The Express.
London, England, 1860-12-25 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 2.5, 1860.

PROFESSOR WHEATSTONE S UNIVERSAL

TELEGRAPH.

Facility and speed in communication become
every day of more and more importance. The
present telegraph companies have created wants
which they by no means supply. Public bodies, manu
facturers , and merchants are becoming more and
more alive to the necessity of having their own
private telegraphs. This, for instance, the Queen's
printers have found it greatly to their advantage to
have telegraphic communication of their own
between their printing establishment and the
houses of parliament. The London Desk ha* •114
only its own electric communication botulism-
its own daces in the dock, but also be-
tween the dock-house in the City and the
commercial Bale rooms in Mincing-lane. The
police•stations throughout the City are now
also placed in in.itautaneous communication with
each other. Such important result, as these have
been brought about rincipally by the perfection
to which Professor e has brought his
Universal Telegraph.
This instrument is so simple in its construction
that any person who can read and spell can be
taught in half-an-hour to use it with certainty.
With a few days practice a very considerable
rapidity can be acquired in sending messages.
Without such an instrument as this a trained

establishment of clerks would be necessary to work
the telegraph. By its aid the owner of the tele-
graph or any person of ordinary education can use
it with scarcely any training.
The universal telegraph consists of two parts or
instruments, the telegraph itself and another called
the communicator. The telegraph with all the ap-
paratus for working it is ountained in a small box,
mach smaller than a lady's work-box. It has a
handle like that of a barrel organ in front of it.
On the upper surface there is a disc or clock face.
This face instead of having the hours marked round
its circumference has its thirty equal divisions on
its outer edge marked by the letters at the alpha-
bet, three stops, and a cress. The inner row has the
nine digits and zero repeated twice. There is • hand
like the hour hand of the clock, which is made by
the mechanism hereafter to be described to point
to these letters, stops, or figures, at the will
of the operator. Round this lettered disc
are thirty keys, like those at an accordion,
which can be depressed by the finger, one
for each letter or sign. Such is the external ap-
pearance of the telegraph. It is not much larger
than an ordinary ships chronometer. The commu-
uicator is something like a watch, a little larger
indeed, fixed on a stand, in a convenient 'tam
for observing the dial ; it rests on a small 'gland,
which contains the apparatus fur working an
alarm bell. The face of the communicator has
thirty divisions like the telegraphy with its double
circle of letters and figures, and its moveable hand
or index.

The instrument is worked in the following man-
ner. We will say that there are two seta of them
nutriments, OW at the Qessa'apeinters, the other
in the House of Commons. A single wire is
fasteued at the Printers' to the water pipes of the
establishment, or else attached to a plate of metal
buried in the earth, this wire is made to peas
through both the telegraph and communicator at
the printer's ; it is then carried through the air to
the Houses of Parliament. There it passes through
another telegraph and communicator, and is then
buried in the earth or attached to some pipes which
are in connexion with the ground. On the box
which supports each of the communicators there is
a pointer which can be turned by hand so as to
point to either of two letters, A and T, on the right
and left hand. When the instruments are nut in
use both of these pointers should point to the letter
A. Supposing, now, a message is to be sent. All
you have to do is to turn the handle of one of the
telegraphs ; the alarms at both stations are
instantly sounded. This calls the attention of the
clerk or operator at the other station. He then re-
chote: by turning the handle of his telegraph, when
alarnms are sounded for a second time.
Now, both sender and receiver turn the pointer
at the base of their communicators to the T. Before
sending the message, the pointers of all four in-
struments should stand at the cross marked on the
upper portions of their dials. If they do not, the
operators have a simple means for setting them
right. This setting being made if necessary, the
sender spells out his message by touching or de-
pressing each key of his telegraph with his left
hand, which stands opposite to the letters to be
spelt in succession while he steadily turns the
handle of his instrument with his right hand. He
will then see the hand of his oommuuicator turn in

