and was given in the _Times_, exactly one year after it happened. _Now_ the contrast! We know at breakfast one morning what has gone on, the previous afternoon, in China, in India, in Australia, in America, in Africa. During the days of the Peninsular War, battles were fought, reverses took place, victories were won--and the news filtered slowly home by hand. Larger items of information arrived generally in the course of a few weeks; particulars as to individuals often not for months. _Now_, not only does a check or a success on one day become known to the Empire at large on the day following; but even while a hard-fought battle is being carried on, we at home sometimes hear of it, and strain our mental vision, and watch in suspense for the ending. What would our forefathers have thought of that historic day, when the beleaguered garrison of Ladysmith was fiercely assaulted, and we--seven thousand miles distant--knew what was being done; hearing that the heroic defenders were “hard-pressed,” and no more? Hours of agonised impatience were lived through; not only in England, but in many a far-off Colony beyond the Ocean, all waiting for the result. Not that the news might not have been sooner sent from South Africa. Delay was due to the cutting short of local sunshine, so that a heliographic message could not be flashed across a few miles of veldt. This great advance has come about, not by improvements in the world’s shipping, though such improvements have not been small, but by means of the Electric Cable. Not over the Ocean, but _under_ the Ocean, messages are despatched with lightning speed, from man to man, in all parts of the civilised Earth. Nor is this all. Quite lately another and still more marvellous means of communication has been discovered; a means which, if successfully followed out, as seems now probable, will tend still further to revolutionise the life of ships at sea. By means of Wireless Telegraphy man can exchange thoughts with man, when the two are separated by many miles of distance. Watchers on a lonely lightship, far from land, can appeal in trouble to their friends on shore. The Admiral of a great war fleet can send his voiceless commands through space, unhampered by wire or cable, unhindered by fog or storm.