UNKNOWN

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 647, 28 February 1914, Page 3

UNKNOWN

NEW TERRORS TO EVIL-DOERS. Have you been dictographed ? The scientific eavesdropper, unknown, six months ago, has come into sensational prominence as the means of undoing malefactors of every description. It has tapped the secrets of prison cells, revealed conspiracies in hotel rooms and offices, proclaimed in loud tones the whiapered words, of cunning knaves. Under sofa and chair, behind desk and beside window, this tiny eavesdropper and ultra modern ear of Dionysius has played its part and struck terror into scores of criminal bosoms. What use to lock doors and lower voices, when the dictograph, concealed in furniture or wall, may reproduce the faintest sound to distant listeners ? The great American detective, W. J. Burns, was regarded as a wizard, a super-Sherlock Holmes, before bis employment of the dictograph beanie known. His acumen as a detective is not lessened by the fact that he was one of the first to see ihe immense possibilities of the machine in detective work, and that he has used it successfully, even after his "subjects" became aware of its existence. Burns is so much attached to the dictograph that he always carries one in his pocket. He may not carry a pistol or a pair of handcuffs like the classical detective, but he always has a dictograph—the great confessional instrument of modern times. Mr. KM. Turner is the inventor of the acousticon, the interior telethon? and the dictograph. The acousticon has been used in churches and theatres to enable the deaf to hear. All these devices are nearly related. They might be called merely superlative telephones. They magnify sound and transmit it over a wire. The so-called microi-hc ne is a sound magnifier for laboratory use ■ it makes the scral'iing of a fly's legs audible to human ears. To use the ordinary telephone one must be close to the mouthpiece ; with the Turner telephones it is sufficient to speak within a dozen feet or more of the transmitting disc. It was an eerie experience to stand in a corner of Mr. Turner's office, i'ar from a small wooden box which was covered with a heavy overcoat, and whisper : "Do you hear me ?" and receive a distinct, full-toned answer emanating from the box, the voice of some one in another part of the building : "Yes, of course, I bear you." The investigator whispered still lower : '''One, two. three, fo-r, five. Did you hear that ?" The distant voice replied : "One. two, three, four, five." The investigator stood dose against the box receiver. The invisible one's voice reported that there was a queer rustling sound. This sound may have been the rustling of clothes caused by breathing. ■ The small box is part of the commercial dictograph, or Turner interior telephone. It consists principally of the transmitting disc, or sound collector, which is the same as that of the detective dictograph, and an orifice which "talks back" the answer of the person at the other end of the wire. There are half a dozen or more pegs, which may be with as many instruments in addepressed to put the user in touch joining rooms. It is simply a«* independent interior telephone for usei in offices, obviating the need of a switchboard, preventing svfitch-board "leaks" and requiring no manipulation of transmitter or receiver. If you wish to talk to any one within the circuit, pull dow* a Peg and talk away as if you were in the same room with the other person. You can thus dictate to a stenographer or hold a business conference with half a dozen persons simultaneously. The detective dictograph is an adaptation of the interior telephone for detective work. The whole affair weighs hatt a pound, and can be easily slipped into a coat pocket. When it is incased in a black leather box it looks like a small pocket camera. There is a second collector, or trasmitter, a receiving disc, a couple of small dry batteries and a double length of black, silkcovered wire. The sound collector is a disc of black, hard rubber weighing a few ounces, about three inches aero* and an inch thick. There is, a metal eye by which it may be hung on a nail behind a desk or a picture. The wires are inserted at the lower end of the disc, and at their terminus aro connected with the receiving disc, which the eavesdropper holds to his ear. The dry batteries provide the necessary current. Unlike the interior telephone, the dictograph does not provide for a chat between two persons. The detective or stenographer at the end of the line naturally doesn't care to "talk back" to the subject. On the outer extremity of the sound-collecting disc as a series of oblong. semi - circular openings through which the vibrations of air which constitute sound pass within. Inside there is a cone, the point of which is an electrode, and which reaches the centre of the disc. Vibrations of air striking the bottom of the cone are reflected back and forth. They climb a circular mountain, as it were, Mid become focused at the centre and peak of the cone. It is something Hke a burning glass focusing tae rays of light on a central point. The disc gathers the sound vibrations within a circle about nine and one-half inches in circumference and transforms them into electrical imputeee to be sent ojor » wire. < _

It la a gnat mechanical ear, which assimilates the least whisper and reproduces it to the human ear at th; other end of the circuit. The dictograph ear multiplies eo.ind. It is interestin?; to know hov much it multiplies, but the question can hardly be answered, since there is no standard for sound volume. The pitch of a sound can be sci-nlafically ftr.ed, while the intensity is difficult to determine. Some have estimated that the dic■togra;h multiplies four hundred times, an estimate which seems quite generous. Mr. Turner connected a dictograph with a wireless outfit, and it was calculated that he brought ships at sea two hundred miles nearer. Y/ireless signals from the Gulf of Mexico, which had been barely audible, were heard all over a large room when the Turner apparatus made the President of the United States in the White House hear everything in the House of Representatives just as if he had been there.

King Edward was greatly interested in the apparatus which Mr. Turner demonstrated for him. but the police of Paris actually took up the dictograph before any one else showed much interest in it. They used it and kept mum.

Despite the publicity it has had the more the machine is used the better it works. Most people refuse to believe in it until they have been sent to gaol by its agency, and then they have their doubts. So it is that Detective Burns has been dictographing away on all K'inds of cases for months past. After all, men must talk, and the dictograph must listen. You can't see it, you can't find it. It may be imbedded ,; n the stone wall of a ceil, hidden under wall paper or concealed in a ventilator. For instance, two Italian rogues were placed in a cell. A dictograph operator waited for them to talk. They said nothing for days, but on the sixth they began to talk, and it was all taken down stenographically and proved convincing against them.

The longest distance over which a dictograph has been used in detective work is three miles. A regular copper telephone wire './ as employed for the purpose. There is hardly any practical distance limit, but an exclusive wire is necessary to avoid interruptions. The apparatus may be attached to any telephone wire and thus constitute metely an improvement on ordinary telaybonic service. THE SECRETS WITHIN POUR WALLS. In one instance an officer of a co* 1 - poration wanted to know the secrets of a room which had solid walls and no furniture except a de<sk in the centre, over whi:h hung a chandelier. There was a metal ball at the base of the chandelier. In this ball a dictograph sound collector was fixed, whereby the corporation official at the other end of the wire heard everything that vas said in that room. A banker has the instrument bidden in a clock on iis desk, and when he wants the conversation of his caller recorded he presses a b»tton on the floor with his foot to notify a stenographer in the next room.

Soieno* is also beginning to ma'ce imswrtaat use of the dictograph. Professor F*aak Porret, the volcano export, has been studying Vesuvius by connecting the active fissures of the crater dietographically -nith his cottage on the slope of the mountain. He has attached the rcceiser to his head when going to bed at night, and has been enabled to hear every rumble of his volcanic pet throughout the night.—'"Popular Science Sittings."