succession to each of these letters, and pause until he 1
I depresses the next letter. The index of the communi-
cator of the receiver of the message moves in the
same way, and he also spells the word he receives.
The word finished, the sender depresses the key op- I
posite his cross and the communicator shows the
receiver that a word is spelt. He acknowleges
the receipt of it, and that he understands it by
turning the handle of his telegraph and depressing
the key opposite to the cross, so as to make the
hands of both communicators pass through a com-
plete revolution. If any letter or sign is to be
repeated in succession in spelling a word, it is
11=to depress for an instant an adjacent
then to depress that opposite the letter to
be repeated before the indices or hands of the in-
struments have pointed to the letter.
This lathe simple method of using the instrument.
It possesses this great advantage for private pur-
posesthat it requires no galvanic apparatus, with cor-
rosive acids, and requiring great skill in its successful
preparation for use. There are no fumes to be
avoided, no trouble and risk in amalgamating plates.
A simple coil apparatus and a magnet enclosed in
the telegraph box do all the work of the electric
arid, without risk of getting out of order or being
deranged. As the principles of electric telegraphy
are now becoming so popular, some of our readers
may be interested in knowing something of the
mode of operation of this beautiful instrument of
Professor Wheatstone. When the handle of one
of the telegraphs is turned, it causes an axis in the
instrument to revolve. Attached to this axis are
two equal arms ; each of these arms has suspended
or fixed perpendicularly to its extremity a bundle
of soft iron wire. Round each of these bundles or
cores of soft iron a considerable quantity of fine
insulated wire is wound like a silk or thread round
• bobbin. The wire round these two bobbins is
continuous. These two bobbins, therefore, turn
round with every revolution of the axis to which
they are attached. At every revolution the cores of
both these bobbins pass over the poles of a horse-
shoe permanent magnet. Every time they paps
over the poles of the magnet the core of the bobbin
passing over is magnetised ; the magnetism induces
or sets up a current of electricity through the wire
of the bobbin. In this way, by simply turning the
handle of the machine opposite, currents or pulses
of electricity are sent through the wires of the
bobbins by the momentary action of the poles of
the magnet. When the indices at the base of the
two communicators are set at A, the currents of
electricity so set up pass through the alarum of i
the sender to that of the receiver and

re the earth. A most ingenious
m=
• and electro-maguetic arrangement
seln tie works of both alarums in motion, without
requiring.any clock-work to be wound up, and so
constructed that by no jar or accidental motion of
the alarm can it be sounded, and it never rings
without the
.passage of current, of electricity.
When the pointer 16 turned to T, the communi-
eaten are put in connexion with the telegraph.
The eommunicators have each an electromagnetic'
apparatus, which oonsists of two permanently mag-
entas needles fixed to as axis, and lying parallel
between two bobbins of insulated wire with soft
iron cores. The armatures of these cores are so
arranged that when a current of electricity passes
through the wire of the bobbins their armatures
attract two of the poles or extremities of the mag-
netic' needles and repel the other two • the effect
of the two attractions and two repulsions of the
needles being to rotate the axis to which they are
fined. This axis communicates by an escapement-
wheel a step by step motion to the hand
of the communicator instrument for every current
of electricity sent through the wire of its bobbins.
We will now suppose the instruments with all their
indicators pointing to the cross. The handle of
ass of the telegraphs is turned, for every revolu-
.ldon of the handle the magnet in the telegraph sets
Is • current in the bobbins within the telegraph,
bit .these currents aIL. pais by a short circuit
through the instrument and the earth ; we now
depreas a key opposite to some letter, the depression
of this key alters the electrical circuit, and all the
currents are now sent through the telegraph wire,
, both communicators, and the earth. For every
current transmitted—these currents being in son
cession in different directions—the hand of the
_

telegraph of the sender, and the bands of both
columunicatons, are made to advance step by
step till the letter opposite the depressed key
is arrived at. The instant this letter is
realhed, the mechanism of the telegraph alters the
circuit, the current no longer peeves through the
telegraph wire and the communicators, but is
carried off through the shorter circuit. Another
key is now depressed by the soder, a beautiful
piece of mechanism causes the depression of this
key to elevate the key last depressed, puts the in-
strument in circuit with the wire and the indica-
lore, the hands move on step by step till the letter
opposite the depressed key is reached, when the
circuit is again altered, and the hands stand still
till another key is depressed, and so on for the
whole message. Those who have been used for
some time to this instrument, and have become
gni& both in sending and receiving • message,
have been enabled to transmit 100 letters per
minute.

