Troubles of a Phototelegrapher.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXV, Issue 10016, 5 December 1908, Page 3 (Supplement)

Troubles of a Phototelegrapher.

One of the newly perfected devices for the transmission of photograplis by telegraph is. now in daily use between Paris and London, connecting two newspaper oflices in these cities. It works with exemplary faithfulness, we are told by a writer in La . Nature (Paris). But' just as we may have an occasional buzzing on the best telephone line, due to induction or some other cause, so there is an pccasional fault in inhotographic transmission, resulting in the receipt of some remarkable pic*iit.m KrmYo n f -fViPso -frp.i.ks as nrtiiallv

received in London from Paris by The 1 JJaily Mirror, are given in the article mentioned above and are actually reproduced. ■ Says the writer:—"These are singular illustrations, you will. think! Why has this graceful young girl whose delicate features yon see, such a horribly scarred face ? . "What is the meaning of this strange lace pattern behind which diplomatically hides the physiognomy of M. Clemencean? And these concentric bands that are superimposed on a person who Kerns to be Mulai-Hafid ! These are specimens of very curious errors in transmission, selected from the phototelegrams now exchanged daily between our contemporaries, L'lllustration of Paris and The Daily -Mirror of London. These two journals have now a perfectly organised phototelegraphic-service; the apparatus used is that of Eorn which was described in La Nature several months ago. Every night, about 2 a.m., this new variety of news service uses the Paris-London telephone line, and there is thus sent from Paris to London, in the form of pictures, all the interesting news of the day. The Korn apparatus now works perfectly and transmits photographs excellently well, provided the line is in satisfactory condition. 'JBut it is not always so, as may be imagined by any one" who has telephoned over a long-distance line. ; J.he accompanying photographs were sent from Paris to London in the way above indicated, and the-- show precisely what was the matter with the line at the moment of transmission. It takes twenty minutes to "send such a picture, and it may be realised that this slowness often puts to the proof the patience of the operator. He sometimes deserts his charge, and the scars on the young girl's face in the- photograph give a t-emonstration of his nervousness, for they mark_ short interruptions of communication, quickly re-estahlished, doubtless by order of the sender. It often happens, especially on lines of great length, • that the currents sent over neighboring telegraphic lines influence the telephone conductor. . . .' Eyery one knows the particularly disagreeable scraping sound that is thus produced in the telephone. If these electric' effects take place at the time of transmission of a phototelegraphic image, they will evidently .influence the receiving instrument, and the pictures will show the result. The lace-like effect that transforms the face of M. Clemenceau intc a sort- of Gobelin tapestry. has no othei cause 'than the influence of a telegraphic dispatch in the Morse alphabet, sent at the same moment, over a near-by line. Civ the visage of Mulai-Hafid we And, on the other hand, a dispatch sent with a Baudot apparatus, superposed on the photograph i In' short,' we have here the'photographu ; reproduction' of the scraping 'or buzzing >' sound in the telephone."