to ask." The lawyers linked arms, and walked off together. A messenger was then sent to the railwaystation, who returned while the dinner was disappearing, and reported that Hudson was "not at home," having been suddenly summoned to London. So the host and his guest made themselves quite "at home' for the remainder of the day.

MARRIAGE BY TELEGRAPH.

THE American journals report a story, which, if true, throws into the shade all the feats that have been performed by our British telegraph. It appears that a daughter of one of the wealthiest merchants in Boston had formed an attachment for a handsome young man, who was a clerk in her father's counting-house; and she determined to marry him, although her father had previously promised her in marriage to another suitor. The father having heard of the attachment, feigned ignorance of it, but determined to cause it to be broken off. For this purpose he directed the young man to proceed to England by steamer, upon business; and the lover accordingly arrived, en route, in New York. In the meantime, the young lady had gained some knowledge of her father's intentions, and sent a message to that effect to her lover in New York, by the following expedient:-She took her place in the telegraphic office in Boston, and he did the same, with a magistrate, in the office in New York; and the exchange of consent being given by the electric flash, they were thus mar

ried by telegraph! Shortly after, the lady's father insisted upon her marriage with the gentleman he had selected for her; and judge of his amazement when she told him she was already the wife of Mr. B., then on his way to England; adding an explanation of the novel way in which the ceremony was performed. The merchant threatened to protest against the validity of the marriage, but did not carry his threat into execution.

PRINTING THE AMERICAN MESSAGES BY

TELEGRAPH.

PROFESSOR Morse states, as the result of improvements in his telegraph, that the President's Message, entire, on the subject of the war with Mexico, in 1847, was transmitted, with perfect accuracy, at the rate of 99 letters per minute. His skilful operators in Washington and Baltimore printed these characters at the rate of 98, 101, 111, and one of them actually printed 117 letters per minute. He must be an expert penman who can write legibly more than 100 letters per minute; consequently, this mode of communication equals, or nearly equals, the most expeditious mode of recording thought. By Jacob Brett's patent printing telegraph, the Message of the Governor to the Legislature of New York, delivered at Albany, on the 7th of January, 1847, and consisting of two columns and a half of solid nonpareil type, was published in the city of New York two hours after its delivery, having been transmitted by the telegraph, sentence by sentence.

THE CORN-MARKET AND THE ELECTRIC

TELEGRAPH.

IN wet seasons, the anxiety of the commercial classes to know how the agricultural districts were affected, has been set at rest by the telegraph. Thus, in 1847, we find inquiries were addressed from Manchester to the following places, and answers returned:-Normanton, fine; Derby, very dull; York, fine; Leeds, fine; Nottingham, no rain, but dull and cold; Rugby, rain; Lincoln, moderately fine; Newcastle-uponTyne, half-past twelve, fine; Scarborough, quarter to one, fine; Rochdale, ten o'clock, fair.

SPECULATING BY THE TELEGRAPH.

Ir was in the United States of America that the electric telegraph system was first adopted on a grand scale, by Professor Morse, in 1844, and there it is now already developed most extensively; so that it is scarcely doubted, that within a few years the whole of the populous parts of the United States will be covered with a net-work, like a spider's web, suspending its principal threads upon important points along the seaboard of the Atlantic on one side, and upon similar points along the Lake Frontier on the other.

The confidence in the efficiency of telegraphic communication has now become so complete, that the most important commercial transactions daily transpire by its means between correspondents several hundred

miles apart. Evidence of this has been afforded by a communication a few minutes old, being between a merchant in Toronto, in Canada, and his correspondent in New York, distant about 632 miles.

THE TELEGRAPH AND THE FAMINE.

WHEN the Hibernia steamer arrived in Boston, in January, 1847, with the news of the scarcity of wheat in Great Britain, Ireland, and other parts of Europe, and with heavy orders for agricultural produce, the farmers in the interior of the state of New York, informed of the turn of things by the electric telegraph, were thronging the streets of Albany with innumerable team-loads of grain, almost as quickly after the arrival of the steamer at Boston as the news of that arrival could ordinarily have reached them.

VELOCITY OF ELECTRICITY.

ONE of our most profound electricians is reported to have exclaimed, “Give me but an unlimited length of wire, with a small battery, and I will girdle the universe with a sentence in forty minutes." Yet this is no vain boast; for so rapid is the transition of the electric current along the lines of the telegraph wire, that, supposing it were possible to carry the wires eight times round the earth, it would but occupy one second of time.

The immense velocity of electricity makes it impos

sible to calculate it by direct observation; it would require to be many thousands of leagues long before the result could be expressed in the fractions of a second. Yet, Professor Wheatstone has devised some apparatus for this purpose, among which is a double metallic mirror, to which he has given a velocity of eight hundred revolutions in a second of time.

The Professor concludes, from his experiments with this apparatus, that the velocity of electricity through a copper wire, one-fifteenth of an inch thick, exceeds the velocity of light across the planetary spaces; that it is at least 288,000 miles per second! The Professor adds, that the light of electricity, in a state of great intensity, does not last the millionth part of a second; but that the eye is capable of distinctly perceiving objects which present themselves for this short space of time.

LONGITUDE BY THE TELEGRAPH.

THE electric telegraph has been made available for the determination of longitudes. As long ago as 1839, Professor Morse suggested some experiments to this effect; and in June, 1844, the difference of longitude between Washington and Baltimore was determined by electric means, under his direction. Two persons were stationed at these two towns, with clocks carefully adjusted to the respective spots, and a telegraphic signal gave the means of comparing the two clocks at a given instant. In 1847, the relative longitudes of New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, were deter