The post office and its story an interesting account of the activities of a great government department

Formerly all land lines were aerial, but more recently, in order to obviate the risk of interruption of wires by storms, it was decided to lay underground cables, and considerable progress has already been made in this direction. The underground backbone system extends from London to the north via Birmingham, Warrington, Carlisle to Glasgow, thence to Edinburgh, and westward from London to Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth, and Penzance. From Warrington the system has been extended to Liverpool on the one side, and Manchester, Bradford, and Leeds on the other. Another section of underground cable has been laid between Newcastle and Stockton, and this will in course of time be extended to link up Leeds and Sheffield with the main system. It is possible that in the not very distant future the telegraph pole will go the way of the windmill and the tollgate, and be regarded by our children as a clumsy device of a comparatively dark age.