The phonoscope (Nov 1896-Dec 1899)

Vol. I. No. ? THE PHONOSCOPE 9 (general flews Mr. R. F. Cromelin, secretary of the Columbia Phonograph Company, is in Europe establishing agencies for the company. W. R. Miller, of Nashville, Tenn., is in New York purchasing supplies for his Exhibition Company which takes the road in a few weeks. Lieut. G. Bettini sails for Europe, August 7. Mr. Bettini informs us that business is booming. We wish him good luck and a pleasant voyage. Thos. C. Hough, of Minneapolis, Minn., was in New York recently purchasing phonograph supplies. He also bought two projecting machines. Prince Henri d' Orleans has bought a phonograph, a cinematograph, and a musical box, with which he will amuse and astonish the natives of Abyssinia. The operation of all nickel-in-the-slot machines at Eau Claire, Wis., has been stopped by order of the chief of police. An effort is being made to resume their operation on a license basis. Mr. Edgar Caypless, of Colorado, who has, without a doubt, the very finest collection of original records in the United States, is visiting the various eastern companies purchasing records. W. F. Doyle was arrested in Sistersville, W. Va., on complaint of John Reynolds for manipulating slot machines with leaden slugs similar in size and weight to a five-cent nickel. The Universal Phonograph Company have completed arrangements with Mr. Geo. Rosey, the author of the famous "Honeymoon," "Handicap" and "Oriental Echoes" Marches, to take a number of records of his famous orchestra. They will be ready for the market in a few days. Dr. F. E. Yoakum of Los Angeles believes he has made a discovery through his X-ray investigations which will revolutionize the present method of mining valuable ores. He says that it is now possible to detect by the use of the X-ray gold and other ores in the rocks in which they may be hidden. Mr. Chas. Urban the genial manager of the film department of Maguire and Baucus, Limited, is to go to London in the near future, to take charge of the company's business in that city. Mr. R. L. Thomae, who is at present in Loudon in that capacity, will return to this city and resume his former position. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Bridgeton, N. J., at its meeting last month, formally protested against the exhibition of the vitascope show of the Corbett-Fitzsimmons fight billed for Moore's Opera House. The Union will boycott the Opera House hereafter if the pictures are shown. Mr. Cole who is at present exhibiting the vitascope and phonograph at the Savoy Theatre, New York, has been one of the most successful exhibitors on the road. He traveled for many seasons in Central and South America and when the phonograph was a novelty realized over one hundred dollars a day. James P. Bradt, formerly in charge of the United Press office of Baltimore, Md. , has embarked upon a new field which will give him ample opportunity to display his genius for enterprise and genial disposition. Mr. Bradt has been named as the special agent for the Columbia Phonograph Company in Baltimore. A New York minister has introduced into his pulpit a phonograph which pronounces the benediction. If this scheme is carried out to its logical conclusion it will only be a question of time when a minister can wind up his phonograph, turn it loose in his pulpit, mount his bicycle and enjoy a Sunday spin in the country while his talking machine is running down. An improvement in graphophones consists in dispensing with the end gate which carries the bearing for one end of the mandrel shaft, the mandrel being supported entirely from one end, leaving the other extremity unobstructed, so that a record tablet or cylinder can be slipped on or off with the greatest facility, without swinging open an end gate or in any way disarranging the machine. The American Mutoscope Company of New York, will pay to any one furnishing them with a description of a 1'esirable biograph view the sum of five dollars ($5.00) provided that such scene is adopted and used by the company, and provided further that in case two or more parties suggest the same idea the money will be paid to the party whose suggestion is first received. Scenes should be described as minutely as possible. Owing to increased demand for films the International Film Company have found it necessary to extend the operating facilities of their factory and in so doing have taken up the space formerly occupied for general offices and have located their offices at No. 44 Broad Street. Mr. E. Footman, of the Edison General Electric Company, has assumed the position of manager and would be pleased to receive a visit from his old friends and customers. The American Graphophone Company of this city has purchased