DEAD VOICES

Southland Times, Issue 19458, 24 January 1925, Page 11

DEAD VOICES

HEARD AFTER THIRTY YEARS. Still arc they pleasant voices. Thy nightingales awake; For Death he taketh all away/ But these he cannot take. —From the Greek. A shorthand note of a speech by Mr Gladstone taken by a Daily Chronicle representative on November 25. This seeming miracle was achieved with the help of a cylinder record, made at Mr Gladstone’s house, 10, St. James's Square, on March 15, 1890, for the Edison Phonograph Company. “The United States,” said Mr Gladstone in one fine phrase, delivered with the full impressiveness of his sonorous voice, “has striven for liberty and independence, indispensable conditions of all human progress.” In a little mahogany case, not much more than a foot square, similar records of the voices of long-dead celebrities have been stored for many years in the Edison Bell factory. By the courtesy of Messrs J. E. Hughes, Ltd., the owners, these voices were released on November 25 in order that the Daily Chronicle representative might hear the authentic accents of men and women who were nearing the end of their famous lives during the period 1888-1890, in which the records were made. The records are, ofr- course, in the form of the old wax cylinders, and Mr Johnstone placed each carefully on an oldfashioned Edison photograph for the audition. A very characteristic little speech came in Florence Nightingale’s voice clear and startling in its loudness and firm intention : “God bless my dear old comrades of Balaclava, and bring them safe to shore,” said the still determined voice of the woman whose determination saved British troops from criminal neglect. Florence Nightingale was very infirm when this record was made in 1890, although she did not die until 1910. Lord Tennyson died in 1892. While he was lying on what turned out to be his death-bed, he was persuaded to recite verses from three of his poems into the tube which enabled his voice to be recorded. It was startling to sit yesterday in the prosaic surroundings of a factory office and listen to Tennyson’s voice rolling off his own great lines. One remembered how Tennyson had always enjoyed reciting his own poetry as the still mellifluous voice rose and fell in the great cadences of the “Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington”:— “Foremost captain of his time. Rich in saving common-sense,” intoned the voice. The voices of Sir H. M. Stanley (the explorer), P. T. Barnum (the American showman), and Prince Louis Napoleon are also preserved on these cylinder records. Queen Victoria is believed to be the only member of the British Royal Family who has ever spoken into a voicb-recording machine for the express purpose of making a record. The record was made in order that King Menelik of Abyssinia might hear the authentic voice of Queen Victoria.