ANGLO-AMERICAN TELEGRAPH COMPANY (LIMITED).

Southland Times, Issue 690, 1 July 1867, Page 3

ANGLO-AMERICAN TELEGRAPH COMPANY (LIMITED).

The report of the directors was submitted to the general meeting on the 4th February, 1867, and sets forth that the company was constituted on the 2nd of March, 1866, with an authorised capital of £600,000. The contract entered into by the directors with the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company was for a payment of £500,000, with further payments of .£IOO,OOO contingent 1 on the successful completion of the cable of 1866, and of £137,140 in ordinary shares of the Atlantic Telegraph Company contingent on the recovery and completion of the cable of 1865, the contractors engaging to manufacture and use their best efforts to lay the cable of 1866. and to recover and complete that of 1565, then broken and very gener.iily thought to be irrecoverably lost. Having detailed the successful operations tamed on between 30th June and Bth September, 1866, the report proceeds to say that the power of the cable to transmit intelligence has far exceeded the most sanguine anticipation. In the prospectus it was assumed, for the purpose of estimating the probable earnings, at from twenty-five to forty letters per minute could be transmitted, whereas, practically, one hundred letters have passed through each cable in" a single minute. This result has been obtained without resorting to appliances which might be availed of if necessary. At present the capacity of the cable is limited by the power of the human eye . and brain to follow and read the transmitted signs. Arrangemente are stated to have been concluded with the Electric and Magnetic Telegraph Companies by which separate and independent wires between Valentia and London will be devoted exclusively to Atlantic business, and be worked by the staff of this company. Messages will pass without repetition, and instantaneously between London and Valentia, and unity of management and undivided responsibility between London and Newfoundland will be secured. The profits of the company since the opening of the line, on the 28th J uly, having been at a rate greater than 25 per cenr. per annum on the capital of the company, the directors have issued warrants, payable on and after the 29th of January, for a dividend on account of £1 per share, or 10 per cent, on the subscribed capital. In the accounts to the 31st December, as audited and published, no credit is taken for the amounts due to, but not received by, this company for messages transmitted prior to that date ; the amount is now ascertained to be £14,066, which, added to that published in the accounts, increases the net earnings from £67,814. to £81,880 for the five months,