TELEGRAPHY CHINA.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 673, 30 May 1914, Page 7

TELEGRAPHY CHINA.

The Chinese written language baß several hundred thousand different characters. None of thet.e can be spoiled su E3 to indicate accurately how they are pronuonced. Besides there are hundreds of ways of pro» nouncing each character as there are hundreds of spoken dialects in China, although the hook language is the same throughout the country. How is it possible to send a telegram in such a country snd in su~h a language? The difficulties have been overcome, and it is really lesa trouble, and les3 expense to send a message in Chinese than in English There is in every Chinese telegraph ollico a special dictionary, or catalogue, or code book, whatever you may chooss to call it, in which tho characters are numbered from one on up, A total numher of 9999 may be catalogued under the present system. A certain number of blank spaces have been reserved to add special characters from time to time. The ssnder of the telegram simply writes his message in the usual way. The operator will probably know the numbers of moat of the characters. If|'not he can readily find them in the catalogue. For each character he ssnda five Morse signal?, e.g., E9l<3, 0013, 0414, - which represents the characters "Yuan Shi Kai" It will at once appear that only ten different signals are ueeied for telegraphing 9999 different charcters in Chinese. By splitting up an unusual character into ita common parts it may be easily sent. Private codes are readily prepared with this system. Already the chief cities of the country, and many small places have telegraph offices. It is hoped that under the republican form of government the whole service will be extended, improved, and made less expensive. In addition to the ordinary wira service, China now has several powerful wireless stations, and arrangements are being made to cover the country with them.