ALL WILL BE DEAF.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5129, 23 May 1927, Page 1

ALL WILL BE DEAF.

FORECAST BY THOMAS EDISON. Mi- Thomas Edison, the great inventor, who was 80 years of age a few weeks ago and is nearly stone .deaf, agrees in describing New York as a city of dreadful din (writes the New York correspondent of the Daily Mail.)

He rejoices in his own deafness, and predicts that in 100 1 years, owing to the increased noisiness of civilisation, especially on this side of the Atlantic; everybody will be deaf. His .message on the comforts of deaness was sent from Florida; and communicated by means of amplifiers and special receiving sets attached *to each ‘cover’ to 300 deaf New Yorkers assembled at a banquet to raise a fund of £lOO,OOO for the Nitcrie School of Instruction in lip reading.

All speakers at the banquet were deaf, and so were the listeners, who were able to hear only with the aid of receiving sets and amplifiers. Mr Edison declared that their deafness was due to nerve strain and the constant irritation of noises generated by civilisation. Such deafness he described as beneficial.

He attributed his own lack of nerves and his powers. o,f concentration largely to the fact that deafness protected him rom distracting noises. “Deaf people/, he declared; “should take to reading. It beats the babbleof ordinary conversation. The eye is the whole thing, and hearing is a very' minor affair. Its loss is not worth worrying about/,