TELEGRAPHIC NUISANCES.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 934, 2 March 1872, Page 3

TELEGRAPHIC NUISANCES.

The Electric Telegraph has not proved itself an unmixed blessing. As the " Daily Telegraph " has it, it has killed privacy as effectually, as Michelet says, as tobacco has killed the kiss. The same journal goes on to remark that everybody now-a-days lives and moves in the glare of a pitiless publicity. Before it was only given to the kings of France to pay the penalty of notoriety, and say their prayers, and take their emetics in public: but now since Jenkins has got hold of the wires, nothing and nobody is too insignificant to be made the object of his atteution. A miner breaks his leg at Keefton, Signor Cagli pulls a man's nose in Dunedin, the carriage of the Minister for Public Works nearly upsets, the editor of the "Colonist" treats his ■constituents to a dissertation upon the higher education of women, some obscure actor draws a " crowded house " in a miserable third rate village, a local magnate dies of inanition, or a surfeit I of Hennessy's brandy, and off rushes i the excited Jenkins to telegraph j the interesting information to head S quarters, that it may be distributed l from end to end of the colony. It | would appear that the newly-appointed | officials, like children with a new toy, | take an especial delight in the exer- | .cise of a new privilege of official wire- ! pulling. Between July, 1870, and : Jane, IS7I, the General Government telegrams had increased from 500 per month to nearly 1000. Several departments had increased upwards of 100 per cent.; even the cost of Go- ■ : vernment shipping telegrams, whrc'i i are supplied exclusively to the Govern - I went Offices in Wellington, was upwards of £9OO. Press and private telegrams have to i yield precedence to official telegrams, whether trivial or important, for no distinction is made. The entire popution of a town may be rendered homeless and destitute, and the colony may he kept in ignorance of the fact for seven hours, because some Minister or official quidnunc desires to acquaint another billet-holder with the fact that he has had prawns for tea which have disagreed with him, or because Mr Millar, E.S.A., has had one of the details of his survey of the Waitaki River called in question, and is anxious and is allowed to establish his reputation for " scrupulous nicety" by keeping the wires between Wellington and Dunedin eccuj/Isd while he transmits exculpatory twaddle, which would j occupy half a column of a newspaper, I could any newspaper in the colony be j found weak enough to publish it. This latter circumstance has positively I occurred, and the telegram may be | found upon page 12 of D. No. 6 C, j a parliamentary paper upon railway I bridges. "While these abuses of the telegraph I wire are permitted, it is perhaps unI fair to criticise too severely any agency [formed for the purpose of supplying [telegraphic news to the Press. But while we are of opinion that a thorouh revision of present system of supplying interprovincial telegrams is necessary, we fail to see how any effectual and radical reform can be carried out until a ckeck is placed upon the wholesale system of •Government misuse of the wires now in vogue.—" Wellington Post."