The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph Part 22

A few words on the after years of this busy life, and I have done. These years brought a rich reward for all the sacrifices of the past. The first feeling was one of infinite relief that at last the victory was won. The terrible strain was taken off, and to him who had borne it so long, the change to the quiet of his own happy home was inexpressibly grateful after his many and long separations. He was now in his own country and under his own roof, but with a name that was known on both sides of the sea. The complete success of the Atlantic Telegraph had given him an immense reputation at home and abroad. It seemed as if the struggles of life were all over, leaving only its honors to be enjoyed.

What more could he ask to make life worth living than the respect of his countrymen for his courage, energy and perseverance, and a name honored all over the civilized world as one of the world's benefactors?

The practical results of the cable were even greater than he had dared to antic.i.p.ate. In the s.p.a.ce of a few months it wrought a commercial revolution in America. It was a new sensation to have the Old World brought so near, that it entered into one's daily life. Every morning, as Mr. Field went to his office, he found laid on his desk at nine o'clock the quotations on the Royal Exchange at twelve! Lombard Street and Wall Street talked with each other as two neighbors across the way.

This soon made an end of the tribe of speculators who calculated on the fact that n.o.body knew at a particular moment the state of the market on the other side of the sea, an universal ignorance by which they profited by getting the earliest advices. But now everybody got them as soon as they, for the news came with the rising of each day's sun, and the occupation of a cla.s.s that did much to demoralize trade on both sides of the ocean was gone.

The same restoration of order was seen in the business of importations, which had been hitherto almost a matter of guess-work. A merchant who wished to buy silks in Lyons, sent out his orders months in advance, and of course somewhat at random, not knowing how the market might turn, so that when the costly fabrics arrived, he might find that he had ordered too many or too few. A China merchant sent his ship round the world for a cargo of tea, which returned after a year's absence, bringing not enough to supply the public demand, leaving him in vexation at the thought of what he might have made, "if he had known," or, what was still worse, bringing twice too much, in which case the unsold half remained on his hands. This was a risk against which he had to be insured, as much as against fire or shipwreck. And the only insurance he could have was to take reprisals by an increased charge on his unfortunate customers.

This double risk was now greatly reduced, if not entirely removed. The merchant need no longer send out orders a year beforehand, nor order a whole ship-load of tea when he needed only a hundred chests, since he could telegraph to his agent for what he wanted and no more. With this opportunity for getting the latest intelligence, the element of uncertainty was eliminated, and the importer no longer did business at a venture. Buying from time to time, so as to take advantage of low markets, he was able to buy cheaper, and of course to sell cheaper. It would be a curious study to trace the effect of the cable upon the prices of all foreign goods. A New York merchant, who has been himself an importer for forty years, tells me that the saving to the American people cannot be less than many millions every year.

But the slender cord beneath the sea had finer uses than to be a reporter of markets, giving quotations of prices to counting rooms and banking houses; it was a link between hearts and homes on opposite sides of the ocean, bearing messages of life and death, of joy and sorrow, of hopes and fears. One of its happiest uses was the relief of anxiety. A ship sailed for England with hundreds of pa.s.sengers, but did not arrive at her destination on the appointed day. Instantly a thousand hearts were tortured with fear, lest their loved ones had gone to the bottom of the sea, when the cable reported that the delay was due simply to an accident to her machinery, that would keep her back for a day or two, but that the good ship was safe with all on board. What arithmetic can compute the value of a single message that relieves so much anguish?

Thus the submarine telegraph stretched out its long arms under the sea, to lay a friendly hand on two peoples, and give a.s.surance to both.

Such a triumph of commercial enterprise was enough to satisfy the pride and ambition of any man; but it was not in Mr. Field's nature to rest content with any success, however great, and he was always reaching out for some new undertaking to give scope to his restless activity. Such an opportunity he found in giving rapid transit to New York, a city which, though it has one of the finest harbors in the world, with approaches from the sea that afford every possible advantage for commerce, is not so favorably situated landward, as it is built on a long and narrow island, between two broad rivers, which confine it on either side, so that it is stretched out to such distances that it is no easy matter to pa.s.s from one end to the other. From the Battery to the Harlem river is ten miles, so that working men, who lived so far away, were an hour or more in getting from their homes to their place of work, and as long in getting back again, a large inroad upon their hours of rest or domestic comfort. The only means of transportation was by street cars, which moved slowly, and in winter, whenever the streets were blocked with snow, were crowded to suffocation, and dragged at a snail's pace to the upper end of the island.

