A FEAT OF TELEGRAPHY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume X, Issue 290, 1 November 1875, Page 4

A FEAT OF TELEGRAPHY.

The Dublin Freeman's Journal contained diagram targets, showing the exact positiou of every shot fired by every competitor, English Scotch, and Irish, for the Elcbo Challenge Shield at Wimbledon on the previous day. This was accomplished as follows: - Diagrams of the targets, divided into a great number of minute squares, each square distinguished by a number ; and, to prevent confusion, in telegraphing, a word also was prepared beforehand for use both in Dublin and the camp. A special corps of markers at Wimbledon marked each target as the shots were fired, and the words corresponding to the squares struck were then telegraphed to Dublin, when the duplicate targets were marked accordingly. By these the stereotype block diagrams wera punched and printed from. It. was found in practice that words were telegraphed with more accuracy than figures, and the former were aecordingly adopted. These . ware, of course, arbitrary, and without the key were quite incomprehensible. Thus the telegram announcing the shooting at 900 yards of Col. Fenton, of the English team, ran aa follows: — Fenlon, English nine—Bark, boat, coke, card, crib, circus, dear, death, exile, Esser, fair, France, frank, grace, glass. Each one of these words cor- . responded to s certain portion of the target. "■ The process, when explained seems simple, but the -carrying it out successfully involved great accuracy, care, and labor. No fewer than eighty separate messages, besides checkings v and corrections, had to be sent and received. Seventy-two targets had to be printed, and over 1000 shots, each in its proper place, had to be punched. All this was accomplished in a few hoars, and with absolute accuracy.