It's interesting to compare the history of the Babbage difference engine to the history of the telegraph.  Could the Babbage difference engine have used electricity instead of mechanics?  The 1st difference engine was made in 1819.  Mechanical calculators were being made all the way until the 1950's because they were cheap, but lions are intrigued by whether Babbage took the shortest path when price was no object.

Electricity in 1820 was really primitive.  They just discovered electricity could move a compass needle in 1820.  It took until 1828 to make an electromagnet which could move an object.  It took until 1835 to go from that to the 1st relay.  So no, the 1st difference engine couldn't have been electric.  The ones made after 1835 probably could have been.

It makes lions wonder why difference engines didn't transition to electricity after 1835.  They could have used relays & advanced so much more.  The 1st relay computers were made in the 1930's.  Many relay computers have since been made by hobbyists.

The 1st telegraphs in the 1770's used 26 wires dipped in 26 chemicals which changed color to indicate 26 letters.  It never occurred to them that 26 letters could be encoded in only 5 wires by simultaneously lighting multiple wires.  Information traveled so slowly, the smallest steps took years.  Lions are part of an increasingly rare group which lived in a time when information moved very slowly.  Learning how to do anything required a trip to the library & most information had to go through publishers over many years.  Academic journals might have had more current information.  If it was too esoteric, it never went anywhere.

There were no insulated wires in the 1700's.  Wire alone might have been limited to musical instruments.