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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 44, 21 February 1881, Page 4

colors.' On of the victims of retrenchment in the New Zealand Telegraph Department sends the Auckland Star his first impressions of England : — il One of the first things that strikes you about London ie the narrowness of the streets in the city. If it was not for the underground rail, you would wonder how people could get along at all. Queen-street on a Saturday night is a fair sample of the all day long ihrong in every street of this huge city, only they haven't got a street anything like as wide. The underground rail is a great institution, only the fint thing to do is to buy a map and thoroughly study it. It is a double line with lots of {trMnhep, 'as trains; start from either end every four minute* at intermediate stations, you will see that there is a train either up or down every minule ; they only stop a bare half half minute, so you haven't much time to think whether you ought to get out. It is the most perfectly-worked line in the world. Last year over sixty million people'travelled on it without a fatal aocident." It relieves the Btreets a great deal. I went over the Central Telegraph office, which is a vast affair. la the operating room there were fifteen hundred people at work, and the din and clatter of the instruments was at first awful, but you bood get used to it. We, in New Zealand, thought 'a! lot about the duplex being used en our lines, which I find was in use here four years before adopted in the colonies, and now they are working quadruples with the greatest success, tbat,is sending four different messages Bimultane-, ously on the same wire. Unlike our Government, every facility i is given here to the prees. I will send some day a letter on the working of the English system, There is also a pneumetic delivery to different parts, th 3 greatest length being four miles. There is alao, to facilitate press telegrtms, a large punching staff for the automatic system, by which means telegrams can be sent at the rate of twelve hundred words a minute with unerring accuracy, and co great i 3 the perfection of the quadruples that it is even used at this high rate of Bpoed. Preece, the head of this department, is just the man for the place, and seems determined to keep up with (he times. A City luminary has lately made an estimate of the gross annual, income of the London charities, and put? it down at 4^ williona sterling.