This was the great barrier to the city's growth, and must be removed if it was not to be stunted and dwarfed by these limitations. To furnish some relief, an elevated railroad, built on stilts, had been attempted on a small scale, but soon broke down, when Mr. Field bought the control of the whole concern, and took it in his own strong arms. It was no easy matter to galvanize it into life, for though it had a charter, it was still obstructed in the legislature, and in the courts, so that it was a long time before he could get full possession. But once master of the situation, he undertook the work on a grand scale, and pushed it with such vigor that in less than two years the road was in operation. It has since been extended with the public demand, until now (in 1892) there are thirty-six miles of road, over which the trains sweep incessantly from the bay to the river, and from the river to the bay.

The structures are not indeed the most graceful in the world, as they bestride the long avenues of the city. But these tall iron pillars, that line our streets for miles, are the long legs of civilization, and have a somewhat imposing effect as they stretch away into the distance, with the fire-drawn cars flying swiftly over them. Dean Stanley glorified them by a historical parallel which could occur only to one full of the wonders of ancient times, that started into life under the touch of his imagination. Going with him one day on an excursion, he stepped briskly (for his frame was so light as to offer little impediment to motion), and as he mounted the long stairway, and stood on the platform above the crowded street below, he exclaimed, "This is Babylonian! Four chariots driving abreast on the walls of the city!"

But Babylonian or American, the success was enormous. As soon as the public became familiar with these elevated roads, and felt that they were safe as well as swift, the people swarmed upon them, in numbers constantly increasing, till now they carry over seven hundred thousand pa.s.sengers a day! On the day of the Columbus celebration (October 12th) it was a million and seventy-five thousand! Indeed, if we are not staggered by numbers, we may sum up the whole in the amazing statement demonstrated by figures, that since these roads were opened, they have carried over eighteen hundred millions of pa.s.sengers, more than the whole population of the globe!

Nor should it be forgotten that, not only is the facility they afford the greatest, but the fares the lowest, for, thanks to Mr. Field, they were reduced years ago to five cents at all hours and for the longest distance, the ten miles from the Battery to the Harlem river.

The effect was immediate in the appreciation of real estate in the city, the a.s.sessed value of which has already advanced by the sum of five hundred millions of dollars! The increased taxation is enough to pay for all the cost, while as a relief to the congested parts of the city, and as furnishing a means for that easy circulation, which is as necessary to a great city as a free circulation of the blood is to the human body, it is not too much to say that the construction of the elevated railroads is the greatest material benefit that has ever been conferred on the city of New York.

But busy as Mr. Field was through all these years, much of his life was spent abroad. He had interests on both sides of the Atlantic, but stronger than his interests were his friendships to attract him across the sea. He had come to feel as much at home in England as in his own country: and his visits were so frequent that his sudden appearances and disappearances were a subject of amused comment to his English friends.

When Dean Stanley was in America, a reception was given to him at the Century Club, where in a very happy address, he referred to the ties between the two countries, among which was "the wonderful cable, on which it is popularly believed in England, that my friend and host, Mr.

Cyrus Field, pa.s.ses his mysterious existence, appearing and reappearing at one and the same moment in London and in New York!"

As Mr. Field was thus brought near to his English friends, they in turn were brought near to him, for as no man in America was better known abroad, no house received more foreign guests, many of whom he had not met before, but who brought letters to him, and there was no end to his hospitality. John Bright he could not persuade to cross the sea; but he had the pleasure to welcome his co-laborer in the repeal of the Corn-laws, Richard Cobden. The house in Gramercy Park became famous for its receptions. Many will recall that given to the Marquis of Ripon and the other High Commissioners, who came a year or two after the war, as representatives of the British government, and negotiated at Washington the treaty which settled the Alabama claims; and those to Dean Stanley and Archdeacon Farrar; and to many others. If the strangers happened to arrive in the summer time, they were entertained at his beautiful country seat on the Hudson, to which he had given the name of "Ardsley,"

from the seat of John Field the astronomer, who lived in the West Riding of Yorkshire more than three centuries ago, and introduced the Copernican astronomy into England, and from whom the family are descended.