We have been thus minute in our description of
this universal telegraph, because we feel certain it
will play an important part in the popularisation of
the wee of telegraphy. It was used by the Emperor
Napoleon at Solferino, and will shortly be used on
the railways of Australia.
The extent to which the application of telegraphy
is likely to be carried out has rendered prominent
another want. Not only an instrument for com-
municating messages, but a private road through
which they may be sent. This has induced the
formation of a company, now applying for an set
of parliament for their incorporation under the
name of the Universal Private Telegraph Company.
Professor Wheatstone has discovered that for mods-
ratedistauces, say for twenty miles, his electric road
only requires a copper wire about the thickness of
an atduary piece of cotton thread. Thirty such
wires, each covered with • thin coating of india-
rubber and linen, can be combined into • cable
about the thickness of the little finger. Thus
thirty private electric rose, perfectly insulated
front each other, can be scarred u sae reps, sot
very much thicker than the wires now used for
electric ways along the sides of our railways. This
marks another great stride in telegraphy—the sub-
stitution of indisrublrer for gutta pe eb. as an in-
sulator. For this we are indebted to the energy,
skill, and perseverance of Messrs. Silver and Co.,
who have succeeded in demonstrating to the best
telegraphists that they can manufacture an 'ladle-
rubber insulation for wires which shall make na
independent of the constant failure of gutta percha
as an insulator.

With gotta percha the insulation of this cable of
thirty small wires would have been impossible. The
heat to which the cable must be subject even in our
summer as it passes over our house-tops would
melt the gutta pelotas and destroy the insulation.
The insulation of indiarubber is not only superior
to gutta percha, but it resists the hest which would
entirely molt the latter.
The Universal Telegraph Company propose to
connect all parte of London and other great towns
by a system of triangulation. The town will be
divided into a series of equal triangles, the side
of each being a mile in length. Each point of the
triangle will be united to another by one of these
cables containing thirty or sixty insulated wires.
These cables will be supported by posts on the tops
of houses or other large buildings, 200 feet apart.
To prevent the cable from injury from stretch-
ing, it will be suspended from two strong iron
wires passing from post to post. At each of the
posts, ns well as the angular stations at the extre-
mities of the mile cf rope or cable, each separate
wire will pass through little numbered canals of
ebonite. If any accident happens to any particular
wire, it can be discovered where the fault lies by
testing from post to poet. The wires being num-
bered and registered, the private person wishing to
rent a wire can have it conveyed to his two stations
from the poet nearest to them. Tbat this system is
likely to meet with immediate adoption in many in-
stance; we have no doubt. Between thirty and
forty firms and public bodies in Glasgow have
already made application to the company for the
rent of wires. The city police stations in London
will use the wires of the company instead of their
own temporary one as soon as it is established.
Mr. Renter, so well known in connexion with tele-
rains, has already united his private offices in
Finsbury-square with his city offices. No doubt a
great variety of public offices as well as private
persons will gladly avail themselves of this mode of
obtaining private telegraphic communication.

We believe the company propose to rent their
wires at the rate of four pounds per mile for a
year, undertaking to keep the wires in order,
and at all times to ensure telegraphic com-
munication. The hirer of the wire may use
any instrument he pleases. If he wishes it,
however, they will let him one of Professor
Wheatstone's Universal Telegraphs, Alarum, and
Indicator for 61. a year, or a pair of them for
121. This includes keeping the instruments in per-
fect working order. Thus, furinstance, a merchant
or manufacturer can have private telegraphic com-
munication between two stations a mile apart for
161. a year. The insulated cable being suspended
front uncovered iron wires, and these wires being
connected with the leads and iron pipes of the
houses towhich their supporting poste are attached,
lightning cannot pass through the insulated wire to
the house in which it is introduced. The network
of supporting wires will, in point of fact, act as a
great system of lightning conductors, and ensure
the safety of the houses over which they pass.
That the system of the compound rope and the
small conducting wires will answer, we saw demon-
strated by Mr. Holmes, the consulting engineer of
the proposed company, at Mr. Reuter 's on Friday
last. We also saw the successful application of the
small ronductor to Mr. Wheatstone's Automatic
Printing Telegraph. This telegraph is intended for
the speedy transmission of messages through lines
where economy of time in the use of the line is of
great importance. The message to be sent is
punched out in a series of dots on a strip or narrow
ribbon of paper. The cypher used is so similar to
that of the Morse system, which is now the uni-
versal telegraphic alphabet on the Continent and
America, that a person conversant with the one can

