udent, beardless but careworn,
became more and more engrossed with it, until his nights were almost
entirely given to experiment. He begrudged the time which had to be
spent in teaching his classes and the fatigue was telling upon his
health, so in 1853 he removed to Bowlingreen, in Warren Co., Kentucky,
where he acquired more freedom by taking pupils.

The main principle of his type-printer was the printing of each letter
by a single current; the Morse instrument, then the principal receiver
in America, required, on the other hand, an average of three currents
for each signal. In order to carry out this principle it was necessary
that the sending and receiving apparatus should keep in strict time
with each other, or be synchronous in action; and to effect this was the
prime difficulty which Professor Hughes had to overcome in his work. In
estimating the Hughes' type-printer as an invention we must not forget
the state of science at that early period. He had to devise his own
governors for the synchronous mechanism, and here his knowledge of
acoustics helped him. Centrifugal governors and pendulums would not do,
and he tried vibrators, such as piano-strings and tuning-forks. He at
last found what he wanted in two darning needles, borrowed from an old
lady in the house where he lived. These steel rods fixed at one end
vibrated with equal periods, and could be utilised in such a way that
the printing wheel could be corrected into absolute synchronism by each
signal current.

In 1854, Professor Hughes went to Louisville to superintend the making
of his first instrument; but it was unprotected by a patent in the
United States until 1855. In that form straight vibrators were used
as governors, and a separate train of wheel-work was employed in
correcting: but in later forms the spiral governor was adopted, and the
printing and correcting is now done by the same action. In 1855, the
invention may be said to have become fit for employment, and no sooner
was this the case, than Professor Hughes received a telegram from the
editors of the New York Associated Press, summoning him to that city.
The American Telegraph Company, then a leading one, was in possession
of the Morse instrument, and levied rates for transmission of news which
the editors found oppressive. They took up the Hughes' instrument in
opposition to the Morse, and introduced it on the lines of several
companies. After a time, however, the separate companies amalg