s
Wheatstone and Cooke were operating an experimental line, crude
and impracticable though it was, and enjoying the sensations of
communicating with each other at a distance.

In 1841 the telegraph was placed on public exhibition at so much a
head, but it was viewed as an entertaining novelty without utility by
the public at large. After many disappointments the inventors secured
the cooperation of the Great Western Railroad, and a line was erected
for a distance of thirteen miles. But the public would not patronise
the line until its utility was strikingly demonstrated by the capture
of the "Kwaker."

Early one morning a woman was found dead in her home in the suburbs of
London. A man had been observed leaving the house, and his appearance
had been noted. Inquiries revealed that a man answering his
description had left on the slow train for London. Without the
telegraph he could not have been apprehended. But the telegraph was
available at this point, and his description was telegraphed ahead and
the police in London were instructed to arrest him upon his arrival.
"He is dressed as a Quaker," ran the message. There was no Q in the
alphabet of-the five-needle instrument, and so the sender spelled
Quaker, Kwaker. The clerk at the receiving end could not-understand
the strange word, and asked to have it repeated again and again.
Finally some one suggested that the message be completed and the whole
was then deciphered. When the man dressed as a Quaker stepped from the
slow train on his arrival at London the police were awaiting him; he
was arrested and eventually confessed the murder. The news of this
capture and the part the telegraph played gave striking proof of the
utility of the new invention, and public skepticism and indifference
were overcome.

By 1845 Wheatstone had so improved his apparatus that but one wire was
required. The single-needle instrument pointed out the letters on the
dial around it by successive deflections in which it was arranged
to move, step by step, at the will of the sending station. The
single-needle instrument, though generally displaced by Morse's
telegraph, remained in use for a long time on some English lines.
Wheatstone had also invented a type-printing telegraph, which he
patented in 1841. This required two circuits.

With a working telegraph attained, the partners became involved in an
altercation as to which deserved the honor of inventing the same.
The quarrel was finally subm