THE TELEPHONE IN AN ENGLISH COURT-ROOM.
The trial of the suit of the British Postoffice against the Edison Telephone Company, just decided in favour of the former, was one of the most singular and interesting ever heard in a Court of Justice. The Court-room was transformed into a laboratory, and the learned arguments of counsel were illustrated with batteries and models, and the last refinement of electrical science. The Crown lawyers contended that the telephone lines for business were an infringement of the Government monopoly in the
transmission of telegraphic messages; to which the defendant's counsel replied that with the telephone nothing passed between the two extremes but the human voice. Had the post-office snch a monopoly :that it could prevent two of Her Majesty's subjects from talking together ? The Crown answered with other subtle and refined dissertations oh the nature of sound, and the elements required in communication by electric signals. The decision, as stated, was for the Grown, and the General Post-office is already arranging for the control and administration of the telephonic service of the realm.
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Bibliographic details
New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6001, 10 February 1881, Page 6
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179THE TELEPHONE IN AN ENGLISH COURT-ROOM. New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6001, 10 February 1881, Page 6
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