"The telegraph companies sent news to 144 towns, the number of subscribers being 306, including 173 newspaper publishers. Last year the postoffice sent news to 313 towns, the number of subscribers, including 518 newspaper publishers, being 806. "During the session of Parliament, the companies sent about 6100 words of news daily, and at other times about 4000 daily. The post-office during the last year sent an average of 25,697 words a day when Parliament was sitting, and 21,702 when Parliament was not sitting." During the last ten years of Government control in Great Britain, the total revenue has every year exceeded the expenditure. Since 1874, the cost of extensions has been included in the expenses, and in recent years there were charged to the expenses of the telegraph system the purchase of a site for the new post-office at Manchester, and also large sums paid to railroad companies in settlement of arrears. During the same time, the Government service has been performed without cost and without entering the amount in the receipts. The value of the telegraph work performed for Government account without payment during the year ending March 31st, 1880, was $76,910, and the net revenue of the service for the same year, including the Government service, was $1,781,520. For the ten years of Government control, the receipts have exceeded the expenditures nearly $10,000,000, not including the value of the service performed for the Government. This does not include interest upon the original investment, but does include the cost of extensions since 1874, and all other expenses of maintaining and extending the service. But if we take into consideration interest on the original investment, such interest should be computed upon the actual cash value of the plant, and not upon the exorbitant price paid. It is a well-known fact that the Government paid four or five times more to the companies than the property was actually worth. Our Government will certainly not be betrayed into making a similar blunder. If the cash value of the plant be estimated at $20,000,000, the service has yielded five per cent. interest upon such investment. But as the plant when purchased was reasonably worth only half that amount, the profits realized have equaled ten per cent. upon such actual value, besides all the expenses of the service. The charge for telegrams throughout the United Kingdom is one shilling-or twenty-five cents-for the first twenty words, and six cents for every additional five words or part of five words; the names and addresses of the sender and receiver are not counted. The charges for press telegrams are one shilling for every one hundred words or portion of one hundred words, handed in between six P. M. and nine A. M., and one shilling for every seventy-five words, or portion of seventy-five words, handed in between nine A. M. and six P. M., with an additional charge of four cents per one hundred words, or four cents per seventyfive words, as the case may be, for every additional address. Telegraph stamps of various denominations are prepared and sold, the same as postage stamps. The writer is indebted to Mr. J. H. Blackfan, United States Superintendent of Foreign Mails, for the following statement of RECEIPTS AND EXPENSES OF INTERIOR TELEGRAPH SERVICE IN Belgium... 1878 8.14 " Germanyt.. 1876 24.42" Italy..... 1875 13.01 " 400,763.04 314,893.39 3,046,559.08 2,377,993.56 Switzerland‡ 1879 NOTE.-In the above table, the franc is estimated at 19 cents; the mark at 231%; the lira at 19; and the rouble at 66%. The rates in the foregoing table are estimated upon the basis of twenty words for each message; but, in the governments of Belgium, Switzerland, and France, ten words may be sent in one message, exclusive of addresses, to any distance within the country for ten cents. A comparison of the rates paid for telegraphic communica * From official report published by the Austrian Statistical Bureau, Vienna, 1880. + From "Statesman's Year-Book, 1878." From original reports from Belgian and Swiss offices. According to distance. According to a statement in the "Statesman's Year-Book, 1878," there were annual deficits from the establishment of the Public Telegraph Department, in March, 1851, till the end of 1876. (No later data accessible at Office of Foreign Mails.) tion by the people in the principal countries of Europe, under a government system, will show how great is the imposition practiced upon the people of this country by the present telegraph companies. The average price paid per message in the United States is over thirty-eight cents, according to the official reports of the Western Union Company. The ordinary message is restricted to ten words. But, in England, the ordinary message may contain twenty words, which is sent throughout the kingdom for twenty-five cents; and the average charge of all messages sent for the past year was but twenty-seven cents. In explanation of this fact, the company will claim that the distances are much greater in this country. But, as the principal expense is in sending, receiving, and delivering the messages, the matter of distance is of but little consequence. It is a wellascertained fact that every reduction in rates has produced a large increase of business, as well as augmented the receipts of the service. With a Government system in this country, we might reasonably expect a reduction of rates to not exceeding twenty cents for twenty words to any part of the United States and the Territories, a large increase in the number of offices, and an enormous increase in the number of messages. How long the