Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1885-04-30
TELEGRAPHY SIMPLIFIED.
An Invention which in to Retire the
Dot and Dash.

An invention has recently been per-
fected here, says Philadelphia dispatch,
that bids fair to reyoiutioniLe all existing
systems of electrical communication,
both telegraphic and telephone. The
secret of it has been carefully guarded by
the inventors, Messrs. George IL. Hath
away and James II. Linville, and by the
small company of large capitalists who
controlled it while il was being fully COW
cred by patents, both American and
foreign. Now that all is secure, it is to
be suddenly sprung upon the public by
an exhibition ut the Continental hotel, as
one of the gigantic scientific surprises
of the century. To state in brief what it
is, it is nothing less than making
telegraphy us simple, rapid and easily
within the command of everybody Us is
the operating of the caligraph or type
writer. Etfecting what is claimed for it,
it will be the means of greatly reducing
the cost of telegraphy, of enabling the
opening of some 10000 new telegraph
stations in railroad and express Offices
throughout the United States where there
have hitherto been none, and of taking
the place generally of the telephone. Any
person who Gun pick out word on the
keys of II typewriter can transmit mes
sage by the Hathaway system accurately
and with rapidity, only restricted by the
speed of the picking, while as for receiv-
ing messages, the instrument does that
automatically, whether there is anybody
experimenting its operations or not.
There was IL private exhibition of the
system ut the company's offices, Nos. 1927
Walnut street, the results attained nj
which seemed to fully sustain all that is
claimed for this most remarkable in
| yentiun.
The instrument used is both trans.
mitter and II receiver. The two instru-
ments used in this exhibition were con
nectcd by about 100 miles of wire coiled
about the offices. Each appeared in its
front part to be simply IN ordinary type.
writer, with the letters, numerals, etc.
ON rlised keys. Behind this rises a
small column, with blank paper wrapped
around il und moved up line by line ~
required by IL simple device inside tint
column is II small hammer that strikes out.
wardly, 10 us to, whenever key is
touched, press the paper against the
periphery of II horizontal wheel that lies
between the keyboard ind the column.
On that periphery, in high relief, are the
letters OF the alphabet, numerals and
points for punctuation. The wheel spins
around with lightning like r,lpidity ms the
keys are successfully touched by IN
expert. When it has to retroccde in the
alphabetical order it flies back to fixed
point, us does the wheel of gold and
stock indicator, but much more swiftly.
All the delicate and intricate electrical
attachments necessary are below and,
when understood, are much less cOmpli-
Gated than they seem, their apparent com
| plicuion being caused by their multi
| plicity A separate wire leads from each
key To II single common wire, and each
Of those key-connected wires serves either
for transmission or reception of messages.
The sending or reception of u particular
letter or figure is governed by the strength
of current required for just TINT in
| dividual one, and for no other. II seems
very strange that all those various i'm
pulses should be flashed along wire
even in opposite directions ut the same
time-without jostling each other or
getting mixed up, but they do. Many
messages were sent and received in the
tests, by nOn-experts at speed of from
40 to SO words per minute with greater
accuracy than is usually shown by expert
Morse 'sound" operators, and that speed,
it was affirmed, could be very greatly in
creased. A noticeable and valuable
feature of the system is that it prints
clearly in the sight of the person trans
hitting u message just what is being sent
to the receiver, so that errors are avoided,
or, if committed, are readily corrected.