The Police and Fire Telegraph
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THE POLICE AND FIRE TELEGRAPH.
The Metropolitan Police Commissioners, previous to their adjournment, appointed Mr. Charles C. Robinson director and manager of the police and fire telegraphic apparatus throughout the district. Mr. Robinson was the originator and patentee of the system which has been in operation in this city, and up to the commencement of the present year he has exercised supervision over its working. In February last he resigned this duty and Mr. Swan was appointed to succeed him. A negotiation has been pending for a long while between Mr. R. and the Common Council relative to the extension of the telegraph to the Eastern District and the more distant wards of the Western. This Mr. Robinson proposed to carry out for $3000 and the Police Committee reported in favor of acceding to these terms. The Common Council, deeming the amount too large, referred the subject to another Committee, that on Law, which we believe is prepared with a report in favor of the arrangement. As the extension of the telegraph is urgently needed, and indeed indispensable to the proper working of the new Police system, the Commissioners will, if the Common Council does not quickly decide the matter, avail themselves of the power conferred on the Police Board by the new law, and settle it for themselves by ordering the construction of the required works at the city’s expense.
The Commissioners deem another extension also indispensable to full communication between all parts of the Metropolitan district, and the General Superintendent’s head quarters in New York. They purpose therefore next year to prolong the wires, after connecting Williamsburgh with Brooklyn, to Astoria, and thence by a submarine cable across the river at Hurlgate, so that the orders and messages of the General Superintendent may be instantaneously made known at every Station House in the two cities. Without this, the police force of the two cities could never be united in its operation and effectual in its results, and the junction contemplated by the Metropolitan Police Law would exist only in name.
Mr. Robinson, having now the exclusive control of the telegraph apparatus in both cities, designs to assimilate the mode of working here, with that of New York. He has a printed book, containing several hundred questions and answers, on every subject that the police of different precincts can possibly desire to inquire of each other concerning. These questions and answers are denoted by numbers, and by the aid of the bell the successive units of the required number are indicated, with a pause between each. The mode of operation is so simple, that any officer or any person whatever of ordinary intelligence, may learn in a very few minutes how to send any of the messages, or correctly reply to any question.