Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-04-07

before him on a box about a foot high, in
which is contained a roll of white oiled
paper tape on a roller. Attached to the
oox, and with one end of the oiled tape con-
the perforator, on the top Of which are
three buttons, one each for dot" dash"
and space" The puncher, with a pair of
small IRON or brass mallets tipped with
rupoer, strikes these buttons alternately
and in SO doing perforates the oiled slin in
such way as to reproduce on the tame
the characters desired. The tape Is oiled
30 mat the holes may be clean cut When
a button has been struck and the slip per-
Iorated, small spring wheel pressing
against the tape pushes it forward to make
room for another perforation On the per
i ,o.a tsu tape perpendicular lines represent
ing dots and diagonal lines dashes have
peen made. Thus the letter is repre
scented by dot and a dash, by a dash and
.hree dots, by two dots. a space and one
dot-the same as in the Morse alphabet
Other alphabets have been tried and de
clared with great enthusiasm to be far
superior to the original telegraphic letters
out Tune proves all things and Prof. Morse's
conception has stood the test and comes
10 be the stard ard alphabet of all practical
telegraph printing machines.
After the tape has gone through with the
operation of having the message punched
through IL is now ready for transmission
1t is placed in a small groove of an instru-
ment attached to the line and called a
transmitter. The tape is pushed through
1t, and kept turning by means of heavy
weight underneat tn the machine. All this
time two small needles, of the finest STEEL
placed In the tfansmitter directly under the
grooves are moving in and out of the per-
forated holes of the slip, thus alternately
opening and closing the electric circuit of
the wire and thereby causing characters
similar to those on the punched slip, to ap-
pear on roll of blue paper tape in the re-
ceiving instrument at the other end of the
wire. The receiver contains a roll of blue
tape, which, while 1t rolls out is tapped by
a small revolving wheel attached to an ink
vessel on the receiver, and so the charac-
tiers are formed in ink on the slip. The ac-
ton OF this revolving wheel is controlled
by the action of the two steel needles at
the sending end of the transmtter.
An Operators Story.
In conversation with old-time operator
who has had considerable experience with
the Wheatstone system, an Evening Star
reporter was told of the practical points Of
the apparatus He said:
when the Wheatstone system first came
into use the rank ana file of telegram
operators thought their days of usefulness
were numbered. During the first weeks of
the trial of the machine we lost all idea of
the useless fringe, so to speak, attached to
IT, ana were struck with wonder and dis
may at the speed attained We would see
a message or thousand words on a small
paper roll placed on the machine and in
ABOUT three minutes time the .expert in
charge would notify us that 1t was in New
~, TpIh or baltimore, as the case may be-
Inc working force was reduced considera-
bly,, and We all began to consider the adj
visibility of tackling pick and shovel
When all or a sudden, complaints began IN
pour INTO the ONCE about delays and mis-
taxes In messages. Upon tracing the mat
ter up we found that all the COMPLAINTS
were directly caused by the poor work of
the punchers and copyists Then the Of
usefulness took backward step Now the
machine Is principally used on early press
matter and red messages The former is
a class OF matter that is handed in. saw
auout CLOCK IN the evening. to be used
py the paper for which it is intended the
next morning. If that matter gets into the
edltorlal rooms by 10 o'clock there is no
KICK, ana as we have about four or five
hours to do the transmitting in we general
~ land 1t at its destination on time A
RED message is one that is handed in dur
ing the day, to be sent during the night
the cost OF which is only half-rate Thous-
anus or these messages are collected each
day, as 1t is cheap way for the business
men to transmit letters that are hardly
valuable enough on which to pay full tele-
graph tolls, and yet important enough TO
demand faster transmission than the mails
arord AS the 'punchers' have all day in
winch TO prepare these messages and the
receivers all night to copy them IL can be
easily seen wherein lies the usefulness of
quired to work a set of machines. and as
many wires are idle at night, their chief
employment then takes place. The -punch-
ers, copyists and machine men are all
under pay, comparing them with operators,
500 and $50 being about the highest salaries
paid, while the average is about SO or $40
In New York the ladies have the call at
the business, and the way they can punch
a tape is a caution; as to copying, We all
know what they can do with typewriter
The work is clean and the hours reason
able. II has become a business by ITSELF
ana the operators no longer fear its in
roads upon their ranks
One Good Feature
"One good feature in the Wheatstone
machine, and about the most commG-ldabIe
from commercial point of view, is that
in case Of wires being broken or crippled
by storms, or other causes, messages may
be punched as usual, and the punched slips
allowed to accumulate until such time as