Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Telegraphy, Government, Politics, Anaesthesia, Magic

    Impressed by the feat of the electric telegraph transmitting the 'President's Message' from 'one corner of America to the other', an accomplishment that took some thirty-six hours to complete. However, thinks that a far better test of the telegraph's powers would be to submit the invention to the ordeal of Thomas C Anstey's notoriously long speeches, an ordeal which will require the telegraph to take 'ether or chloroform, together with the magical aid of Robert Houdin'.