IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR RECORDING THE NUMBER OF PASSENGERS' WHO TRAVEL IN OMNIBUSES OR OTHER VEHICLES, TOGETHER WITH THE VALUE OF' THE FARES PAID BY SUCH PASSENGERS, APPLICABLE TO OTHER PURPOSES
Year: 1870

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Edward James Jeffs at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
15th January 1870.
•
I, EDWARD James Jeffs, of Hammersmith, in the County of
Middlesex, do hereby declare the nature of the said' Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR RECORDING THE NUMBER OF PASSENGERS' WHO
TRAVEL IN OMNIBUSES OR OTHER VEHICLES, TOGETHER WITH THE VALUE OF' THE
FARES PAID BY SUCH PASSENGERS, APPLICABLE TO OTHER PURPOSES," to be as
follows:
My Invention relates to improvements in apparatus for recording or
registering the number and the amount of the various fares paid' by
passengers who travel in an omnibus or other public conveyance, or
otherwise to indicate the number and amounts received from persons in
other situations where a recoil is desirable to operate as a check upon
conductors or money takers.
According to my Invention I employ a separate dial or index for each
distinct "fare" or sum to be registered. By way of example I will take
the case of an omnibus where: there are four distinct fares chargeable
of, say, 2d., 3d., 4d., and 6d. In this case I fix my enumerating and
registering apparatus either inside or outside of the omnibus in some

page_text: situation easily accessible to the conductor. I provide the apparatus
with four dials, or as many as may be necessary for the fares in use, or
indices, each of which is marked in a distinct manner with one of the
four distinct fares chargeable. If the indices are circular in form I
mark them with numbers up to number 20, or any other convenient
number, in the form of a dial plate. I provide each of the dials with an
indicating pointer, which can be moved around from number to number
by the conductor, and the pointer may be connected with apparatus for
striking a bell each time the pointer is moved from one number to
another, so as to indicate to the ear that the payment has been properly
recorded by the conductor. At the back of the dial plates I arrange
arms mounted on the axes of the pointers, and at the completion of each
rotation of the pointers these arms act upon suitable wheels so as to
move round dials, whereby numbers are exposed to view through
apertures in the dial plates, such numbers registering the number of
each complete revolution made by the pointers of their respective dial
plates. The pointers and the dials for indicating the number of com-
plete revolutions of the pointers are provided with catches, so that they
can only be moved in the forward direction, and stops may be applied to
prevent the pointers being moved after the counting limit of the
apparatus is exhausted except by properly authorized persons. It will
be understood that the conductor of the omnibus moves one or other of
the pointers one or more steps according to the amount and number of
fares and the various amounts received by him, and the total of such
amounts is therefore recorded and can be ascertained with very great
facility at any part or stage of each journey.
• When constructing apparatus according to my Invention the
mechanism for actuating the second dials may be varied, and toothed
wheels may be employed for this purpose. The pointers may be so
constructed as to move upon slides or grooves from one number to
another, and when the pointer has been moved to the end of its course
after acting upon mechanism to expose the multiplying number the
pointer may be moved out of the slide and re-introduced at the beginning
of the index.