OLD USES FOR GRAMOPHONES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 281, 21 November 1908, Page 3

OLD USES FOR GRAMOPHONES.

A dumb tramp sixty-five years ol.i lias been arrested in lierlin fur' l,v means of a gramophone. He visited private houses, and the machine poured out a heartrending tale „f its ownei's misfortunes. The gramophone clock is a jioat device. It will reproduce to-morrow, aid ; at precisely the *ame liour, any words that may be spoken into it to-day. .Suppose, for example, you have an important appointment for to-morrow at five o'clock in the evening, and do not wish ' to forget it, sill that is necessary, for

you to do is to lake the gramophone at-1 tachcd to the clock and sav into it, "1 ' have an appointment to-ihi.v with at live o'clock." If you utter these wonts at three o'clock to-day, tlicv will be reproduced at three o'clock to-mor-row, and thus you will have ample time to keep you 1 ■ I-ttwent. Not long ago ilic gramophone figured ill an American weddin™, the contractiu:; ' parties who were separated through illness, being bound together by t]ic°agenev of a couple of these instruments. The machine has also played an important part, of late in certain hospitals, whee it lias been used in connection with diseases 01 the chest, in order to compare the relative strength of (lie patient's enunciation from day to day. ' Perhaps, however, one of the pucei'M | situations in which this apparatus has 1 been placed in the pulpit of a church. ' Several mouths ago the Mini.-tcr of a i I'nitcil States chapel, being confined to ! his house through iiitluenza hit upon the notion of speaking his Sunday morning sermon into his gramophone.' This was a'conhigly done, and when the proper | time arrived the clerk mounted the rostrum and placed the machirio 011 the ! desk.

It Wiis tlii'n set iu motion, and for iho next t imi minutes an eloquent diMourse ■wa? preached to the astonished #jntion. who, for tin l iirst. time in their lives, were admonished l>v niaehineiy. Every word of this -peculiar sermon \vns wonderfully distinct, and the oxperi- • 111 ont proved a complete success.