immediately read the other. The Morse alphabet
represents every letter by a line or a dot, or the
combination of these, not exceeding four for every
letter. Wheatstone uses a dot on the upper part
of the ribbon for Morse's line, and a dot below for
Morse's dot. To punch these dots he uses a
small instrument with three keys, which are
depressed by the pressure of the finger. The ribbon
of paper is introduced at the top of the instrument;
every time one of the keys is depressed it pinches •
hole through the ribbon, and moves it &space for-
ward • when the same or another key is depressed
another hole is punched, and the paper again
moved forward to receive another perforation.
One key answers for Morse's line or dash, another
for his dot, and the third or middle one is used for
spacing. This spacing obviates a difficulty in the
Morse system of telegraphing. The Morse system 1
is always used in connexion with a telegraphic
instrument The difference between the printing of
• lisle or a dot is determined by the time the finger
rests on the key of the transmitting instrument
To be a good telegraphist on the Morse system re-
quires an accurate perception of musical time, a
perception of which many people are deficient.
Besides this advantage, the slowness of the person
using the punching apparatus of Wheatstone's
automatic system does not cause a waste of the
time of the telegraphic line.
When the Molnar "P"fiedi°ut off. the ribbjil
this ribbon forms, as it were, a ofiitinnOoll facq's
pattern. This is now introduced into the trans-
mitting instrument. By turning a handle the per-
forated ribbon passes at a uniform rate through
the instrument : as mice space comes through the
centre of the holder, three springs attached to an
axis in connexion with the handle rise up, only one
of these three can rise through the paper, because
there will only be one perforation presented at the
same time. If a spring pass through one of the
upper holes of the strip, a current of electricity is
made by the mechanical arrangement attached to
this spring to pass through the telegraph wire to a
distant station ; if a spring passes through the
lower hole an opposite current is produced ; featly,
if the middle spring pass through an opening no
current is sent.

At the receiving station there is a recording or
printing apparatus. A thin strip of paper is made
by clock-work to pass through the printing ap-
paratus when a message is to be received. This
apparatus has two series of electro-magnetic ap-
paratus similar to those used in the communicator
of the universal instruments. They am so arranged,
however, that the axes to which the permanent
magnets are attached are moved, the one axis only
for a current in one direction, and the other only for
a current in the opposite direction. To each of
these axes a small pen or style is attached. These
styles when depressed each pass through a small
hole in the bottom of a reservoir filled with Indian
ink. These holes are so small that capillary attrac-
tion prevents the flow of the ink through them
nelson it is carried by the depression of the
style Now, the electro-magnets cause one of
these styles to be depressed for a current
in one direction, the other style for that in the
opposite • the ribbon passing under the reservoir of
ink by the motion of the clockwork has a dot made
at top or bottom, according as a dot perforated
through the top or bottom of the ribbon passes at
the same time through the transmitting apparatus.
Some idea of the speed with which this automatic
printing telegraph can forward messages may be
estimated when we state that a column of news-
paper print, such as that of a parliamentary debate,
can be transmitted 200 miles in about 20 minutes.
We are rejoised to see that Professor Wheatstone,
who took such a distinguished position in the first
introduction of the telegraph, still keeps foremost
in the race of teiegraphie progress.

AN INTERVIEW WITH PIO NONO.

Mann Miss Brewer's new Travels.)

The portraits of the Pope are in general like
him : but his full, short, and broad countenance has,
when men more nearly, ler expression of kindness, and
considerably more of self-will and temper, than the por-
traits exhibit. The glance of the blue eye is lively, but
not and is deficient in earnestness. The com-
aand physique generally indicate the best of health,
good appet;te—and • good 000 k.
The Pope oast his eye on • written paper which he held in
his hand ; and, having inquired about my country and
Once of residence, added. You have written somewhat!"
Myself—Yes, your Holiness ; novels of domestic life ;
more properly descriptions of life, but in the form of novels.
The Pope—But you are a catholic?
Myself—No, your Holiness, not • Roman catholic.
The Pope—Then you must become one. There is no
completeness ass oessequeoce out of the catholic church.
Myself—Permit me, your Holiness, to ask a question.
The Pops—Yea, sak
Myself—l love with my whole heart our Lord and
Meter, Jesse Christ. I believe in His divinity—in His
redeeming Amoy for me and the whole world ; I will alone
obey and urn Him. Will your Holiness not acknowledge
as. as a Christian ?

