Early one morning a woman was found dead in her home in the suburbs of
London. A man had been observed leaving the house, and his appearance
had been noted. Inquiries revealed that a man answering his
description had left on the slow train for London. Without the
telegraph he could not have been apprehended. But the telegraph was
available at this point, and his description was telegraphed ahead and
the police in London were instructed to arrest him upon his arrival.
"He is dressed as a Quaker," ran the message. There was no Q in the
alphabet of-the five-needle instrument, and so the sender spelled
Quaker, Kwaker. The clerk at the receiving end could not-understand
the strange word, and asked to have it repeated again and again.
Finally some one suggested that the message be completed and the whole
was then deciphered. When the man dressed as a Quaker stepped from the
slow train on his arrival at London the police were awaiting him; he
was arrested and eventually confessed the murder. The news of this
capture and the part the telegraph played gave striking proof of the
utility of the new invention, and public skepticism and indifference
were overcome.

By 1845 Wheatstone had so improved his apparatus that but one wire was
required. The single-needle instrument pointed out the letters on the
dial around it by successive deflections in which it was arranged
to move, step by step, at the will of the sending station. The
single-needle instrument, though generally displaced by Morse's
telegraph, remained in use for a long time on some English lines.
Wheatstone had also invented a type-printing telegraph, which he
patented in 1841. This required two circuits.

With a working telegraph attained, the partners became involved in an