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206 THE CORNWALL COAST were when the mail arrived irregularly from Penzance, and letters were distributed from the window of the one small post-office in St. Mary's. Each of the inhabited isles has now its own postal and telegraph office ; and they are also connected with the mainland by telephone, for coastguard purposes. To be at Scilly is no longer to be quite out of the world. There was "a spice of romance about the manner in which the first cable to Scilly was laid — or, perhaps we should say, was not laid. By the Act that came into force in 1870 the Government had agreed to buy over on favourable terms all telegraphs that at that time were found in actual existence as working concerns. "With a view to large profits, companies sprang into being, hoping to get their wires into working order, so as to be bought over on the appointed day. One such company took the Scilly Isles into its charge — not from any benevo- lent motives ; Scilly had long been praying for telegraphic connection. A cable of the supposed right length was procured and brought to Land's End, where its shore end was fixed, and the vessel bearing it made towards Scilly. Somehow or other the conveyors found themselves five miles south of the Isles with every inch of their cable paid out. Time was precious ; it would never do to buoy the end and wait for a fresh supply, and the present poor cable would not bear the strain of picking up. But there was a clever man on board. He cut the cable a few fathoms from the ship, carried its fag-end to St. Mary's, and attached it to an old Morse instru- ment. Outwardly, things looked all right ; there was the cable attached at Land's End, and here was its other end at Scilly. The difficulty was