The great Marathon runner was nothing more or less than a telegraph
messenger hastening with his written message, from the man who
delivered it to him, to its destination, and his work was harder than
that of the messenger boy to-day, for he not only had to deliver the
message himself to its destination, but had to run fast all the way or
lose his job.
The messenger on foot finally gave way to the Pony Telegraph, which not
only shortened the time necessary to deliver a message, but marked the
beginning of a system.
[Illustration: MESSENGER BOYS WITH BICYCLES WAITING THE CALL.]
How Does a Telegram Get There?
The next time your daddy takes you down to the office, ask him to show
you the telegraph call box. When you see it, you will perhaps not think
that by merely pulling down the little lever you can so start things
going that, if you wish, you can cause men who are on the other side
of the earth to work for you in a few minutes, and to make little
instruments all along the way which, with their other equipment, have
cost millions of dollars, click, click, click at your will.
[Illustration: ...BUT MANY TELEGRAPH EMPLOYEES MUST WORK...
Here we see the messenger calling at the office from which the call box
registered a call and receiving the telegram to be taken by him to the
central office to be put on the wire.]
[Illustration: When the messenger gets back to the office, he hands the
message to the receiving clerk who stamps it, showing the exact time
received and sends it by pneumatic tube to the operating room.]
Sooner or later during the day your father will be wanting to send a
telegram. He steps to the call box, pulls the little lever and goes
back to his desk. In a few minutes, sometimes before you realize it,
the little blue-coated messenger appears and says “Call?” Father
hands him a telegraph blank on which he has written the message, the
messenger takes off his cap, puts the message inside and the cap back
on his head and away he goes on his bicycle as fast as his legs can
pedal, to the central office, to which point you follow him to see what
he does with the message.
If you had been at the telegraph office instead of your father’s
office, you would have seen one of these boys start off on his wheel to
get the message your father wished to send. When the little lever on
the call box is pulled down, it is pulled back by a spring which sets
some clock work going which sends a signal over the wire on a circuit
which runs out from a register at the main office. The register has a
paper tape running through it, and the signal from the call box appears
as a series of dots on the tape. The clerk knows from the number and
spacing of the dots that it was your father that called and not some
other business man whose box might be on the same circuit.
[Illustration: ...BEFORE THE TELEGRAPH SERVICE IS POSSIBLE AND...
We have now followed the telegram to the point where it is to start
on its real journey. Here we see the operator preparing to send the
message. He first must “get the wire.” By this is meant to get a
through connection to the town where the message is to be delivered.
Each office along the line has a signal. The other operators can hear
the call, but since it is not their signal, they pay no attention.
Almost immediately, however, the operator at the delivery point hears
the signal. He signals back “I I” and repeats his own office call,
which means “I hear you and am ready.” The message is then ticked off,
until finished and the operator at the delivery point signals “O. K.,”
together with his personal signal, which means he has received the
whole message and has it down on paper.]
[Illustration: Here we see the operator at the delivery office. She
has translated the dots and dashes as they came to her over the wire
into plain words on a regular telegraph blank, putting down the time
received, the amount to be collected, if it is a “collect” message, or
marking it “Paid” if it was so sent. She has handed it to one of the
blue-clad messengers in her office who starts off at once to deliver
it. The operator has also made a copy of the message for the office
files.]
[Illustration: ...THE TELEGRAM ARRIVES AT DESTINATION
Here we see the messenger delivering the telegram to the person to
whom it is addressed. It may be good news or bad news for the person
receiving it, but it is all in the day’s work for the messenger boy.
But let us see how many people have to work to deliver the message. We
have followed it through from the original call box. First there was
the messenger who came for it, then the receiving clerk, the sending
operator and the operator who receives it and last of all the messenger
boy who delivered it. This does not take into account the men who must
look after the many miles of wires, the machinery which supplies the
current, or the great army of men who are constantly laying new wires
so that you can send a telegram from almost anywhere to any other
place.]
The operators you have seen working in these pictures are Morse
operators. They send the message by Morse Code in dots and dashes
which are sent over the wire as electric impulses. At the other end
the message is read by listening to the clicks the sounder makes as
it receives these same electric impulses. This is the simplest way of
telegraphing.
The number of messages sent between two big cities in a day is
tremendous--many more than could be transmitted over one Morse wire.
Many wires would be needed. But wire costs money, so ingenious men
set to work to find some way to send more than one message over a
single wire at the same time. They succeeded. There is now the duplex
telegraph, which sends a message each way simultaneously over a single
wire, the quadruplex, which sends two messages each way simultaneously
over a single wire. Last but not least there is the multiplex, which
sends four messages each way simultaneously over a single wire.
This seems almost unbelievable, but it is done. In the case of the
duplex and quadruplex, the different messages are sent by currents
of different strength, and by changing the direction of the current.
Receiving instruments are designed so as to separate the messages by
being affected only by the currents of certain strength or polarity,
as the direction of flow is termed. It can easily be seen that by
these ingenious devices, the telegraph company saves many thousands
of dollars in the miles and miles of wire, and hundreds of telegraph
poles which would be required if all the messages had to be sent over a
simple Morse wire, one message only upon the wire at a time.
[Illustration: THE WONDERFUL ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH SYSTEM...
In this picture we see the interior of a telegraph office along the
line of a railroad. The operator has her hand on the “key” or sending
instrument. At her left in a stand called the resonator, is the
receiving instrument called the “sounder” which clicks off the message.
In front of her is an instrument called the “relay.” Current from two
of the batteries goes through the key when it is pressed down, through
the relay and out on to the wires of the pole line, then through the
relay of the receiving operator at the other end, (see picture on
opposite page) through his key and through two more batteries to the
ground. The earth forms the return wire of an electric circuit when
both keys are “closed” or pressed down. You know all electricity has to
flow in a closed circuit. The “sounder” has to make good strong clicks
to be understood, and the current after it has gone through miles of
wire and ground may not be strong enough so the sounder is put on a
local circuit of its own, with a special battery. In this circuit is a
contact maker which is part of the relay. When the key is pressed down
and current flows over the wires on the poles and through the relays,
the magnets of the relay pull on a little piece of metal called the
“armature,” which makes a contact and closes the local sounder circuit,
so current from the single local battery can flow up through the
magnets of the sounder and back to the battery. This makes the sounder
click. When the key is released, the relay armature is pulled back by
a spring and breaks the circuit of sounder, which then emits another
click. By the number and duration of the clicks and the time between
them, the receiving operator knows the meaning of the signal. The Morse
Code, which is used throughout the United States, is shown on next
page.]
[Illustration: ...SENDS MESSAGES THOUSANDS OF MILES INSTANTANEOUSLY