THE PULSION TELEPHONE.
One of the last numbers of Nature, the well-known scientilic journal, contains an account of a new mechanical telephone of extraordinary power, which has recently
been exciting considerable attention in London and some other cities and towns in England. It cornea from America, being the invention of Lemuel Mellett, ot Boston, United States, and if it performs all that is claimed for it, and is not a fraud, like the great electric sugar refinery swindle, it will produce a complete revolution in telephonic communication. The article says that the pulsion telephone is absolutely independent of all electrical aids, and, therefore, needs no battery or insulation of the wires. It consists solely of two cheap and simple instruments, connected by an ordinary non-insulated wire of copper, or, better still, ot a double steel wire, the two parts being slightly intertwisted, say about a single turn in a couple of feet. The wire is simply looped to the instrnment at either end, the connection being made in a few seconds. The instrument consists of a disc, in combination with a series of small spiral springs, enclosed in a case some three or four inches in diameter. These springs, arranged in a manner that has been determined by experiment, and so as to produce harmonised vibrations, appear to possess the power of magnifying or accumulating upon the wire the vibrations which the voice sets up ia the disc, and the wire seems to possess — undoubtedly does possess — the power of transmit-
ting to great distances, and fiiving on a second pulsion instrument the sound of
the voices. The power of this simple instrument to transmit .sounds to considerable distances with great clearness is most surprising, and to none more so than to the many men of science who have been recently experimenting with it. The writer says he heard conversation
through a line three miles in length with the utmost ease. Indeed, so powerfully was the voice transmitted that an ordinary hat sufficed for all the purposes of the second instrument. Ho describes another experiment where the wirejin its course was tightly twisted thrcs times round some branches of trees. This in no way interfered with the transmission of
the voice. A third and last experiment was made with a wire laid at the bottom of a lake about 500 yards long. The wire was not insulated, and had no other support than the bottom of the lake, and yet conversation was carried on through it without the least difficulty. Post-office, police, railway, and other commercial people, 60 Rays the article, are already overwhelming with applications those who are arranging to supply the new telephone, which from its extreme simplicity is very cheap.
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him be night. for me ould * o'clock ay a fine I meet but my along the boreea * Good morning, MauI, ' ye're up early ; ' an' H^snaps me up, and says he : • 'why shonld'nt I be up early, whin I was up nil the night ? ' Oh, you may be mortal sartin, your Reverence, that Maurice is going wid the dead. But whist! wait awhile. I was goin' wid .that same old jinnit to sell her at the fur ay Kilmallock, an' as the journey was tadioua, I started about three o'clock, expecting to ' rache-in ' by nine. Well, by the same token, who did 1 meet afther laving Inrae but Tom Richardson. ' Good morrow, John, says he. 'Good morrow, sir,' says I. •Isit to the fair ay Kilmallock ye're going ? ' says he. 'It is, sir,' says I. 'An' whin will yo be there?' saya he. •By nine,' says I. ' I'll wager ye a pint that ye won't,' says he. ' Done,' says I. Well, your Reverence, I parted with Tom, an' I had a shlip ay a boy alongside me, an' as we wint along we saw something curled np in a ditch. ' Glory be to God!' says I, 'what's that?-' 1 thought it might be a drank man who had ' shlep oat,' and that we should see . what way was he. Bnt whin we got up to him, God save the hearers, who was it at all at all but Maurice, an' he lyin' there sound ashleep, wid au ould bag ronnd his neck, all in the world like a big cravat. There he was, shore enough, quiet an' aisy ; and whin I sees him that a way the second time, your Reverence, I says to meself : ' Ah, me lad, all the world wouldn't persuade me naw that ye're not "going wid the dead." ' An' share he havn't the color ay a Christian at all, at all, an' that's another thing. But why they does it I can't exactly fathom, for some ay tbim does be up to tricks. For 1 wanst knew another man in the County ' Tiperary ' who was ' going •wid the dead,' an' he was a rale villian. There was a strong farmer, a neighboring man of his, who died — raay the Lord have mercy on his sowl ! — an' a night or two afther be died, there came a tappin' to his widow's bedroom windy, an' she the crayture woke np all ay a thrimble. ' Who's there!' says she. 'It's your own poor Michael," says the 'vice.' 'O blessed Vargin,' says she ; ' don't ye rest aisy, Michael asthore?' 'I doD't,' says the 'vice ;' • an' I cant.' ' An' why can't ye ?' says she. * I can't rest aisy,' says he, ' till ye give ■ a suit ay me clothes an' a pig to that honest man, Dan Donovan, says he. (Dan was the villain I'm spaking about, your reverence). Well, wid that, the 'vice' died away, an' shure enough the next day following Dan called up to the farm house at his dead awe, as if nothing at all had happened. An' the poor woman cays to him : ' Dan,' says she, ' I've a message for you from me poor husband, may the heavens be hi* bed ! ' says Bhe. Well, your Reverence will je believe me ! Pan was such a villian that he up as bould as br.'iss, an' says he : ' I partly guess, mam,' says he, ' whdt it is,' says be ; ' for I was wid the poor man neself last night,' snys he ; ' wasn't It somthing, mam,' says he, ' about a pig an' a shuit ay clothes ? ' says lie. An' shure enough, the poor Onaadhawn ay a woman, didn't she give the desayving blayguard both the shuit an' the Pig! Well, your Reverence, the parish priest heard tell ay this, as it was ■ right he should, an' he sint for Dap ; an' says he to him, says he: 'This is bad work I do be heerin' ay you, an' how dar 1 you,' says he, 'be goin' on wid tricks like this over the poor man that is " givin" the grass" in the churchyard,' says he, 'an' robbin' the poor widow ? ' But Dan had a mighty hard cheek, an' he wouldn't give in he was usin' any desate at all at ill bat said he was ' goin' wid the dead,' J he had the impidence to tell the priest, uo to his face, that he was as shure ay coin' to heaven as he was himself. Look at that for ye ! " It would appear from the above accounts, which are repeated as correctly as Hie writer can remember them, that "going wid tbe dead" is occasionally nmtended to by a certain class of schemers, who find it pays to play thus upon the imagination and feelings of their ignorant neighbors, by professing to hold intercourse with the departed. 1 hey probably encourage thefeelins of mystery and terror that surrounds them in consequence, and may find it a useful protection when engaged in ordinary nocturnal robbery, as anyone believed to be "going wid the dead" would naturally be shunned while night- walking in such company. It does not appear that Maurice, the first person ot this class above mentioned, has been so successful in " devouring widows' bouses" as Dan was ; but he has recently distinguished himself by raising a pig by a more vulgar and commonplace method of robbery. In neither case doeß intercourse with the departed appear to have improved their morals. People otherwise fairly well acquainted with Ireland know little or nothing of this popular institution ; but it is so racy of the soil that it is really deserving of a much wider publicity.
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Bibliographic details
THE PULSION TELEPHONE., Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 8583, 30 January 1890
Word Count
1,396THE PULSION TELEPHONE. Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 8583, 30 January 1890
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