In some cases when he went abroad, England was but the starting point for excursions on the Continent, in which he visited almost every European country. In 1874, in company with two well-known Americans, Bayard Taylor and Murat Halstead, he made a voyage to Iceland, as ten years before he had been to Egypt, as a delegate from the New York Chamber of Commerce, to witness the opening of the Suez Ca.n.a.l.

In 1880-81 he took a still longer flight around the world. Waiting till after the Presidential election, that he might cast his vote for his friend General Garfield, the very next day he left with his wife in a special car for San Francisco, where after a few days, they took ship for j.a.pan, from which they pa.s.sed through the Inland Sea to Shanghai, and from China to Singapore, and up the Bay of Bengal to Calcutta, where he found the same English n.o.bleman whom he had entertained in New York, the Marquis of Ripon, Governor-General of India. Going up the country, the travellers visited Agra and Delhi, where the wonders of architecture showed the magnificence of the old Mogul Empire. The whole journey was one of infinite pleasure and instruction, and they were never weary of talking of the strange manners and customs of the people of Asia.

When they returned to America, General Garfield was President of the United States, who, though a Western man by birth, had been educated in New England, at Williams College in Ma.s.sachusetts, where he had been graduated twenty-five years before, and which he had a desire to revisit; and it was arranged that he should leave Washington in the morning of July 2d, with as many of his cabinet as could be spared from the seat of government, and come on to New York and all be entertained at "Ardsley," and the next day proceed up the Hudson and across the country to Williamstown; a programme which was interrupted by the terrible news that on arriving at the station in Washington he had been shot, an event that instantly recalled the a.s.sa.s.sination of Lincoln. At once there rose a cry of horror from one end of the land to the other, and for weeks the whole country was watching by the bedside of the ill.u.s.trious sufferer.

Of course, the sympathy for the wife and children was universal, but Mr.

Field was the first to give this sympathy a practical direction. With his quick eye he saw the condition in which they would be left by the death of the President, as for them the law makes no provision. His salary stops at the very day and hour that he ceases to live, nor is there a pension settled upon his family, nor can anything be paid from the national treasury except by special act of Congress. In this extremity it occurred to Mr. Field that what the Government failed to do should be made up by private generosity; and even before General Garfield's death he started a subscription, heading it with five thousand dollars, and taking it in person to his rich friends. The self imposed task occupied him several months, in which he raised a fund of over three hundred and sixty thousand dollars, which was put into United States four per cent. bonds, yielding an interest of over twelve thousand dollars a year, to be paid quarterly during the life of Mrs.

Garfield, and then to go to her children. It was a great satisfaction to have thus provided for those who bore the name of a President of the United States, so that they should be able to live in the comfort and dignity that befitted the family of one who had occupied the most exalted station in the government.

Not content with this, Mr. Field went to Washington, and urged upon his friends in Congress, and finally succeeded in getting pa.s.sed, a bill giving to the widows of all Presidents a pension of $5,000, which, it added to his gratification to know, would apply to the venerable Mrs.

Polk: and that still goes, and will go during her lifetime, to the wife of General Grant, as the slight expression of a nation's grat.i.tude.

Next to the interest he felt in his own country, his heart was in England. While he was an intense American, and perhaps, for that very reason, because he was an American, he claimed kindred with the people from whom we are not only descended, but have received such an inheritance of glory. In his own words: "America, with all her greatness, has come out of the loins of England." When he was in India he was proud of the mighty English race that from its little island governed an empire of two hundred and fifty millions on the other side of the globe. Some might have said that he inherited no small portion of its unconquerable spirit.

And not only did he admire Old England, but he loved Englishmen. He knew all that was said of English reserve and English pride, but long familiarity had taught him that underneath this cold exterior were many of the n.o.blest qualities--courage, heroism and fidelity--so that it had become a part of his creed that an Englishman, when once you have won his confidence, will go farther and fight harder for a friend or for a cause than any other man on the face of the earth. Among such a people Mr. Field was proud to number many of his dearest friends.

