Weekly Clarksville chronicle. [volume] (Clarksville, Tenn.) 185?-1857, 1857-02-20
[From the New York Herald
THE HUGHES PRINTING TELE.
GRAPH.
anticipated Revolution IN the Tttegrdphic

| UOfti
The New York Herald has heretofore
on several occasions, alluded to the "Hughes
Telegraph Inatrument," and given full
and pretty accurate statement of its won
derful capabilities, as detailed to us by It's
friends, Parties interested in other tele.
graphic Improvements have denied the ac.
curacy of those statements, and ridiculed
the pretensions of the Hughes instrument
denouncing it as a humbug, &c. Having
no means at the time for personally testing
the accuracy of those counter statements
we have thus far let them pass for what
they were worth But we are now in a no.
sition to verify our own original statements.
Our reporter has seen the famous Hughes
instrument-he has seen a pair of them
working together atthe same moment of
time, each with the closest and the most
wonderful sympathy of movemet with the
other.
These machines were at the Office of the
American Telegraph Company, in Wall
street, where by the courtesy of the inven-
tor and the managers of the Telegraph
Company, our reporter was afforded every
facility toinspect Interpretations. He con-
fesses to a surprise-not at the wonderful
feats which 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 instrument, in size, is scarcely lar
ger than family Bible, and might be easi-
ly packed away in cigar box. Four cog
wheels, chain, 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
away, telling you story in your own Ian
guage'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 pow
er of the operator. This capacity was tcs.
ted in the PFesence Of our reporter, with
out the Intervention of an operator, when
he saw one of the machines, by its own vo-
ition, roll out twenty-eight hundred let
ters in one minute. This extraordinary
capacity is of course of no practical 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 word. sff e3s.ara
Another and perhaps the most wonder
full, certainly the most ridiculed, faculty in
these machines in their capability of. wri-
ting or printing both ways at the same
moment of time. When we stated this
fact, about a year ago, the statement was
ridiculed and denied like our other aver
ments concerning this invention, not only
by these interested in other telegraphic
systems, but also in series of labored ed
itorial articlesin periodicals claiming to be
scientific. But our reporter has seen this
extraordinary feat clearly, fully and salts
factorily demonstrated. Two machines
were placed side by side, with an operator
at each, who sent message after message to
each other, over the same wire simultane-
ously, without the least jostling, and with
out the slightest error either of word or
letter. Since our reporter saw this fact
demonstrated, in company with represcn-
tatives from nearly all the city journals,
at the Office of the American Telegraph
Company, the machines have been subjec-
ted TO the soverest test on line extending
from New York to Bangor, Maine, and
thence back to Boston, (making a circuit
of about eight hundred miles, and every
trial has shown the most satisfactory re-
sults-the instruments working as per-
fectly through eight hundred miles Of
wire as in 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 systems.
There are other and very great practi-
cal advantages in this Hughes instrument
over all others hitherto in use--such as its
capacity of always keeping in working or
der in the stornliest weather, its freedom
from the disturbing effects of atmospher-
ic electricity, its ability to write secretly;
that is, the communicating Office can, with
out consent of their operators, at pleas
ure, and instantaueously cut of all Offices
except those to which it wishes to COM
municate to all Offices ON the linei its ox-
ceeding simplicity, which enables an ope.
rator, however inexperienced, to transmit
his message correctly and with c0nsidera-