Morning journal and courier., 1893-07-14
THE KING OF WIRE PAPERS
Some Points and Advice as 10 a Com paratively Modern Industry.


 From the Chicago Herald
 Speaking of schemes, there Is one man in Chicago who caused the board of trade more bother than all the other alleged cleo tricisns put togetheT, His name Is O. NJ Stone past master In electrical matters, who spent years in patient study of electric ity, and whose fertile brain has evolved 20 many schemes to circumvent the powers that be that he has been called the king of wire tsppers. MT. Stone is 0 modest man. He looks like granger but any one who tries to sell hiu gold brick will sursly get worsted in the transaction. Believing that dtquisi,ion on wire tapping would be incomplete without a few words on the subject from this patriarch of the profes- sion, a representative from the Herald asked the electrician whether he thought wire tapping could be accomplished
 MT. Stone could not voueh for 1t from personal experience, but from SD electrical point of view, be was decidedly of the opinion that it could. He thought, how ever, that l. would Teaaire, in this city at least, knoNl. dge of electricity which not one in a hundred p0ssessss ''In the past three years" observed ME- Stone, 'I cup pose that upward of 100 different parties, each representing s coteTie of amateur sports, operators and otheTs. have sp- preached me for information on this sub- ject And 1t has invariably been h regard to hcrse racing that they wanted eniight ment Were I 10 mention the names Of some of these visitors the racing depart ment of a telegraph company would be mortified. Operators a rule do not get princely salaries, nothing near what they should be paid, go that when a proposition is made to them whereby they can clean up big stake in A day they naturally have an itching 10 give it s trial Bat to all these young fellows who have been Inclined to Lest their luck in this way have seriously advised against making the attempt. "A large proportion of thoss who do si- tempt to tap wires make miserable fsilurss. And it is becRuse of their gIoss ignorance will venture the assertion that co per cent. of the operators in sll large offices cannot set up and work common set of telsgraphio apparatus, taking the wires from the time they come into the office un- iil they take battery or go out sgAia. Iei with a great part of this class the idea of wire tapping eDsuAteF. They think they know all about it. and when soms Of them come 10 see me and unfold their Fchemts l have 10 smile st their simplicity. They do not reeognizs the difference beEEeen an in strument of four ohms and one of 100 ohms, and upon the subject of gAlTanome- ters and WheAtstone bridges they are c9m- pletely lost"
 Mr. Stone was asked how he thought & wire could be successfully tapped.
 "There srs several ways, sll depending | upon how 1t Is worked, whether single, du plex or quad There is one system that | would rather worry most any of them, | however, and that Is the Wheatstone auto- mstic. The single wire is, of course. the simplest way of telegraphing In use, couse- | quently the easiest to interfere with, bsing only common, old style instruments Then there are the duplx systems of d.tIeIent pAtterns, all Ttq1iTiBg set@ of like nature | to make them Epik. ruca ss ihc Stevens, | polar 'D'Infrev'lle,' and others. Next
 come the qqs1TuFl-x, when mears f.sar
 men at each erd tf wire, al guIkiug a; l the same time"
 "Aud can the later be tappeoF7
 | "Oh, ye-, under cer'ala circumstance eE.
 Suppose ycu wish. d tp do sn The knoE-
 ledge cssssry would t-e to kDoE the n;-
 lesga resistance of that particular wire, tbe | exact mileses where you wish 10 operate,
 an accurate amount of resistance to be
 used on each side of your get. a correspon- | ding amonnt of battery necessary to haze
 the game strength, and, most essentially, &
 complete set Of quadruplex instruments
 for the work, together with eight compe-
 tent men to work it successfully This, | you see, Is very intricate and expansive
 piece of work"
 "Thers are many failures, are there notF'
 sYes. and they deserve to fail. There
 is nothing in it. At least that is my opin- ion. Others may think there is but I de. cidly differ I might say that I have in- } duced a great many nOylces to let wire tap ping alone, and have no doubt saved them | from trouble"
 It was suggested to the veteran electric. ian that that recital of his experiences with the Chicago board of trade in getting
 quotations would be interesting, and he yas asked if he could say how he received ) the markets during the time tke quotations were withheld from the bucket shops s'In the first place." said he, 'tthe board of trade had detectives innunersble sl ! hunting for taps supposed to furnish 10. information. I fooled 'em dresdfully or that point, however. Now that the fight l Is all over I will say that not only hsd DC ' wire tapped. but had DO necessity for tsp , ping one. l had better scheme thar that"
 3 | ous ouotationEF' =a--- "Never. They had a nsn who chopped 3 everything ia the shape of wires he could I find, ard and occasionally be nipped oihsl g wires, and he never succeeded in tracing ! the source or my information. At on. r time he cut everything he could lay hAudi , | on and then firmly believed he had me ir
 a corner. That made me hot. Ny offic,
 wac thsn in the Traders building, facing
 inc Board of Trade rooms. The Eindowl
 of the exchange floor were all sospei over | ths directory foolishly believing rsceiyel ouutstions that way, and they thought the, Il had me sure. We'll, that morning, witl
 my wire all cut as they supposed, ss sool ss the markets opened I seized bar 0 t soap and scored every eighth change ol my window, giving Tin addition th
 buyer and seller sign. It dumfourde
 them. 4 big crowd stood below on th 0 walk watching my quotations. and nsys T missed turn. In spite of the cut wires