ELECTKIC TELEGRAPH. 



proceedings or events of adequate importance, taking place at a 

 distance, which are now transmitted through the post-office were 

 required to be sent by telegraph, it is clear that the apparatus 

 now in common use, of whatever form, would be utterly inadequate 

 to the satisfaction of such demands. 



But how, it will be asked, would the system of Bain be more 

 efficient? The answer is obvious. Nothing more would be 

 necessary than to engage a greater number of persons for the 

 purpose of committing the dispatches to the perforated ribbons. 

 If a great number of dispatches, short or long, be brought at once 

 into the telegraphic office for transmission, let them be imme- 

 diately distributed among a proportionate number of the persons 

 engaged in the preparation of the ribbons. A long dispatch 

 might be divided into several portions, and distributed among 

 several, just as a manuscript report intended for publication in a 

 journal is distributed among several compositors. When the 

 despatches thus distributed should be committed to the ribbons, 

 these ribbons might be connected together so as to form longer 

 continuous ribbons, which being put into the telegraphic instru- 

 ments would be sent to their destination at the rate of 20000 

 words an hour on each wire. 



A mercantile firm, or the correspondent of a journal might, if 

 they were so minded, have their own punching apparatus and their 

 own telegraphic cipher, and instead of sending to the telegraphic- 

 office a manuscript dispatch they would send a ribbon of paper 

 containing the dispatch marked upon it, which being put directly 

 into the instrument would be instantly transmitted to its destina- 

 tion. And this would be attended with the further advantage 

 that the contents of the dispatch would be concealed from the 

 agents themselves employed in its transmission. The party to 

 whom the dispatch is addressed would in this case receive the 

 sheet taken from the instrument written in the cipher of which he 

 alone would possess the key. 



It often happens, especially in the business of government or that 

 of journalism, that the same dispatch is required to be transmitted 

 to many different places in different directions. By the system of 

 Bain this would be easily accomplished. The same ribbon which 

 sends the dispatch in one direction may be transferred imme- 

 diately to another instrument acting upon another line of wire, 

 or even remaining in the same instrument the transmission may 

 be repeated, changing the direction by a commutator. 



If it were required no great difficulty would be presented by the 



process of perforating two or more ribbons at once with the same 



dispatch. The process would not be slower than that required 



for a single ribbon, and in that case the several ribbons might be 



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