New York to Washington telegraph line

AUTOMATIC OR "FAST" TELEGRAPHY

To the Editor of the Herald: --

The interest you have evinced in the subject of automatic telegraphy leads me to believe that you and your readers will be gratified to learn what has been accomplished within the last six or eight months in the development of the Little system of fast telegraphy.

In order to arrive at reliable results it was thought best to construct an independent line of telegraph between this city and Washington, and this enterprise was taken hold of about the 1st of January last and by March the line was nearly completed, except a gap of some ten miles through the city of Philadelphia, where we were successfully opposed in getting the right of way until about the middle of July, since which time the line has been completed and is now in perfect order, but has not yet been opened to the public. The line consists of about 300 miles of compound (steel and copper) wire, of the tensile strength and electrical conductivity of a No. 5 iron wire, and insulated with the Brooks insulator. The wire is guaranteed to withstand sleets and all other storms, and to convey ample electrical currents for all practical purposes in the most unfavorable weather. We have just commenced to make tests of the electrical condition of our line and of the capabilities of our automatic machinery for "fast" telegraphy. The results are in the highest degree satisfactory. The electrical tests of Professor Farmer show that we have a line more than 200 per cent superior to any one of the lines of the Western Union Company; and the practical results as to our automatic machinery are that we can transmit, over a single wire, from Washington to New York, 24,000 words per hour, which is equal to the average working of more than thirty wires by the Morse system of telegraphy. But the most important feature of our new system of telegraphy is its extreme simplicity and unerring accuracy. A boy or girl of fifteen years of age can master the machinery and the whole system in a few hours, and business men can perform by a process as simple as writing, in their own counting rooms, three-quarter of the whole work of telegraphing, without the least inconvenience, and thereby reduce the cost of telegraphing to a point but little above the resent cost of mail correspondence.

Every person of practical experience and sound judgment knows that the rates of tariff proposed in Mr. Washburn's Postal Telegraph bill would not yield even fifty per cent of the actual cost of telegraphing in this country by the Morse system; but when our new automatic system of telegraphy shall have been fully introduced throughout the country there cannot be a rational doubt that, between all points where a large business is done, the rates of tariff may be reduced to much less than one cent per word in thousand mile circuits, and still afford a large margin of profit. We find no difficulty whatever in "dropping copies" of newspaper reports, and I reiterate with emphasis my former public statements upon this point, and say that with our lines fully established throughout the country we shall be able to send news reports direct from this city, by once writing, to every city and into every newspaper office in every city of the whole Union, and at a rate of speed equal to two hundred words per minute. The Western Union Company transmits daily to and from New York to the whole of the Associated Press about an average of fifteen thousand words - say seven thousand West, five thousand East and three thousand South - and receives for this service about $800,000, or, say three cents per word. With our new system of automatic telegraphy in successful operations the press of the whole country will be able to receive daily reports, regardless of the number of words, at less than half the present expense for short and unsatisfactory news reports, and in less than one-fourth of the time now employed by the Morse lines. A superior class of compound telegraph lines will be immediately constructed to all parts of the country, and a compete revolution in telegraphy and in the postal business of the country must inevitably follow.     D. H. CRAIG.