FIRST PICTUREGRAMS SENT IN AUSTRALIA.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 10 September 1929, Page 3

FIRST PICTUREGRAMS SENT IN AUSTRALIA.

FINGER PRINTS AND DOCUMENTS WIRED

Received Monday, 7 p.m

SYDNEY, Sept. 9. The first picturegrams transmitted in Australia were exchanged between Sydney and Melbourne to-day. Evening papers here published illustrations received through medium of a special apparatus installed by the Postal Department. One half-page picture was that of a crowd of people en route to business outside Flinders. street railway station, Melbourne. This was developed and lodged at the post and half-an-hour later was completed in Sydney ready for the newspaper block maker. While the detail was necessarily somewhat blurred, the picture gives a very fair reproduction of the original. The picturegrams, or rjhotogranis, as they are variously called, included not only newspaper illustrations but advertisements, finger-prints and documents.

It is expected the system will be particularly valuable to the police in tracing criminals. The system will operate only between Sydney and Melbourne for the present. The reprodncton of a leading article in this morning's Melbourne Argus is published in this afternoon's editions of thi< Sydney Sun. Every word is readable and make threequarters of a column. Picluivgnuns of Sydney's crowds going to work have been sent to Melbourne by the same process.