Barre evening telegram. (Barre, Vt.) 1898-19??, 1900-09-27
WRITING BY WIRE
A Two Wire Machine Said TO
Have Been Perfected
NO SKILLED OPERATOR
Required. Recent Tests Of a
Telautograph in New York
and Europe.

Recent reports from London have re.
vived interest In the telautograph, the
writing and picture telegraph intro
luced in the United States at the time
of the Worlds fair in 1898 and after
ward in New York. 1t is now announc-
ed that 'tLe telautograph is at length
to be put ON the market as a practical
machine" says the New York Post. 1t
is said that actual tests made between
London and Paris under the direction
Of the English and French postal arl-
thorities have established the applica-
bility of the device to long circuits,
while messages sent from one room to
another have passed through coils over
200 miles in length, being recorded
with perfect accuracy at the receiving
end in the handwriting of the sender.
No skilled operator is required, the
transmitting pencil being moved by the
writer Of the message, which Is stimuli
%taneously reproduced in fac-simile by
the automatic pen on the receiving in
! uiiSdt' " las INV bIIh PSiINNI-
ed the two wire machine upon which
inventors have long been at work. For
the Instruments first exhibited four
wires were required. The perfected in
strument, it is said, Is much simpler
than the old one, is more accurate and
can be manufactured much cheaper.
1t is asserted that while the efficiency
of the telautograph for long distance
service has been demonstrated by tests
over an ordinary telegraph wire be-
tween Chicago and Cleveland, a dis
lance Of 431 miles, it is not intended to
Of the Instruments use in the United
States. In connection With the tele-
phone it will be an adjunct to the tele-
graph for local service and will effect
a great saving of time. Now If a man
wants to send a dispatch from a branch
telegraph Office in New York to Boston
it has to be sent first to the main office
in New York, be again written out and
then be retransmitted. At the other
end, unless the receiver of the message
happens to have his address near the
main office, the same process has to be
tached to a telephone the writer of a
message can send it directly from his
own office to the main office of a tele-
graph company.
1t was said that by the device checks
could be signed OF signatures be veri-
An1 hr d11n1ioofnc hrnIyaIc re yni1nc
away, that brokers dealing by wire
could give quotations and execute or
ders without danger Of error Or dis
pute, the correspondence being practi-
cally in the handwriting of the sender;
that sketches, plans and diagrams re-
quiring dispatch could be transmitted
in the act of preparing them and that
police authorities would be aided by
promptly receiving outline portraits of
criminals who were 'wanted."
The general idea of devising an ap-
paratus for writing at a distance in
facsimile is not a new thing. and many
attempts have been made to utilize it,
More than half a century ago Alexan-
der Bain of Edinburgh invented an ap-
paratus by means of which written or
printed characters formed in metal
and set up at Il receiving station We're
electrically reproduced in facsimile at
a receiving station. In 1886 a notable
writing or copying telegraph system
was invented by the Able Caselli of
Florence, and this was operated practi-
cally between Paris and Marseilles, a
distance Of $50 miles. This line did
not receive public patronage. however.
and was disused. Various modifica-
tons of Caselli's system, as the Deni-
son Autobiography, were introduced
from time to time, but no copying tele-
graph except Caselli's. was ever EN-
ployed in a way to attract much public
attention. The photographic systems
are distinguished from the copying tel
egraph systems by the fact that in the
former the characters are transmitted
and reproduced at the receiving station
by electricity at the very time that the
operators pen or pencil is forming
them at the sending station. The first
photographic. invention was made in
England in 1874 by Il. A. Cowper, who
called it a writing telegraph. This was
never in practical use.