The Pope--Fora Christian 1 Most certainly ! But,—
llyeaff—And as • member of the church of Christ?
The Pope—Ye—s, in a certain sense ; but—but, then,
people must acknowledge me true everything which this
church says and enjoins. You ought not, in the meantime,
to believe that the Pope sends to hell all who do not ac-
knowledge the infallibility of the catholic church. No, I
believe that many persons of other creeds may be saved by
living according to the truth which they acknowledge.
believe so, most certainly.
Myself—lt delights me infinitely to hear this from your
Holiness. Because I have cherished the hope of finding in
your Holiness a more righteous judge u regards these ques-
tions than in many other catholics, who say, " You are not
a Christian ; you cannot be saved, if you do not, in all te-
epee* believe as we and our church do."
The Pope—ln this they ere wrong. But you see, my
daughter, people should be able to give an account of their
Chnetian belief—not believe shine in generals, but believe
in the separate parts of a doctrine. It is already something
to believe in the second prime of the Godhead, and in His
incarnation ; but it is necessary also to believe in the insti-
tution which He founded on earth, otherwise there can be
no reality, no faith in Him. And people must believe in
the Pope. The Pope is Christ's representative on earth. In
Sweden people do not believe on Christ and Hie Church. In
Sweden the extreniest intolerance exists towards those who
think differently to themselves. The King there has twice
endeavoured to introdnoe religious freedom, but they would
not have it.

Myself—l know it, your Holiness ; but Sweden in former
times suffered from catholic* in the country, and old laws
still remain unrepealed in consequence. But it will not
long be so, I hoped My countrymen will learn to have con.
Mince in the power of truth and of Christianity.
The Pope—Your reigning Queen is catholic.
Myself—Yes, your Holiness, and the noblest of women,
an example to her sex, an ornament to the throne.
The Pope—All Christian princes and people ought to be-
lieve on the Pope and obey him. Their not doing so wises
from pure pride and a worldly mind. Hence state churches
have arisen. The 'taperer of Russia will not acknowledge
the Pope, because I. wishes to be Pope himself. Queen
Victoria will not acknowledge the Pope, because she herself
will be Popes. ; and so it is in every country where there is
a state church. Belief iu the Pope, as the head of the
Christian church, i the only rational and consequent thiw;
it is that alone which leads to unity and clearness. Th•
church is an organiestion.- a representative monarchy, with
its supreme head—a spiritual state. If in a state people
will not obey the supreme head, than there can be neither
(dearness nor order—everything becomes confusion.

Lions ix Prue.—The election of the new
Preeidset Lincoln seems to have strangely exasperated the
elave-heidieg Americans, not merely in Caroline, but also
the day liseares whew the labour of these serfs enables
to exhibit User vulgarity at Paris. On Thursday last a
scene carurred in the common besakfaet salaam of
Mendoes. At one table sat the Hen. Y. Colbara, son of
Loral Sesame, and seat him were seated two African
chieftains, from Adulate., well•inforrned gentlemen,
speaking French and English better than meat of the
Southern Lagrone from Alabama, discussing the affairs
which had brought them to the imperial court of Them
Three American slave-driven were at work, d Is JourcAette,
Is a &Neat comapartment, when they espied the natives of
Afries, ea which they insolently advanced to the table and
vested their coarse and unmanly prejudices in the most
tar * laarstga. The member for Waterford, Mr. Blake,
Es well es Lard Seeton's son, protested against this under-
bred end all•resanered conduct of the Transatlantic bullies,
whom the law of France would soon bring to their semen
(if any said), sad teach them that educated chieftains from
that quarter of the globs are higher in the social scale than
folks whose escutcheon is a out-whip, sod whose only
peerage book is an old volume of the Loudon " Nougat('
Calender."—Oorrcepandent of Wag.