AN IMPROVED SIGNAL APPARATUS TO BE ATTACHED TO COMMON ROAD CARRIAGES
Year: 1857

page_text: 20
application for Letters Patent was not given within the time prescribed
by the Act.)
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Henry Johnson at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 22nd December
1857. A communication from Louis Francois Clément Bréguet, of Paris,
in the Empire of France, Clock Maker.
I, JOHN HENRY JOHNSON, of 47, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in the County of
Middlesex, and of 166, Buchanan Street, in the City of Glasgow, North
Britain, Gentleman, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"AN IMPROVED SIGNAL APPARATUS TO BE ATTACHED TO COMMON ROAD CARRIAGES,"
a communication from Louis Francois Clément Bréguet, of Paris, in the
Empire of France, Clock Maker, to be as follows:-
This Invention relates to the application and use to and in cabs or other
common road carriages plying for hire, whereby the proprietors or managers
of the cabs are made aware, by means of external signals, of the conditions or
terms upon which the vehicle is engaged, that is, whether it is running
according to distance or by time, and also whether the vehicle is or is not
engaged.
The length of time during which any one of the external signals is shewn
is indicated by means of a pencil or other marker upon a card inside the
cab, such indicating apparatus being actuated by clockwork or connecting
mechanism, whilst the position of the pencil is adjusted by mechanism in
connection with the mechanism employed for adjusting the external signals.
These external signals may consist of a number of inverted cups or hollow

page_text: boxes painted each of a different color, and sliding one inside the other after
the manner of a telescope, the whole being placed in any conspicuous part of
the vehicle. These colored signals are slid up and down to shew any com-
bination of colors required, according to the meaning to be conveyed, by means
of a horizontal lever working over a notched bar, and actuating, by means of
inclined surfaces, other levers in direct communication with the colored
signals.
The indicating apparatus inside the vehicle is totally out of the control of
the driver, and consists of a disc of cardboard or other suitable material which
is made to revolve once in the 24 hours by means of clockwork or other
convenient mechanism. This disc has a number of concentric circles drawn
upon its face, against which is pressed a pencil point or other line indicator or
marker. An arm working on a fulcrum at one end and carrying the pencil
at the other is raised or lowered simultaneously with the external signals, and
as each circle corresponds to a given signal, it follows that as the disc revolves
the pencil will trace a curved line on that circle which corresponds to the
signal shown outside, and as the face of the disc is divided into hours and
fractions of hours, the length of the marked line will indicate the direction of
time that any given signal has been shown.
The elevation and depression of the arm carrying the pencil is effected by
an incline attached to and moving with the inclines which adjust the external
signals.
If found desirable the lever which changes tho position of the pencil may
be made to start a counter or timekeeper of any kind when brought into the
position for indicating that the vehicle is engaged by the hour, so that the
fare and coachman may see the exact time occupied.