lar commercial
operation between New York and Washington; and did fine work. If the
single wire had not broken about every other day, the venture would have
been a financial success; but moisture got in between the copper ribbon
and the steel core, setting up galvanic action which made short work of
the steel. The demonstration was, however, sufficiently successful to
impel Jay Gould to contract to pay about $4,000,000 in stock for the
patents. The contract was never completed so far as the $4,000,000
were concerned, but Gould made good use of it in getting control of the
Western Union."

One of the most important persons connected with the automatic
enterprise was Mr. George Harrington, to whom we have above referred,
and with whom Mr. Edison entered into close confidential relations, so
that the inventions made were held jointly, under a partnership deed
covering "any inventions or improvements that may be useful or desired
in automatic telegraphy." Mr. Harrington was assured at the outset by
Edison that while the Little perforator would give on the average only
seven or eight words per minute, which was not enough for commercial
purposes, he could devise one giving fifty or sixty words, and that
while the Little solution for the receiving tape cost $15 to $17 per
gallon, he could furnish a ferric solution costing only five or six
cents per gallon. In every respect Edison "made good," and in a short
time the system was a success, "Mr. Little having withdrawn his obsolete
perforator, his ineffective resistance, his costly chemical solution, to
give place to Edison's perforator, Edison's resistance and devices, and
Edison's solution costing a few cents per gallon. But," continues Mr.
Harrington, in a memorable affidavit, "the inventive efforts of Mr.
Edison were not confined to automatic telegraphy, nor did they cease
with the opening of that line to Washington." They all led up to the
quadruplex.

Flattered by their success, Messrs. Harrington and Reiff, who owned with
Edison the foreign patents for the new automatic system, entered into an
arrangement with the British postal telegraph authorities for a trial
of the system in England, involving its probable adoption if successful.
Edison was sent to England to make the demonstration, in 1873, reporting
there to Col. George E. Gouraud, who had been an associate in the United
States Treasury with Mr. Harrington, and was now connected with the
new enterprise. With one s