DICTOGRAPH AMD DIVORCE

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXII, Issue LXII, 17 May 1912, Page 5

DICTOGRAPH AMD DIVORCE

A new use (says the New York correspondent oi the Daily Mail) has been found for the dictograph, an electrical device for recording conversations. Between Mr Earl Fellaborn, a millionaire steel manufacturer, and his wife Marguerite cross suits for divorce are pending at Pittsburg. Mrs Fellaborn has made an application to obtain the custody of her daughter, pending the trial. But Mr Fellaborn',s counsel asserts that at the divorce trial they will exhibit dictograph records, reproducing conversations between Mrs Fellaborn and a New York broker staying in her house, which will establish that she is an unfit person to have the custody of her daughter. A tiny sensitive plate, the counsel said, concealed behind the dressingtable of Airs Fellaborn's boudoir, transmitted her conversations to a shorthand writer hidden in the summerhouse in the grounds. For five days during her husband's absence all that she and her friend the broker said was taken down,-and is now being prepared for submission to the court. Decision on the application was postponed until the records were produced. The dictograph works on the principle of the telephone. The receiving-box is less than a foot long, and 6in. deep. " It is not necessary to speak into the instrument, which will take a voice speaking within 15ft. ajid convey the sound over wives to a. distance of 1,000 miles. This is clone hy means of y, focussing screen, which collects the sound waves from over a large area, and made on exactly the same principle as the modern ear-trumpets for deaf people.