THE TELEPHONE

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 57, 4 September 1926, Page 20

THE TELEPHONE

GBBATBBT INVENTION OF THE

CENTITEY.

The simplest and greatest invention of the nineteenth century was probably ,the telephone, said Sir Oliver Lodge, in a. lecture in London recently to celebrate the jubilee of the telephone, report* the "Daily Chronicle." Now, he added, in the present century, supplemented by further discoveries, it bade fair to make wireless telephony possible all over the world, with international results which could only dimly be foreseen. The articulating telephone was an,instrument of absurd simplicity, invented by Graham Bell, who was not a professed electrician, who was not really learned in physical science, but was interested mainly in introducing precision into human speech. Clear utterance was never a strong point of the pulpit, though it used to be prevalent on the stage.' (Laughter.) Even that could hardly be said now. Actors were liable to say their part in a manner which could not be followed by a foreigner or by the partially deaf. They talked in what was considered^ a natural way, the way that people talked in ordinary life—a way which was not really admirable. (Laughter.) Graham Bell's own articulation was of the most precise character. He. married a deaf and dumb wife, and devoted himself to the accurate production cf human speech. "In these days," continued Sir Oliver, "it is occasionally customary to regard the telephone as a nuisance. So I found it in America in 1920. At any time day or night I might bo called up. It was little use telling the hotel clerk not to switch people on. When too much bored, my plan was to turn the receiver on to the transmitter and let the communicator talk back to himself—a plan which was usually effective. It was also said that 801 l himlelf found the telephone a sort of nuis-' ance, and had it removed from his' foom." '(daughter.)