82 OUR ISLAND STORY erected; and the whole line to the Capes was completed within a few days of the laying of the cable. On this Island ten or twelve miles of telegraph line had also been erected; and within two weeks telegraphic communication with Charlottetown was es- etablishd. Mr. Michael Ouinlan was the first telegraph operator of the line and Mr. Charles A. Hyndman , appointed in the year 1854, was the first superintendent of the Island Telegraph system. In the legislative session of 1853 an Act was passed granting certain privileges to the York , Newfoundland and Tele¬ graph Company; and at the end of the session Lieut. Governor Bannerman said: "I cannot conclude without alluding to the advantages which must accrue to the inhabitants of the colony from the electric telegraph which, notwithstanding their insular position, will enable them not only to interchange intelligence with their neighbors in the adjoining provinces but with the people in the remotest corner of the vast American continent in the shortest space of time. Man's intellect, the gift of his Creator, graciously bestowed to carry out His beneficent purposes for the good of the human race, cannot be more wonderfully ex¬ emplified than by the discovery that the electric cable, in the deep bosom of the ocean buried, may convey to the shore of ¬ foundland one hundred and fifty miles distant, in a very few minutes, the words I am now addressing to you. Such will be the result when this great undertaking is completed, and to the enterprising gentlemen who have embarked their capital to ac¬ complish it this colony is much indebted. I hope that they will meet with that support and success which they so well deserve/' In the Legislative session of 1857 it was provided that for ten years the York , Newfoundland and Telegraph Company should be paid, in half-yearly instalments, a subsidy of three hundred pounds per annum. Another company—"The Gulf Express and Telegraph Company"—was afterwards in¬ corporated for the purpose of "establishing and maintaining telegraphic communication between Summerside and ¬ lottetown/' the said Company to afford "direct telegraphic com¬ munication with some part of the neighboring province of