Alexandria Gazette

THE MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH.
The electric Telegraph is capable of doing the greatest service to mankind, or it may do the greatest harm. If in the hands of bad men, or in the hands of men not bad, but who consider it their property, with which they have a right to do as they please, speculations should be undertaken in breadstuffs, or the necessaries of life,—what injustice might be done to the growers of produce, or to the producers at large! Or, if it should undertake the perversion of intelligence, or its suppression, what injury it might work in other and numerous ways! Stock gambling, bread gambling, or political gambling of the most frightful kind, may be carried on secretly by it, and successfully, too, often in the hands of adroit men, whose fortunes might be made by single operations. All, indeed, must grant that these, the perversions of its powers, may be monstrous, and that, therefore, it is an engine of mischief, as well as of good, that, like powder or the steam engine, ought to be under the control of law.
The possession of this great instrument of Thought and News, ought, then, as it seems to us, to be where we have, by the Constitution, intrusted the transmission of letters and newspapers, viz, in the Post Office Department. Congress should by general law, protect it and guard it in all the States. In time of war, or of domestic peril, it especially is necessary to the War and Navy Departments, or to the Executive power In time of peace, even, it is the proper medium through which all the heads of departments should communicate with their subordinates in the Custom Houses, Post Offices, &c. &c. But, surely, while standing as it is, isolated from the people, and independent of the people, capable of vast mischief, and unpunishable therefor, it should not be intrusted with high corporate powers, or be protected by law beyond any other property. In our admiration of the discovery, and our enthusiasm for its success, we should not bind chains about us, as we did when the locomotive first came along, and ran over its road of iron.—N. Y. Express.