MECHANICAL MAN

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 75, 29 March 1928, Page 22

MECHANICAL MAN

AND TALKING DOG.

AN ELECTRICAL PHENOMENON

SURVIVES- DRESS REHEARSAL. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SAX FRANCISCO, March 1. Always on the hunt for something in the realms of the marvellous, American genius has just evolved a mechanical man, which has created ail immense furore in Xew York, and it is claimed that this electrical phenomenon in the form of a man-servant will say anything desired at any hour of the day or night, provided only that he has not blown out one of his tubes or short-circuited himself.

This automatic man survived a dress rehearsal of his first public appearahce in Xew York without a blunder.

The- ideal servant, invented, by K. J. Wensley, of the YVestiufrhouse Electric Company, went through his paces, answering the telephone, unveiling a portrait of George Washington, starting a vacuum cleaner and turning it off again. Inside the mechanical man is just a lot of intricate machinery comprising all the good features of radio, electric stoves, and alarm clocks. But on the outside he looks something like the rest of us. His eyes are backed with electric bulbs, and his iron hat is an iron hat in fact.

Seated on one side of the room, Wensley dialed a number on the telephone. The automatic man responded by slowly lifting with his mechanical arm the receiver ot the telephone. Wensley yodelled a few notes from a small flute, and with the right hand the automaton lifted a draped flag from a picture of George Washington. Another sound was sounded, and he started an electric fan. A series of chirps from the flute caused the automaton to shut the fan off. Three blasts on the whistle, and a vacuum cleaner was switched on; then, at a signal from Wensley, turned off.

Wensley, who took the automaton to New York to exhibit at the Level Club's George Washington memorial dinner two nights later, said the speaking part of the contraption was one of the simplest accessories imaginable.

The added attraction of the already much-described automaton will work out, according to the inventor, something like this: The householder absent from his domicile steps to a telephone and calls his home. "Hello, this is Herbert. Hello, this is Herbert. Hello, this is Herbert," answers his mechanical butler. Gives "Oven Blast."

The answer is made to a whistle which the master blows, for Herbert has not yet reached the point where he understands words, even if he does speak them. The sound of his master's whistle is what stirs up Herbert's clockwork nervous svstem.

The master wants his oven turned on. He gives the oven blast on the whistle. "This is Herbert. The oven's on. This is Herbert. The oven's on," the mechanism says reassuringly.

If the master wants Herbert to turn on the lights in the driveway so he can get into the garage safely he blows the turn-on-the-driveway-lights whistle. "This is Herbert. The lights in the driveway are on. This is Herbert. The lights in the driveway are on," the automaton will say. He will keep on saying it until the master blows another whistle, which means: "Oh, shut up!" or "That's fine; go, chase yourself." Herbert has not yet reached the point where he will voluntarily end a conversation and hang up the receiver. He has to be told. He cannot think and he cannot vote. Otherwise, he is full of qualities and a handy person to have around the house, never indulging in below-stairs gossip and a total abstainer, speaking alcoholically. He does not have to be called Herbert. He will answer to any name his master chooses, whether it be Ethelbert or William, and reply in any formula selected. "The heater is on. Yes, thank you, sir," is just as easy for him as "The heat's on." Producing Speech Easy.

"Making him talk is one of the simplest problems," said Wensley. "His speech will be along the lines of the talking movies. A previous record of speech will be made, and this will be set inside him. When he receives the proper vibrations, he will do all the talking you wish."

Wensley was at the moment engaged in making Herbert look even more like a man for his presentation as a sort of guest of honour at the George Washington banquet. He said the automaton would not be able to make an afterdinner speeeh, the parts not all being immediately available. He would merely buzz his appreciation.

Herbert's weight is about 90 pounds. All his "thinking" parts are in his stomach. His inventor expects him to show the first signs of senile decay about twenty years hence. But if a few of his parts are replaced, Wensley is certain he will attain a much riper age.

If the activities of George Washington's birthday were a criterion, the home life of the American nation, so important to the father of his country, has not been made any more secure by the advent of the mechanical man and the talking dog.

The mechanical man. having just attained the dignity of a full-sized, somewhat human body, used it to attend a lodge meeting in New York. But the little French bulldog, named Princess Jacqueline, the property of Mrs. Mabel Robinson, of Bangor, Maine, and exhibited originally at the Eastern Dog Club's show at Boston, finding his voice, remarked several times: "I want to go out." The dog has a vocabulary of twelve words, all well pronounced, but the dog uses only her lips to form the words, the tongue remaining idle. Herbert Televox.

Herbert Tele vox, the mechanical man, was the guest of honour at the dinner of the Level Club of the National Masonic League, and he made a very favourable impression on the 1000 members and their guests. Despite a certain stiff, unbending dignity, Herbert conveyed the impression that he was willing to do anything reasonable to make the affair a success, and not shame his papa, Mr. Wensley. who has nursed him along since he was nothing but a handful of vacuum tubes and a few loose magnets in the East Pittsburgh laboratories of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company. At a' suggestion from Judge Peter Sehmuek, Sublime Leveller of the Level Club, Herbert contributed the\high point of the evening by jerking a rope which unveiled a large picture of George Washington. As a delicate compliment, Herbert then turned a spotlight on the picture. -

The applause which followed these gestures, and others which included the operation of vacuum cleaners, electric fans and sundry " pieces of apparatus caused Herbert to blink his red electric eyes.

As he appeared before the Level Club, Herbert stood six feet high in his new body of bristol board, painted a steel grey. He was jointed at the shoulders and elbows, and on other parts of his body rivets were painted to enhance his mechanical beauty.

There was some dispute among the spectators oil the question of clothes. Some said he had on no clothes at all, and ought to be dressed. Others said he consisted entirely of clothes, except for the tubes and gadgets in his stomach. But the consensus was that Herbert, having escaped the curse of Adam, was an innocent oyster anyhow, and so the matter of clothes was of no importance. Wensley, his creator, ordered Heroert about by means of a whistle pitched to certain keys. To amuse the guests, he did it over a telephone, Herbert "buzzed"' his replies, and responded promptly. Wensley said the next time they saw Herbert he would be talking. Connection with the stage to Televox was obtained bv his master only through this telephone line, and Wensley dialed the key number connecting the phone with that over the electrical ear of the machanical man. Televox immediately responded from the coils and wires that formed his vital organs.

When Wensley failed to give him instructions the mechanical man repeated his answering buzz, then broke the connection. Wensley blew a note on his pitch pipe into the telephone transmitter, and Televox responded obediently.