Page 5 Advertisements Column 1

Evening Star, Issue 15076, 7 January 1913, Page 5

Proceedings at the Durban (S.A.) Circuit Court were recently suspended for half an hour while the Advocate-General went home to change his waistcoat, the color of which had been objected to by the presiding Judge! In Charles Borseul there has just died at the age of 83, poor and unknown, the first discoverer of the principle ox the telephone. - His claim to this distinction was recognised 30 years ago bv Dr Graham Bell and Mr Edison, who”developed and completed the invention. Borseul, who' was the son of a. French officer devoted himself to the study of telegraphy, and in 1855 propounded the theory 3 of the telephone. Being a Government official, he obtained the consent of his chiefs before publishing his discovery, but this permission was given him with the warning that he. had better devote his attention to more serious matters.