IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS POR ASCERTAIN- ING AND INDICATING THE NUMBER OF AND DISTANCE TRAVELLED BY PASSENGERS IN PUBLIC CARRIAGES, AND THE FARES PAID
Year: 1857

page_text: application for Letters Patent was not given within the time prescribed
by the Act.)
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Anguish Honour Augustus Durant
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents; with his Petition, on the
28th February 1857.
I, ANGUISH HONOUR AUGUSTUS DURANT, of the Conservative Club, Saint
James's Street, in the County of Middlesex, Esquire, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS POR ASCERTAIN-
ING AND INDICATING THE NUMBER OF AND DISTANCE TRAVELLED BY PASSENGERS IN
PUBLIC CARRIAGES, AND THE FARES PAID," to be as follows:-
This Invention relates in part to certain improvements upon a former
Patent, No. 2038, granted unto me, the said Anguish Honour Augustus
Durant, bearing date the 8th day of September 1855, which I call the monitor,
and the present improvement consists in the addition to various parts thereof of
certain toothed and other wheels, bolts, and levers in connection with a beli
to be employed for registering the gross number of passengers that shall have
travelled in a public carriage, for example, an omnibus. A peculiar feature
in this Invention consists in employing only one bell in the above mentioned
improved apparatus or "monitor" for registering the highest fare charged by
the omnibus proprietor, and in employing a lever in conjunction therewith for
making the necessary deduction between such fare and a lower priced fare;
that is to say, suppose two or more passengers to enter an omnibus, that the said
omnibus had two fares, namely, 6 pence and 4 pence, and that the conductor

page_text: struck the bell of the apparatus or "monitor" each time a passenger entered or
got out, the effect thereof would be to move one of the hands on the dial
so as to register 1 person as having entered and paid say 6 pence, but suppose
also the next passenger only to pay 4 pence, this would register as sixpence
on the dial unless the conductor operated upon the before-mentioned lever so
as to make the necessary deduction of twopence, thus rendering it imperative
for the conductor to actuate the said lever or to pay the difference out of his
own pocket.
Another feature in these improvements consists in connecting the aforesaid
apparatus with the step or door of the omnibus so as to cause said bell to be
operated upon each time a passenger got in or out, thereby rendering the
apparatus self-acting. These improvements consist further in adapting two
semicircular pieces of paper or cardboard to the dial of the apparatus (if
the apparatus be circular); in connection with this cardboard are marking
points attached to the hands of the apparatus which, when pressed upon by
levers, enable the timekeeper or other person employed to copy and register
the number of passengers that shall have entered the omnibus and paid fare
between any two given points of the journey. Instead of forming the before-
mentioned apparatus upon the principle set forth and described, I propose, if
desirable, to employ an ordinary plain dial and indicating hands in connection
with ratchet wheels placed either on the face or in the body of the apparatus
for a similar purpose.