The phonoscope (Nov 1896-Dec 1899)

7 ©ur XTattler Mr. Steve Porter always wears a bright smile, now that he has joined the ranks of the cylinder loaders. I see by the catalogues of the National Phonograph Co. , that my friend George is very prominent by scratches across his name. I wonder why — I wonder why. If you come to New York to see the sights, don't fail to see the expression on Len's face when he shifts from "A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" to "Goosey-Goosey-Gander." Some of the slot phonographs and graphophoues have been adjusted to operate for a cent. The class of records kept on these machines cause an expression on the face of the listener which sometimes signifies a scent. Georgie, how about the cellers in New York? I don't think the light colored blanks are always the best; they are the easiest to handle and are liable to shriek and clog up your recording point. The cost will be about $300.00 I hear sad rumors. My friend MacDonald up in Bridgeport is getting grey in his endeavor to keep lip with the rush. Now that you've got a good thing, Mac, watch that wabble, keep one eye (and ear) on that surface c-c-c-e and the other eye on your tester's tests. Mr. Georgie Emerson (Vic's brother) met with a tesrible accident last month. While quietly standing beside a young lady in Newark one eve, he was married, and has therefore joined the ranks of we poor devils who have to hustle while our other half reads the bargain ads. and gets rid of our hard-earned dough. "I understand that Oliver Sumner Teal is organizing a company to buy a number of picture-projecting machines and present the news of the day, with the end of his doing away with the evening newspapers," said a man who knows New York's star promoter, recently. "He also says that he wants to find a theatre where he will produce plays all day long by the aid of picture-projecting machines and phonographs.'' Can it be possible that my friend Ed. Issler has joined the bunko ranks? A dark haired friend of mine with a Cuban dialect wrote to Jersey for a record of "Cuban Patriots March," expecting to get a soul-stirring medly full of Spanish hatred and Cuban sympathy. When he received the record, it was the old standard selection "Under the Double Eagle," that has spurned the Germans on to victory for a number of years. This record was announced as "The Cuban Patriots March played by Issler's orchestra." He flushed with anger and has "vowed vengence." Nothing but Issler being a Cuban can save him from my friend's fury should they ever meet. How some people do enjoy beating a slot machine! In a Fort Lee ferry waiting-room stands one of these machines that tell your weight for a penny. Some one discovered that something was wrong with the thing — that it was weighing people for nothing. This discovery was made while at least one thousand persons were waiting for a boat. Instantly there was a rush for the machine. As fast as one person stepped off another crowded around and pushed. For a time it looked almost like a panic. One woman stumbled and fell to the floor. Several others nearly fell over her. Everyone was in good temper, but had a ferry-boat not arrived just when it did, some of the crowd might have been hurt. One old woman declared it was the first time in her life she had ever been weighed, and it seemed to please her beyond expression to think she had beat the machine. Mike ^Telephone tbe IDeaf XChrougb tbeir 5km Science flakes Ears Superfluous in Receiving Vibrations of Sound The deaf mute need no longer regard his deafness as an affliction. He has already been taught to talk and to understand the speech of others. New busy-brained scientists, in order that the stone-deaf man may not be excluded from the delights of modern improvements, have supplied him with a telephone. The new invention will not demand any patching up of damaged ear-drums or any stimulating of unused auditory nerves. Its use will be independent of all the auditory machinery provided by nature. There will be no straining of an imperfect organ. The ear will be let entirely alone. The telephone messages of the future will be transmitted to the deaf man through his skin. Nor is this as roundabout a method of conveying impressions as it may seem at first. When the deaf man learns to hear through his skin he will simply impose one more duty upon an organ that is already the centre of the most complex sensations. The blind man learns so to depend upon his sense of touch that his skin almost becomes a second organ of vision. The skin is furthermore peculiarly susceptible not only to the slightest barometric influence, but to electric vibrations. It is the last named characteristic of an already overworked organ that suggested recently to Dr. MacHendrick, a Scotch scientist, the possiblity of utilizing it for the transmission of telephonic messages. Dr. MacHendrick 's method of making the deaf hear is, briefly, as follows: First there is prepared a saline solution in which are immersed the platinum extremities of a telephonic circuit. The hands of the subject are plunged in the same solution. When the electric current conveying the telephonic message passes into the solution, it produces on the tips of the fingers of the subject a series of prickings, varying in intensity, and corresponding exactly with the vibrations of sound which were produced by voice or musical instrument, and of which it is the transposed reflection. Prof. MacHendrick has already tested his discovery and finds that it does not contain a flaw. The deafest man who ever lived may profit by the muscular telephone simply by putting his fingertips in a certain solution. The discovery is of enormous importance, and its simplicity is its most attractive feature. It is necessary, of course, that the deaf mute who proposes to hear through his muscles should have a certain amount of training and a rather finely developed sensitiveness. These are, however, rapidly acquired when one has once become shut out from the world of sound. It is commonly known that the loss of one organ tends to increase the efficiency of the remaining ones. The man whose ears have ceased to serve him develops a sensitiveness in other parts which in a normal man would seem miraculous. The translation into a sentence or a strain of music of the prickings upon his finger-tips will become a comparatively simple matter to the man who is hungry for messages from the sphere of music and speech. There is probably no quality or combination of sounds that cannot find their way to the deaf man's intelligence when the muscular telephone becomes established. And now that electricity, in addition to the other wonders for which it is responsible, has made the deaf hear, it is not unreasonable that the blind should ask to be made to see or that electricity should fulfill the demand. Prof. MacHendrick's predecessor in this line of discovery was M. Charles Henry, a French scientist, who, by making use of a music-box or a piano, a generator of electricity producing alternate currents, a telephonic circuit and a microphone, succeeded in conveying to his subject, in the form of rhythmic tremblings, not a bar of music alone, but an entire melody. It is easy to imagine that the deaf man of the near future, through his ears may be incapable of receiving a single sound, will be so well equipped with instruments that are "just as good" as ears, that he will not be obliged to miss a single word of the conversation taking place around him. Mbeve Zhev Wtleve Etbtbtteb Hast fl&ontb Biograph Keith's, Boston, Mass.; Keith's, New York. Masonic Temple, Chicago, 111. Veriscope Opera House, Williamspoit, Pa.; Greene's Ceder. Rapids, la.; Grand, Kansas City, Mo.; Grand Opera House, Peoria, 111.; Jacques, Waterbury, Conn.; Worcester Theatre, Worcester, Mass.; Ford's, Baltimore, Md.; New National Theatre, Washington, D. 0. ; Grand, Dubuque, la.; McCauley's, Louisville, Ky. ; Temple Theatre, Camden,. N. J.; Wheeling Park Casino, Wheeling, W. Va.; Empire, London, Eug. ; Eden Theatre, Paterson, N. J. ; Globe, Hamilton, Out. Magniscope Auditorium, Toronto, Ont. ; Bijou, Chicago, 111. Cinagraphiscope Association Hall, Hamilton, Ont. Cinematographe Parisiaria, Paris; Eden Musee, New York: Or pheum, San Francisco, Cal. Kinetoscope Lyceum Theatre, Newark, N. J.; Lake View Augusta, Ga.; California Theatre, San Francisco Cal. Photoscope Ocean Grove, Ashury Park, N. J. Cineograph Metropolitan Park, Bayoune, N. J; Vitascope Woodly'n Park, Camden, N. .1.; West Lynchburg Hotel, Lynchburg, Va.; New Park Opera House, Erie, Pa. Bioscope Calumet Fair, Paterson. N. J. Projectoscope Association Hall, Philadelphia, Pa.