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

ORGANIZATION FOR DIGGING T1IE HOLES. 671
winter season, the water might freeze, and in that case the hole
is filled with ice, which is as difficult to remove as to dig a new
hole. In 1847, I had dug some forty miles of holes, and a rain
fell, filling many of them with water; cold weather followed,
and the water was solidly frozen in each hole. In that case, I
found it less expensive to have new holes dug, and the old ones
were abandoned. But the loss of the first holes was not all
that was sustained; there was a more serious consequence.
After warm weather had softened the ice, a traveller's horse
stepped into one of the holes and broke his leg. The case was
brought before a legal tribunal; the traveller demanding damages. The telegraph company pleaded that it was not responsible, as the digging' of the holes was necessary in the construction of the line authorized by the act of the legislature; and,
besides, the holes were within the limits belonging to the road
company. The tribunal held that the company was not liable,
as the digging of the holes and the erection of the poles had
been given under contract to other parties. Action was then
brought by the traveller against the road company, and the tribunal decided that the law required the company to keep in good
order a travelling way of a given number of feet wide. The
telegraph hole was not in that way, but was some feet from it,
and as the traveller had departed from the proper and common
highway, the road company was not at fault. From these facts,
it will be seen that the law fully protects the telegraph and
the road companies; but there may be abuses of this privilege,
and abuses of all kinds should be most studiously avoided.
Notwithstanding the law cannot give the traveller any damage
for the loss of his horse, I have always found it best to soften
the losses, by paying something, thereby voluntarily sharing in
the misfortune. This amelioration begets friends, and tranquillizes even the most vicious and revengeful heart. The world
must be taken and considered as it is, and not as it ought to be.
Justice would not require the telegraph to pay for the loss of
the horse; but man's depravity often impels him to deeds of
wrong. In the dark hour of night, revenge might be satisfied
by cutting the wire, and forcing upon the company a loss
greater than the value of the horse. Providence, in the end,
however, brings about a retribution, as an atonement for the
offelnded law; this atonement, some telegraphers might say,
reaches not the thing ponderable.
In America, it is too often the case, that when a man feels
that the law hbas not sustained his imagined rights, commensurate with an excited conviction, he seeks revenge through a
more clandestine course, by the execution of some personal in