Chinese Telegraphs

Chinese Telegraph

The Chinese, owing to the multiplicity of the characters in their written language, have solved the problem of telegraphy by using numbers for transmission over the wire instead of characters. The numbers have to be reinterpreted into characters when received. To facilitate the operation, types are used. On one end of each type is a character; on the other end is a number; by reversing and imprinting the types upon a sheet of paper the change is readily effected with a high degree of accuracy.