THE TELEPHONE UNMASKED.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5264, 6 February 1878, Page 3

THE TELEPHONE UNMASKED.

(From the New York Times.) jt is time that the atrocious nature of the telephone should be fully exposed, and its inrenters, of whom there are any quantity, held up to public execration. When this nefarious instrument was first introduced, it was pretended that its purpose W aa an innocent one. We were told that the telephone would enable a man in New York to bear what a man in Philadelphia might say ; and though it was difficult to understand why anybody “should ever want to listen to a Philadelphian’s remarks—which, notoriously, con siat exclusively of allusions to the Centennial Exhibition and an alleged line of American steamships—there was nothing necessarily immoral in this possible use of the telephone. Then it was claimed that by means of the telephone conversations could be carried on with other than Philadelphians, and that political speeches delivered in Washington could be heard in any city of the continent. As the President was-at that time making speeches in Vermont instead of Washington, the public was not alarmed by this announcement, and it was not until the telephonic conspirators mentioned that the uproar of a brass band could be transmitted to any distance through the telephone that any general feeling of uneasiness was developed. Nevertheless, the vast capabilities for mischief of the telephone, and the real purpose of its unprincipled inventors, have been studiously concealed, and it is only , by accident that the greatness and imminence of the danger to which the public is exposed have suddenly been revealed. . , , Suspicion ought to have been awakened by the recent publication of the fact that if the lamp-posts of our city were to be connected by wires every confidential remark made to a 1 rr p.post by a belated democratic statesman could he reproduced by a telephone connected with any other lamp-post. It is true that this publication was ostensibly made in the interest of the police force, and it was recommended that patrolmen should use the lampt* as a means of communication with police headquarters. It was evident, however, that the result would bo to make every lamp-post a SDV upon midnight wayfarers. Men who hod trusted to friendly lamp-posts for years, and embraced them with the' utmost confidence • their silence ami discretion, would find ♦bemaelves shamelessly betrayed,and their unRiisDectio" soliloquies literally reported to their S an ° families ; strange to say, th.s sagfestive hint of the powers of the tele hone attracted no attention, and has ere this been m all probability forgotten. A series of incidents which has lately oo-

curred iu Providence has, however, clearly shown the frightful capabilities of the telephone. Two men, to whom, so far as is known, no improper motive can bo attributed, were recently experimenting with a telephone, the wire of which was stretched over the roofs of innumerable buildings, and was estimated to be fully four miles in length. They relate that on the first evening of their telephonic dissipation they heard men and women singing songs and eloquent clergymen preaching ponderous sermons; and that they detected several persons in the act of practising upon brass instruments. This sort of thing was repeated every evening, while on Sunday morning a perfect deluge of partially conglomerated sermons rolled in upon them. These are the main facts mentioned by the two men iu what may he called their official report of their experiments, but it is asserted that they heard other things which they did not venture to openly repeat. The remarks of thousands of midnight cats were borne to their listening ears. The confidential conversations of hundreds of husbands and wives were whispered through the treacherous teephone, and though the remarks of Mr. and Mrs. Smith were sometimes inextricably entangled with those of Mr. and Mrs. Brown, and it was frequently impossible to tell from what particular wife came the direful threat, “ Oh, I’ll just let you know,” or from what strong husband in his agony came the cry, “ Leggo that hair !’’ the two astonished telephone experimenters learned enough of the secrets of the leading families of Providence to reader it a hazardous matter for any resident of that city to hereafter accept a nomination for any office.

Now, it has been ascertained that the wire of this telephone was not in contact with any other wire, and thus the hypothesis that the sounds heard by the two men were messages in process of transmission by the usual telegraphic wires is untenable. Moreover, a little reflection will show that cats do not send telegraphic messages, and that leading citizens do not transmit by telegraph petitions to their wives advocating a policy of conciliation in respect to hair. The scientific persons whom the two men have consulted have no hesitation in saying that the telephonic wire picked up all the sounds in its neighborhood by the process of induction. "When the wire passed over a church it took up the waves of sound set iu motion by the preacher, and reproduced them on the telephone. In like manner it collected the sounds from the concert-halls and dwel-ling-houses, over the roofs of which it passed, and the peculiar distinctness with which it transmitted the remarks of cats was due to the fact that it must have passed in close proximity to several popular feline resorts. We can now comprehend the danger of the telephone. If any telephonic miscreant connects a telephone with one of the countless telegraphic wires that pass over the roofs of this city there will be au immediate end of all privacy. Whatever is said in the secrecy of the back piazza by youthful students of the satellites of Mars will be proclaimed by way of the housetop to the eavesdropping telephone operator. No matter to what extent a man may close his doors and windows, and hermetically seal his key-holes and furnaceregisters with towels ami blankets, whatever he may say, either to himself or a companion, will be overheard. Absolute silen e will he our only safety. Conversation will be carried on exclusively in'writing, and'courtship will be conducted by the use of a system of ingenious symbols. Au invention which thus mentally makes silence the sole condition of safety cannot be too severely denounced, and while violence, even-in self-defence, is always to be deprecated, there can be but little doubt that the death of the inventors and manufacturers of the telephone would do much towards creating that feeling of confidence which financiers ■ tell ua must precede any revival of business.