Note 23 — Chapter III · The Alleged Break-down of Laissez-Faire
Reading edition
In the Fortnightly Review, December, 1875, Mr. W. S. Jevons, the eminent British statistician and economist, stated that the telegraph mileage was 24,000 miles. This statement is accepted in the absence of any official information. From 1870 to 1895 neither the Reports of the Postmaster General, nor the Statistical Abstracts, nor the Board of Trade Returns stated the mileage of telegraph lines; only the total mileage of telegraph wires was published.