AN IMPROVED CONSTRUCTION OF WATCH OR TIMEKEEPER FOR WATCHMEN
Year: 1866

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Henry Abenheim, Emil Abenheim,
and Leopold Abenheim, at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents,
with their Petition, on the 17th January 1866.-A communication from
abroad by Johannes Bürk, of Schwenningen, in the Kingdom of
Wurtemburg.
We, HENRY ABENHEIM, EMIL ABENHEIM, and LEOPOLD ABENHEIM, all of
Red Lion Square, in the County of Middlesex, Merchants, do hereby declare
the nature of the said Invention for "AN IMPROVED CONSTRUCTION OF WATCH OR
TIMEKEEPER FOR WATCHMEN," to be as follows:-
The object of this Invention is to produce a watch or timekeeper for the
use of watchmen and others whose duty it is to make the rounds of a house,
warehouse, or premises at specified and regular times during the night. In
order to be assured that the watchman does not neglect his duty, and to detect
him if he should do so, tell-tale clocks or timekeepers are provided at different
stations, and the man is bound to go and pull a handle, lever, or other device,
which will indicate that he has made his round at the appointed time; these
clocks are expensive, and if there are several stations, at each of which there
must be a tell-tale clock, the cost of providing the clocks will be considerable.
By the present Invention all these stationary clocks or timekeepers may be
dispensed with, and in lieu thereof the watchman will carry a small portable
timekeeper or watch, to which a tell-tale will be adapted, and he will find at
each station a key with wards or projections, with which alone he is enabled

page_text: to act on the tell-tale and thereby register the exact time at which he visited
the station.
The movement of the improved watch or timekeeper is of the ordinary kind,
but the hour hand of the timekeeper alone is used. A light metal ring or
wheel, provided at its centre with a square socket to fit the head of the hour
band spindle, is adapted to the latter, and in order that it may be carried
round with the hour hand a notch is made in the boss of the wheel to fit over
the hand. The periphery of the metal wheel is grooved all round, and
on it is secured a band of paper divided by lines into hours and spaces of ten
minutes. To the inside of the case which encloses the timekeeper are secured
any number of spring levers corresponding in number to the number of stations
intended to be visited. The spring levers are provided at their outer ends
with pointed studs, which stand immediately opposite to the divisions on the
slip of paper which is attached to the rotating tell-tale wheel. These spring
levers can only be acted on by the keys which are kept chained up at the
several stations, and therefore the watchman must visit the stations in order
to mark on the paper, which is otherwise inaccessible to him the time of his
visit. It will be evident that if the watchman does not carry his watch to the
key at the station the tell-tale paper will indicate the omission. Again, if the
watchman visits the station either before or after the appointed time, any
such irregularity will be indicated on the paper. In the morning the watch-
man will deliver up the timekeeper, and the tell-tale slips of paper may be
pasted in a book and a register be thereby kept of his attention, to his duties.
There is nothing new in the construction of the key.