THE TERROES OF THE PHONOGRAM

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1812, 11 April 1888, Page 3

THE TERROES OF THE PHONOGRAM

The phonogram adda a new terror to life. Mr Ediion threatens to make it so oheap that, as the advertisements say, 'no household should bo without It.' what we shall do when the dreadful things become articles of daily domeßtlc nao it 1b Impossible to say. No husband will feel safe m scolding his wife any longer if the exuberance of hia haste cm be 'turnod on ' against him In his oalmer moments. Mrs Caudlo'o pleasure m the delivery of her curtain lecture will be gone for ever when ehe knows that by a little management Mr Candle will be m a position to have it all repeated for the edification of the whole family at the breakfast table next morning. The new curate, with hia high- pitched voico and his pretty little poetical vapidities, will be ready to rush down the pulpit stairs with mental fright tit the more suspicion of of a wicked qoboolboy putting hia hand anywhero near his waistcoat pocket, Daar $dwin will no longer venture to wMapor hia beautiful messages o! love Into the ears of hia adored Angelina m tho drawing-room, lest that dreadful imp, her brother, should hevo surreptitiously placed a oouple of phonograms m the neighborhood, and should bring out tho conversation by instalments at any moment m (he day. Nobody will feel m the least degrea safe Even a chairman of the Quarter Sessions may sometimes forget that he io the representative of that science which is tho perfection of reason, and give utterance to the ' mere oommon-pUces ' of social life like an ordinary man. What if the phono* j-ratn should catch op any of these, and at some moment when magisterial wledoru is at its Bolemnest should aonounce, In : tones entirely bereft of magisterial pomp and dignity, that ' the beefsteak is a little tough. Mrs Trimley,' or ' I think you bad better get me a &ew woollen nlghfoip ; the weather is getting cold !' Imagine the condition of the brother magistrates at such an occurrence, or the still more alarming state of the assembled bucolics, to whom the ohairman is a fbr more majestic person than any queen or king could by »ny possibility be. There is only one further diaoovery wanted to make life absolutely not worth living. Let Mr Edison invent a raaohlno which will correctly read and reproduce our thoughts, ana then we will all with one consent give it up m despair. — " Tho Hospital."