Early in the history of the telegraph a printing system was devised. Wheatstone and others had proposed systems of printing telegraphs in Europe, but these never passed the experimental stage. The first printing telegraph introduced in America was invented by Royal E. House of Vermont, and first introduced in 1847 on a line between Cincinnati and Jeffersonville, a distance of 150 miles. In 1849 a line for commercial use was established between New York and Philadelphia, and for some years following many lines were equipped with the House printing telegraph instrument. The late General Anson Stager was a House operator at one time. All printing telegraph instruments, while differing greatly in detail, have certain things in common, to wit: a means for bringing the type into position, an inking device, a printing mechanism, a paper feed, and a means for bringing the type-wheels into unison. There are two general types of printing instruments, the step-by-step, and the synchronously moving type-wheels. The House printer was a step-by-step instrument and consisted of two parts, a transmitter and a receiver. The transmitter consists of a keyboard like a piano, with twenty-eight keys. These keys are held in position by springs. Under the keys is a cylinder having twenty-eight pins on it corresponding to the twenty-six letters of the alphabet and a dot and a space. This cylinder was driven by some power. In those days it was by man-power. It was carried by a friction, so that it could be easily stopped by the depression of any one of the keys that interfered with one of the pins. One revolution of the cylinder would break and close the current twenty-eight times, making twenty-eight steps.