So far we have described several methods of electrical communication at a distance, including the reading of letters and symbols at sight (as by the dial-telegraph and the Morse code embossed on a strip of paper); printed messages and messages received by means of arbitrary sounds, and culminating in the most wonderful of all, the electrical transmission of articulate speech. None of these systems, however, are able to transmit a message that completely identifies the sender without confirmation in the form of an autograph letter by mail. In 1893 there was exhibited in the electrical building at the World's Fair an instrument invented by the writer called the Telautograph. As the word implies, it is a system by which a man's own handwriting may be transmitted to a distance through a wire and reproduced in facsimile at the receiving-end. This instrument has been so often described in the public prints that we will not attempt to do it here, for the reason that it would be impossible without elaborate drawings and specifications. It is unnecessary to state that it differs in a fundamental way from other facsimile systems of telegraphy. Suffice it to say that as one writes his message in one city another pen in another city follows the transmitting-pen with perfect synchronism; it is as though a man were writing with a pen with two points widely separated, both moving at the same time and both making exactly the same motions. By this system a man may transact business with the same accuracy as by the United States mail, and with the same celerity as by the electric telegraph. A broker may buy or sell with his own signature attached to the order, and do it as quickly as he could by any other method of telegraphing, and with absolute accuracy, secrecy and perfect identification. In 1893, when this apparatus was first publicly exhibited, it operated by means of four wires between stations, and while the work it did was faultless, the use of four wires made it too expensive and too cumbersome for commercial purposes; so during all the years since then the endeavor has been to reduce the number of wires to two, when it would stand on an equality with the telephone in this respect. It is only lately that this improvement has been satisfactorily accomplished, and, for reasons above stated, no serious attempt has been made to introduce it as yet; but it has been used for a long enough time to demonstrate its practicability and commercial value. Companies have been organized both in Europe and America for the purpose of putting the telautograph into commercial use.