EDISON OUTDONE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 203, 5 October 1878, Page 4

EDISON OUTDONE.

(Richmond (Fa.) S'ate ) Professor Wuifix, lhe eminent inventor, honoured the Slate witb a visit this raorcinji. A reporter, noted for hia volubility, en» B^ed him in conversation, 'lhe Professor likened very patiently, but ut length casually placed his left hand on the reporter's knee. The flow of talk at once moderate J, and the Professor, availing himself ol the opportunity, placed his right hand on the othtr kuee. Within two seconds the reporter was fast asleep. " How was it done ? " asked the astonished editor who witnessed, the performance. " Come thiß way and I will Bhow ! you," said Mr Wutlix. i Stepping into a privute room, he ! threw up his coat tails and disclosed i hfctwteu his shoulder blades what ap- I ptared to be a 99 ceut. clock. •That," said be "is a bat!ery, tbe ' wires of which extend under my coatsleeves io the palm of ray lundp, ns you see,'' showing the end of the wirds in his hands. "These ends, the elec- ) troJea or possitive or negative poles ol the buttery, are saturated (see here the little sponges) w.th a solution cf j double-distiiied sirychnine and morphine. The former produces paralysis of the tongue, the latter induces sleep, and that is ihe whola of the instrument. It ia is tbe reverse of the phonograph, the one being a talking machine, the other a machine to stop talk." "And what is it good for ?" "It ia too early yet lo say what the ultimate results of it may be, though I regard it ua the greatest of all iny inventions; but we may already conceive several benign purposes which it will "For example, what ?" " Let us suppose," said tbe learned Professor, •• lint the head of fumily so far forgets himseif as to imagine that there is immediate need of him down town the moment he swallows hia breakfast — in other words, that his business ia of importance, aud demands attention. This being whom he adores, under the stimulus of coffee, begins to stream in ideas or their substitute, called words—" "Aha!" said the editor, "I eee." "PlaciDgbotb bunds on hersboulders he bestows a salute on har radiant and unsuspecting brow, tnd by tbe time she is fairly awake he is comforla dy quartered iu his counting-house, "Just so. Can )0u mention ai.other case ? ! ' "Onihoee tryiDg occasions, when, in the hall way of any residence, tbe visiting female and the female visited begin to indulge in those simultaneous and intermicable vocal interchanges wiih which all aro unhappily too familiar, the visiiing male and the male visited have it in their power, by secret co-operation, to bring about, as it were, an abrupt but at the same time unsuspected, harmless, and pleasureablo suspension of pourparlers, and thus to escape those unseemly and quickly regretted explosions of irascibility to which the males, boih visiting and visited, are too often subject, so soon as they are alone wiih tbe respective partakers of the matrimonial felicity." " Exactly J " exclaimed our editor, " but what name do you proposed for your valuable instrument?" "Its technical name will be the ' Phonophleg, or Sound Consumer,' but it will popularly be known as tbe ' Husband's Delight/ "

"And will it be £heap '? " " It wil? bb within the reach even of the professional journalist." The answer Iv ing entirely satisfactoiy, the Professor was tired out and departed.