The western Democrat. [volume] (Charlotte, N.C.) 1852-1870, 1857-02-10
VOLUME S.
/ NUMBER So.
From The NetC York Herald.
HUGHES PRINTING TELEGRAPH.

HUGHES PRINTING TELEGRAPH.
ANTICIPATED REVOLUTION IN THE TRLE-
GRAPHIC WORLD.
Our reporter has seen the famous Hughes
instrument-he has seen pair of them
working together at the same moment of
time, each with the closest and the most
wonderful sympathy of movement with the
other.
Those machines were at the Office of the
Telegraph Company, in Wall street, where
by the courtesy of the inventor and the
managers of the Telegraph Company, our
reporter was afforded every facility to in
spect their operations. He confesses to
he witnessed, for he was partly prepared
for that-but at the admirable simplicity of
the arrangement from which such startling
results were ELECTED. The Hughes instru-
ment, in size, is scarcely larger than q fam
lily Bible, and might be easily packed away
in a segar box. Four cog wheels, chain,
a magnet, steel governor, pin here and
another there, and you have about the whole
description of machine that will talk to
you thousands of miles and telling you
story in your own language and in plain
printing letters four times faster than the
most rapid penman can write it down. It's
capacity for speed, in fact, is limited only
by the limited power of the operator. This
capacity was tested, in the presence of our
reporter, without the Intervention of an
operator, when he saw one of the machines,
by its own volition, roll out twenty eight
hundred letters in one minute. This extra
ordinary capacity is of course of no prac-
tical use, as no operator could read with
anything like such rapidity, even if he
could touch the keys fast enough in the
right order for spelling out the words.
Another and perhaps the most wonderful,
certainly the most ridiculed, faculty in
these machines, is their capability of writ
ing or printing both ways at the same
time.
Two machines were placed side by side,
with an operator at each, who sent message
after message to each other, over the same
wire simultaneously, without the least jost-
ling, and without the slightest error either
of word or letter. Since our reporter saw
this fact demonstrated, in company with
representatives from nearly oil the city
journals, at the Office of the American Tel
cgraph Company, the machines have been
subjected to the several tests on line ex-
tending from New York to Bangor, Maine,
and thence back to Boston, (making a cir
cult of about eight hundred miles,) and
every trial has shown the most satisfactory
results-the instruments working as per-
fectly through eight hundred miles of wire
as in q circuit of one or two hundred miles,
and with strength of current so slight as
to have not the least perceptible effect upon
the magnets used by the Morse and House
system.
There are other and very great practical
advantages in this Hughes instrument over
all others hitherto in use-such as its ca
pacity of always keeping in working order
in the stormiest weather, its freedom from
the disturbing effects of atmospheric elec-
tricity, its ability to write secretly; that
is, the communicating Office can, without
the consent of their operators. at pleasure.
and instantaneously cut off all Offices ex-
cept those to which it wishes to communi-
cate, and at pleasure can communicate to
all Offices ON the line; its exceeding simpli-
city, which enables an operator, however,
inexperienced, to transmit his message cor
rectly and with considerable rapidity its
arrangement, by which the presence of an
operator at the receiving Office is dispensed
with, as his instrument can be started at tho
wish of distant office, and will stop of it
self when the dispatch has been received;
its cheapness, the price being about four
hundred per cent less than the House ma
chine; its compactness, &C., &c.
The patent for this important invention
(Which, we believe, is destined to effect
complete revolution in the telegraph busi-
ness of this country.) is owned by the
American Telegraph Company.