The world's selling prices are regulated
by market and crop reports. We travel greater distances in a shorter
space of time, and with more ease than was ever dreamed of by the
fathers.
Isolation is no longer possible or desirable. The same important news is
read, though in different languages, the same day in all Christendom.
The telegraph keeps us advised of what is occurring everywhere, and the
press foreshadows, with more or less accuracy, the plans and purposes of
the nations. Market prices of products and of securities are hourly
known in every commercial mart, and the investments of the people extend
beyond their own national boundaries into the remotest parts of the
earth. Vast transactions are conducted and international exchanges are
made by the tick of the cable. Every event of interest is immediately
bulletined.
The quick gathering and transmission of news, like rapid transit, are of
recent origin, and are only made possible by the genius of the inventor
and the courage of the investor. It took a special messenger of the
government, with every facility known at the time for rapid travel,
nineteen days to go from the City of Washington to New Orleans with a
message to General Jackson that the war with England had ceased and a
treaty of peace had been signed.
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