The provinces are covered with wires. Governors and captains consult
with each other by wire, in preference to a tardy exchange of written
correspondence. The people, too, appreciate the advantage of
communicating by a flash with distant members of their families,
and of settling questions of business at remote places without
stirring from their own doors. To have their thunder god bottled
up and brought down to be their courier was to them the wonder of
wonders; yet they have now become so accustomed to this startling
innovation, that they cease to marvel.
The wireless telegraph is also at work--a little manual, translated
by a native Christian, tells people how to use it.
Over forty years ago, when I exhibited the Morse system to the
astonished dignitaries of Peking, those old men, though heads of
departments, chuckled like children when, touching a button, they
heard a bell ring; or when wrapping a wire round their bodies,
they saw the lightning leap from point to point. "It's wonderful,"
they exclaimed, "but we can't use it in
[Page 205]
our country. The people would steal the wires." Electric bells
are now common appliances in the houses of Chinese who live in
foreign settlements. Electric trolleys are soon to be running at
Shanghai and Tientsin. Telephones, both private and public, are
a convenience much appreciated. Accustomed as the Chinese are to
the instantaneous transmission of thought and speech, they have
yet to see the _telodyne_--electricity as a transmitter of
force.
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