A touching proof of their regard for him was given but a few months before his death. On the 2d of December, 1890, he and his wife celebrated their golden wedding. For fifty years they had travelled on the course of life together. Children and grandchildren had been born to them, so that at the close of half a century a large and happy family was gathered round those to whom they looked up with the tenderest affection.

Among the congratulations of that day was a large scroll, signed by Mr.

Gladstone, the Duke of Argyll, Lord Monck, and some eighty others whose names are widely known. It was a graceful tribute from England to a son of America, who had done perhaps more than any other living man to bring the two countries and the two peoples together.

That golden wedding was the fit coronation of a life of wonderful activity, and all the kindred who met under that roof were grateful for the past, and full of hopes for the future.

But G.o.d's ways are not as our ways. Before many months the clouds began to gather. The next summer, when the family were all at their country home, sickness cast its shadow over their dwelling, which grew more grave till November 23d, when the leaves were falling from the trees before their door, the mother of this large household breathed her last.

Two months later the eldest daughter, who was also the eldest child of the family, followed. These repeated blows fell heavy on the affectionate heart of the bereaved husband and father, and when to these were added other sorrows still, it seemed as if the clouds were piled one upon another till they darkened all the horizon. The winter was a gloomy one, from its loneliness and its many causes of sadness. But with the returning spring the gra.s.s grew green again, and the trees put forth their leaves, and it seemed as if the new life of nature must put life into the heart of man: and when he removed to the country, and began to drive about as of old among the familiar haunts, the beautiful scenery for a time delighted his eye, and the change of air brought a touch of the old spirit, as if perchance his strength were about to return. But it was only a momentary flush, and he soon took to his room, where, as he looked from his windows, and saw the sun going down over the hills beyond the Hudson, it could only remind him that for him the sun of life was about to set forever. Fair was the world without but desolate was the home within, since she who had made its brightness was gone; and here on the 12th of July 1892, the end came.

It was a beautiful morning, and the windows were open, through which the soft summer air floated into the chamber of death, where his three brothers, all that were left of his father's family, with those of his own household, were round his bed, watching the dear pale face. Thus surrounded and beloved to the last, he ceased to breathe.

Two days later a large company from the country round and from the city gathered at Ardsley, and stood on the lawn and the slopes that lead up to the n.o.ble trees that shade the dwelling, as Bishop Potter read the blessed words, "I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."

The next day we bore him away from his home, and from the great city where he had pa.s.sed his busy life, back to the quiet valley where he was born, and laid him down in the shadow of the encircling hills.[A] "Bury me there," he had said, "by the side of my beloved wife and by my father and mother." The earth closed over him, and all his struggles and his sorrows were buried in the grave.

The man is gone, but the work remains, a work that multiplies itself, for when once a leader and explorer had opened the way, others were swift to follow, so that now there are no less than ten cables stretched across the Atlantic, and every hour of day or night, "when men wake and when they sleep" (for even in the hours of silence the heart is still beating, only a little more slowly), the pulse of life is kept moving to and fro. The morning news comes after a night's repose, and we are wakened gently to the new day that has dawned upon the world. That which serves to such an end; which is a connecting link between countries and races of men; is not a mere material thing, an iron chain, lying cold and dead in the icy depths of the Atlantic. It is a living, fleshly bond between severed portions of the human family, thrilling with life, along which every human impulse runs swift as the current in human veins, and will run for ever. Free intercourse between nations, as between individuals, leads to mutual kindly offices, that make those who at once give and receive, feel that they are not only neighbors but friends.

Hence the "mission" of submarine telegraphy is to be the minister of peace. The first message across the deep was "Glory to G.o.d in the highest; peace on earth, good will to men," and the first news it brought was that of peace in China. And when again the sea had found a tongue, its first glad intelligence was that the great war between Austria and Prussia was ended. Thus at its very birth was this new messenger baptized in the name of Peace, and consecrated to a service worthy of its name.