people will forego such benefits, and permit the exactions and extortion of private companies, remains to be seen. The commercial and social benefits to the people which would immediately follow increased telegraphic communication at reasonable rates, in a country of the vast extent of our own, can scarcely be estimated. The press of the country is especially interested in securing increased facilities for the transmission of news. Under a Government system, private wires might be rented both to the Associated Press, and to newspaper publishers whose business would justify it, at rates which would merely reimburse the Government for the cost of constructing and maintaining the press wires, in connection with other Government wires upon the same lines. Boards of trade could also secure the separate use of wires connecting the principal cities of the Union; and all classes of people, both for social and business purposes, could obtain telegraph facilities at reasonable rates. The Western Union Company not only enjoys a monopoly of the business of transmitting messages by telegraph, but also a monopoly of commercial intelligence. Two of the directors of the company are reputed to be worth two hundred million dollars, and practically control the railway transportation of the whole country. They may raise or depress the prices of all agricultural products at their will, by raising or reducing freights. Add to this immense power a monopoly of all commercial intelligence, and they may deal in "futures" of corn, wheat, cotton, and other products, with absolute certainty of success. With such opportunities, the only limit of their gains will be the amount of tribute which the agriculture and business of the country can yield. Farmers, shippers, merchants, and traders will be permitted to earn a living, if they are careful and frugal, but beyond that they must not hope to go. The transportation and telegraph monopoly will gather in all the rest. Under a Government system, intelligence at least would be furnished to all alike. Under stringent laws and regulations, the telegraph and the mails would be alike at the service of all. "First come, first served" would be the imperative law of the land, and the secrecy of messages could be as sacredly preserved as is the secrecy of letters in the mails. The most potent argument advanced against a Government postal telegraph is that the increased number of employés would place too great power in the hands of the Federal Administration, and that the telegraph might be used as an engine of political oppression. If there were no means of preventing by legislation such a result, the argument would be almost decisive. Yet, even though this result were not preventable, there would still remain the choice of evils between a system liable to abuse by being used to secure political ascendancy, and a system controlled wholly by personal cupidity and corporate greed. But the legislation that provides for a Government system should be so carefully framed that it will not only secure a telegraph service conducted upon strict business principles, but also free the postal service from the control of politicians, and place the whole business of transmitting intelligence under non-partisan management. There should be at least one branch of the public service entirely beyond the reach of all partisan considerations. As the transmission of letters and telegrams concerns the great body of the people, this service should be conducted with strict impartiality, and freed from all the exigencies of party. Legislation securing this result once obtained, its salutary benefits would be a sufficient guarantee against its repeal. WILLIAM M. SPRINGER. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. I NOT unnaturally feel disinclined to speak in public of the character and genius of Longfellow, as he is happily still among us, and as I may perhaps be allowed to call him my friend; but he stands so far aloof from the possibility of censorial severity that I think I shall hardly give offense. I certainly should abandon the idea of writing of him at all, had I aught to say which he would be hurt to hear. To criticism on his poetry he must by this time be well used. I do not remember to have seen anything more hard toward him than a parody. I, at any rate, shall not be harsh. Indeed, he gives no scope for critical severity,— never offending, never attempting to rise so high as to "o'erleap itself and fall on the other" side, never ridiculous, never magniloquent, seldom magnificent. His finer touches come so gradually upon us, that we hardly feel ourselves to be in an element above our own. Evangeline, when she finds that Gabriel is not with his father-"Gone! Is Gabriel gone?"-hardly expresses to our feelings all the pathos of her love, because we have gradually come to live among pathetic utterances. He has never received all the praise due to him, but he has thus escaped invidious remark. He had crept up to our hearts before we had learned to think that he was mastering our judgment. In this way he has escaped all hardships of criticism, and he certainly will not receive a heavy measure of it from me. In personal contact with Longfellow, the stranger is apt to drop the poet in the gentleman, the distinguished man of letters in the uncommonly pleasant fellow whom he has encountered. Whether this is as it ought to be I will leave my readers to decide. I do not think that poets generally make themselves so cheap, or that distinguished men of letters do so. There is generally something which declares to you the fact that you are |