§ SIR HENRY PEEKasked the Postmaster General, Whether Government is responsible for the safety of the Telegraph wires hung in all directions across public thoroughfares, and liable to make good any damage resulting from proper supervision having been neglected?
§ LORD JOHN MANNERSThe Post Office, standing in the place of the late telegraph companies, is, I presume, responsible for the safety of all postal telegraph wires, and is liable to make good any damage resulting from neglect of its officers. I may add that so alive am I to the expediency of substituting, in crowded thoroughfares, underground for overground wires, that during the last two years 337 miles of underground have been substituted for overhead wires, 70 and 217 miles of additional underground wires have been laid, so that in that period 554 miles of underground instead of overhead wires have been laid in London alone. I hope that after some time the whole scheme, so far as the metropolis is concerned, will be completed.