A good Morse operator can maintain a speed of about thirty words a minute, but this is far too slow for certain kinds of telegraphic work, such as the transmission of press news, and for such work the Wheatstone automatic transmitter is used. First of all the messages are punched on a paper ribbon. This is done by passing the ribbon from right to left by clockwork through a punching machine which is provided with three keys, one for dots, one for dashes, and the other for spaces. If the left-hand key is pressed, two holes opposite to one another are made, representing a dot; and if the right-hand key is pressed, two diagonal holes are punched, representing a dash. In Fig. 29, which shows a piece of ribbon punched in this way, a third line of holes will be noticed between the outside holes representing the dots and dashes. These holes are for the purpose of guiding the paper ribbon steadily along through the transmitting machine. The punched ribbon is then drawn by clockwork through a Wheatstone transmitter. In this machine two oscillating needles, connected with one pole of a battery, are placed below the moving ribbon. Each time a hole passes, these needles make contact with a piece of metal connected with the other pole of the battery, thus making and breaking the circuit with much greater rapidity than is possible with the Morse key. At the receiving station the messages are recorded by a form of Morse inker, coming out in dots and dashes as though sent by hand. Below the punched ribbon in Fig. 29 is shown the corresponding arrangement of dots and dashes. The same punched ribbon may be used repeatedly when the message has to be sent on a number of different lines. The Wheatstone automatic machine is capable of transmitting at the rate of from 250 to 400 words a minute. Fig. 29 is a fragment of a _Daily Telegraph_ Balkan War special, as transmitted to the _Yorkshire Post_ over the latter’s private wire from London to Leeds. In the translation it will be seen that many common words are abbreviated. One weak point of telegraphy with Wheatstone instruments is that the messages are received in Morse code, and have to be translated. During recent years telegraphs have been invented which actually produce their messages in ordinary written or printed characters. A very ingenious instrument is the Hughes printing telegraph, which turns out messages in typewritten form. Its mechanism is too complicated to be described here, but in general it consists of a transmitter having a keyboard something like that of a typewriter, by means of which currents of electricity are made to press a sheet of paper at the right instant against a revolving type-wheel bearing the various characters. This telegraph has been modified and brought to considerable perfection, and in one form or another it is used in European countries and in the United States.