THE LATEST TELEGRAPHIC FEAT.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 984, 2 July 1872, Page 3

THE LATEST TELEGRAPHIC FEAT.

A novel experiment in telegraphic reporting was made in connection with the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. In order to transmit a description ot the race as it was rowed, arrangements were made by the proprietor of the ' Central News' to pay out a cable from one of the steamers which followed the racing boats. Permission to place the cable and pay it out from the Cambridge steamboat was readily accorded by Mr Goldie. There is no novelty in telegraphing through cables as they are being paid out, but there is no precedent for performing such a work at the pace of racing boat?. Moreover, whatever happened to the cable, a stoppage to the boat during the race was impossible, and therefore the most perfect arrangements were necessary to obtain success, The arrangements, so far as the cable was concerned, were carried out by the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, and the officers of the Postal Telegraphs gave every assistance in the use of land wire and the distribution of the intelligence. The difficulties of the work were much increased by the fact that the whole of the final arrangements and reporting had to be done in the midst of an unusually severe snowstorm ; but, in spite of this difficulty, all the leading facts connected with the race, including the vpryiug positions of the crews and the times at which they reached well-known points, were telegraphed before the race was concluded.- By this means it became passible to transmit throughout the kingdom, and to place before readers hundreds of miles distant, more information respecting the race than was known to the spectators on the banks of the Thames.