Continental news. In this apparatus the electromagnet, on
attracting its armature, presses the paper against a revolving
type wheel and receives the print of a type, so that the message
can be read by a novice. To this effect the type wheel at the
receiving station has to keep in perfect time as it revolves, so
that the right letter shall be above the paper when the current
passes. Small varieties of the type-printer are employed for the
distribution of news and prices in most of the large towns, being
located in hotels, restaurants, saloons, and other public places,
and reporting prices of stocks and bonds, horse races, and
sporting and general news. The "duplex system," whereby two
messages, one in either direction, can be sent over one wire
simultaneously without interfering, and the quadruplex system,
whereby four messages, two in either direction, are also sent at
once, have come into use where the traffic over the lines is very
great. Both of these systems and their modifications depend on an
ingenious arrangement of the apparatus at each end of the line, by
which the signal currents sent out from one station do not
influence the receivers there, but leave them free to indicate the
currents from the distant station. When the Wheatstone Automatic
Sender is employed with these systems about 500 words per minute
can be sent through the line. Press news is generally sent by
night, and it is on record, that during a great debate in
Parliament, as many as half a million words poured out of the
Central Telegraph Station at St. Martin's-le-Grand in a single
night to all parts of the country.

Errors occur now and then through bad penmanship or the similarity
of certain signals, and amusing telegrams have been sent out, as
when the nomination of Mr. Brand for the Speakership of the