"Man marks the earth with ruin: his control Stops with the sh.o.r.e: upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed."

Not all! The wrath of man adds to the fury of the elements. To strew the sea with wrecks is the work of lightning and tempest: man's n.o.bler office is to restore what nature may destroy.

It was the chief desire of him who has gone to the grave, that the link which unites England and America might bind the countries that he loved the most in indissoluble union. Though the two nations dwell apart, on opposite sh.o.r.es of the same great and wide sea, they are now brought almost within the sound of each other's voice and the touch of each other's hand: they can look into each other's eyes, and exchange their morning and evening congratulations with the rising and setting of each day's sun. May the instrument through which they look and speak never startle them with rude alarms, but continue to whisper peace in tones as gentle as the murmur of the sea, as long as the winds blow and the waters roll.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] The Berkshire Hills, Stockbridge, Ma.s.sachusetts.

APPENDIX.

INSTRUMENTS FOR SIGNALLING ACROSS THE ATLANTIC OCEAN.

If the project of an Atlantic Telegraph be justly ascribed to the daring of an American, and its success to his courage and perseverance through years of struggle and disappointment; the solution of the scientific problem involved in it, is due to the genius of a Scotchman, whom the writer of this volume first knew (and it is a pleasant memory to have known such a man in the beginning of his splendid career) as Professor Thomson of the University of Glasgow, where his father had been professor before him, whom the son succeeded in the Department of Physics, which included the then little known science of Electricity, to which the young professor devoted himself with all the eagerness of scientific genius. The project of a telegraph across the ocean suggested new problems and new difficulties, to which he applied himself with characteristic ardor, the result of which is here given. When the second expedition of the Great Eastern (in 1866) was successful, the British Government at once recognized his eminent services; and the name of Sir William Thomson has since been recognized, among the leaders in scientific discovery, not only in England but all over the scientific world. The government has recently added a further dignity in making him a peer of the realm, an honor hitherto reserved generally for the leaders of armies, like Wellington. To confer it on a simple professor shows an advance of civilization in the respect paid to intellectual greatness. In conferring such a t.i.tle, the government does not honor the man more than it honors itself. It is to the glory of England that such an honor should be paid to science in the person of Lord Kelvin, as was paid to literature in the person of Lord Tennyson.

The following, taken in substance from an English scientific review, will indicate briefly, but with sufficient clearness, the problem to be solved in signalling to great distances under the sea, and the instruments by which this is accomplished:--

The speed of signalling through a submarine cable depends upon its electrostatic capacity, which, unless it be very small, gives rise to "r.e.t.a.r.dation."

In the Proceedings of the Royal Society for 1855, Sir William Thomson showed how the effect at the distant end of a cable, caused by the application of a battery at one end, could be calculated and represented graphically in what is called the "curve of arrival." After contact is first made at the sending end between the cable and one pole of the battery (the other pole being to earth), a certain interval of time elapses before any effect is felt at the distant end. This interval of time is denoted by the letter _a_. After the interval of time _a_ has pa.s.sed, a current begins to issue from the cable at the receiving end, and increases in strength very rapidly. After a further interval of 4_a_ or after a period of 5_a_ from the first application of the battery, it attains about half its maximum strength, and there is very little sensible increase in strength after a time equal to 10_a_ has elapsed.

The curve of arrival is drawn by taking distances along O X to represent intervals of time, and distances along O Y to represent strengths of current. Curve No. I. shows the gradual increase in strength of the received current at one end of a cable when the battery is applied to and kept in contact with the other end. For a distance corresponding to the interval of time _a_, the curve does not sensibly deviate from the straight line O X; in other words, no effect is observable at the receiving end during this time.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

If now, instead of being continuously applied to the battery at the sending end, the cable had been applied to it during a short interval of time, and then disconnected from the battery and connected to earth, the curve of arrival would be of the form shown by curve No. II. Curve No.

II. shows the effect of applying the battery during a length of time equal to 4_a_, and then putting the cable to earth. It will be seen that a current gradually diminishing in strength continues to flow out of the cable at the distant end for a considerable time after the battery has been disconnected. This continued discharge is what gives rise to the difficulty experienced in reading the signals sent through long cables.