the business and good will of the Chicago Talking Machine Company, and will assume possession August 1st. The t hicago concern is a selling agency for talking machines and has handled the machines of the local company and those of the Edison Company. The business will be conducted as usual, the Graj hophone Company maintaining the agencies, except that it will handle the machines of the American Company exclusively. ir Oliver Mowatt's bill to prohibit the exhition in Canada of the kinetoscope pictures of the Corbett-Fitzsimmons' prize fight, practically was killed in the Senate at Ottawa last month. The Senators refused to take the bill seriously. Amendments were proposed and adopted providing that no newspaper in Canada shall be allowed to publish accounts of prize fights, and that no foreign newspaper containing an account of a fight shall be admitted into Canada. Loaded with these amendments, the bill practically is dead. In the fourth session of the Superior Court in Boston last month the jury in the case of Andrew J. Meyer vs. Andrew J. Fuller found a verdict for the plaintiff. Meyer possessed an exhibition called "the great phantoscope," which was a slot machine in which the people put five cents to see the show. He exhibited the show at Bass Point in the summer of 1895 and then stored it with the defendant. A quarrel as to the rent ensued and the defendant and his partners exhibited it last summer on their own account. The sum allowed was $70. The Kentucky State Legislature has made a number of radical changes in the privilege taxes under the new law. . A new provision is nickel-in-the-slot machines, which are to pay $2.50 per annum for the state. Penny-in-the-slot are $1, this privilege to be paid for each machine. This must be paid by every saloon keeper or other person who keeps any of the foregoing in connection with his or her business and for the use of the public whether the same is charged for or not. This applies to phonographs, weighing machines and music boxes having nickel or p'enny-in-the-slot attachment. As Mr. William Herbert Smith's duties as an officer of the American Graphophone Company and of the Columbia Phonograph Company will hereafter require him to spend much of his time in New York, he has arranged his business in this city by taking into partnership Mr. John W. Hulse and Mr. Percy E. Budlong, who for some time have been his chief assistants. Mr. Smith has been for a number of years the best known shorthand reporter about the Washington courts, and enjoyed the most lucrative business. His interests in the companies named, and the increasing demand for supervising work in the executive offices, which have been removed to New York, will require so much of his attention that he will soon remove his family from Washington and make his residence in the vicinity of New York. Mr. P. V. DeGraw, who has for over twentyyears been actively engaged in newspaper work in Washington, has retired from the journalistic field and accepted a position with the Columbia Phonograph Company in New York, which he will assume after taking a much-needed rest. Mr. DeGraw will leave with the best wishes of officials, legislators, citizens and brother newspaper men, with all of whom he has been brought into very close relations, and with all of whom he is extremely popular. For ten years he was on the reportorial force of the old New York Associated Press, and then became in turn general southern manager of the United Press, the assistant general manager of the Southern Associated Press and for the past two months manager of the Scripps-McRae Afternoon Press Association. For seven years he has been secretary of the Gridiron Club, and it was upon his motion that that very successful organization started . He is one of the trustees of the Lutheran Home for the Aged. The difficulty of successful "phonographing" the female voice has always been a sore puzzle to experts. Of recent years efforts without number have been made to secure a satisfactory result in this particular, but in vain. Each attempt was more ludicrous than the other. A New York newspaper advertised recently for a woman who could reproduce her vocal chords accurately upon a graphophone, and in response received applications from nearly a dozen score of persons of various ages and lung texture, not one of whom filled the bill. Their voices invariably sounded shrill or rasping, sharp or cracked, and in many cases, sad to relate — with apologies to the fair sex — like a pig squealing for buttermilk. Last month, however, an Eastern phonograph company succeeded in building some marvelous records of Miss Annie Hart's voice (the talented vaudeville artist), which are acknowledged by experts to be wonderful. As