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The telegraph on this line served, on the first of Januarv, 1845, to apprehend the murderer Tawell, who had come from London to Slough purposely to poison Sarah Hart, and had immediately after returned by the railway train to the capital. This circumstance brought the telegraph at once, all over Great Britain, into great repute and demand.
In the autumn of that year, the Electric Telegraph Company in London was begun to be established.
Mr. Cooke and Professor Wheatstone well deserve thanks for having given the example in applying the electric telegraph to practical use for society at large. I allow myself here to state my feelings of regret, that Baron Schilling did not live to get informed of this application; he died just before it began to take place.
In America, the first telegraph line, from Washington to Baltimore, was completed in 1844. On the 24th of March in that year, the first short sentence of four words was telegraphed along it. This sentence, in consequence of an invitation from Morse, was dictated by the daughter of his friend, the chief at the Patent Office, Mr. Ellsworth.[1] I found this first American original
- ↑ This Mr. Ellsworth had in May, 1840, allowed himself to return to Morse his original specification, sent in April, 1838, before his
