Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 February 1881 — Cheap Telegraphy by Water. [ARTICLE]

Cheap Telegraphy by Water.

The public will be pleased to learn, from Mr. Jay Gould himself that the object of the late telegraph eonsoHda-* tion was the carrying oht of the longcherished plan of: that benevolent, public-spirited gentleman for an efficient system of cheap telegraphy on a grand scale, both by sea and by laild. Mr. Gould has been lying awake nights for several months struggling with the problem of how to serve the public cheaply. He hit upon a plan, after having reduced himself pnVaially to a mere skeleton t and mentally, to the verge of insanity. The plan is not original. It consists in adding about twenty-five million dollars of water to the already heavily watered stock of the Western Union company! How paying dividends on this large amount of added water to the watered stock of the company is to make telegraphy cheap, Mr. Gould does not

explain. But he is very positive that the consolidation cannot be disturbed and that the watering process has been conducted legally. His bosom swells with pride when he considers how Judge Barret “sat down on” Rufus Hatch, as it were, affirming emphatically*that poor Rule is absolutely without relief except upon appeal to the legislative authority; and Mr. Gould chuckles quietly In view of the fact that he and Mr. Vanderbilt have more friends in the Legislature of the Empire State than Hatch has. But Mr. Gould dosn’t care for the vaporing -f MVHatcR, because he. knows that time will demonstrate the purity .of his motives. He proposes “gradually and systematically to cheapen” rates of telegraphy. “Why, bless your soul, sir,” says Mr. Gould, “I went into it with this in view, and I shall certainly use my constant effort ami all my influence to make this policy and this purpose successful.” What can the public ask for beyond the promise of Mr. Gould? Mr. Gould has shown his generosity and forbearance by limiting his stock-watering operation to $25,000,000. He ■ might just as well have watered the Western Union to the tune of a round hundred millions! The case of Mr. Gould is analogous to that of the robber who considerately allowed his victim to retire with his trousers dn account, as he said, of the inclemency of the weather. ■ ' * . ; ' ’ ft is kind in Mr. Gould to explain. Why should he condescend to discuss the subject with a public incapable of comprehending the vastness of his designs? Why, especially when he insists that everything has been done legally and in order, and that what has been done is none of the public’s business? It is good of Mr. Gould to explain that he is going to make New York city the centre of telegraphy for the universe. This circumstance will be very consoling to the customer who pays two or three prices for the service he requires. It is lieautiful to hear Mr. Gould speak familiarly of China, Japan, Oceanica, Australia, Russia, Alaska, Northern, Asia and Kamtchatka as way stations of the Western Union company. There is a peculiar appropriateness, however, in the extensive indulgence, so to speak, of the Western Union company in submarine telegraphy. L .The com-.' pany’s stock has been weil under wafer for years, and the late flood of twenty-five million dollars' worth will enable it to do a large business in ocean cables. Mr. Gould’s new system may be called cheap telegraphy by water—water in stocl^.— Chicago Tribune.