The telegraph manual: a complete history and description of the semaphoric, electric and magnetic telegraphs of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, ancient and modern.

770 RECEIVING AND TRANSMITTING DISPATCHES.
10th. Any one accidentally and involuntarily interrupting
the correspondence of the electric telegraph, or injuring in any
way the lines or apparatus, is liable to a fine of from 16 to
300 francs.
11th. Any one willfully causing an interruption by injuring
the lines or apparatus, is punishable by imprisonment from
three months to two years, and a fine of 100 to 1,000 francs.
Any one who shall make a forcible intrusion into an office, or
shall use violence or menaces to signalers, or interfere with
the repairs of the line, during periods of insurrectionary
movements, is subject to a fine of 1,000 to 5,000 francs.
12th. Written statements by telegraph officers, authenticated
by police or magisterial authorities, to be received as evidence
in all complaints; also rules are given for civil proceedings in
all cases of crimes, contraventions and recovery of damages.
13th. It is ordered, by a subsequent decree, that all telegraphic dispatches, duly authenticated, are to be regarded as
official and authoritative, and to have all the force and effect
of public documents, signed by the functionaries at the distant
station from whom the telegraph dispatch proceeds.
The telegraph lines in France are nearly all owned and
managed by the government. The English Submarine Company, however, is a private enterprise, and works from Paris,
through Calais, to the United Kingdoms. There is also another
company organized under permission of the imperial government, for the extension of the lines into the French colonies ot
Africa. This association is called the Mediterranean Electric
Telegraph Company, and it has constructed its line from Spezzia, in Sardinia, across Corsica, Sardinia, and the Mediterranean
Sea, to Bone, in Africa; the governments of France and Sardinia guaranteeing a fixed percentage on a given amount of its
capital stock. The lines just mentioned have a separate office
in the city of Paris, and receive and send their own dispatches.
Messages for these lines, however, can be left at the government
stations.
The following rules of regulation are for the government of
the respective lines o-,yrked by the French government:
REGULATIONS ON RfI'.EiV'ING AND TRANSMITTING DISPATCHES.
1. Every message received at an office is to be numbered in the order
of its reception, commencing January 1st, and continuing thereafter in
regular order through the year.
2. The number of the message, and the sum received, are to be transcribed on a check-book containing the following forms: