THE TELEGRAPH AND POST.

Evening Star, Issue 3043, 19 November 1872, Page 4

THE TELEGRAPH AND POST.

One remarkable fact in connection with the increase of telegraphy between different parts of the Colony, is the influence the telegraph is exercising on epistolary deuce. 'I he largest number of iuterprovincial letters forwarded in any one year was in Ihe year 1868 9, when 2,749,488 were posted for transmission within the Colony. In the previous year the number was only 1,938,578, so that in 1868-69 the increase was nearly fifty per cent, over that of 1867-68. It is curious to witness the fluctuations, the decline in the number of interprovincial letters, and the steady rise in the number of telegrams, thus : Percentage Year. Letters. Telegrams, of telegrams to letters. 1867- 1,938,578 .106,104 5i per 100 1868- 2,749,488 146,107 6| „ 1869- 2,374,060 J85.423 74 5 „ 1870- 2,026,94/ 312,874 13 1871- 2,418,021 416,707 17 Thus, from per cent, of letters in 1867-8, the-telegrams in 1871-2 rose to 17 per cent., the letters themselves having ranged from 1,938,000 in the first-named year, to 2,418,000 in 1871-2. This is equivalent to aa increase of fully one-fifth in the letters, a fact which still further swells the per-centage of the telegrams, as outstiipping the increase in the letters, indeed, the top figures in the letters reached in 1868-69 (2,750,000, in round numbers), shows such an increase on tlie previous yea/", while the succeeding year displays such marked falling off, the number being fully 375,000 less, while the telegrams show only 40,000 of an increase is difficult to explain without going into a consideration of the state of trade and commerce in that year, and even then there would be much of conjecture in the endeavor to elucidate the causts of the alteration.