ELECTRICITY AND THE PIANO PLAGUE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VIII, Issue 2385, 28 August 1886, Page 2

ELECTRICITY AND THE PIANO PLAGUE.

It is no Boeret, says & Continental 08Q< temporary, that a private scholar is » ruined man if next door to 'his residence, onihe same floor, a maiden practises on the piano from eipht o'clock to twelve in. the morning, and in the afternoon again from throe to seven, besides giving per. formanees U? frieuds iti the coarse of the evening. Knocking against the wall, whistling, bombarding the. wall with boots, are of ho avail against pianomanm, .There has, indeed,, hitherto been no remedy and we are still waiting for a piano tax, Lately, however, a Berlin electrician helped a tortured friend by means of • piano-killer.. Miss Else fled to her loved piano on a recent lovely spring day; her delight at touching the keys eould be felt through the wall, .when suddenly—oh, heavens I—the whole piano went out Of tune, and not a single sound was correct. The girl trembled wither, aud the operators next door heat™hrougb the wall how she began to 'weej), which softened the heart of the electrician, who was, however, furiously attacked by bis friend when attempting to.restore its mnsio to tho instrument, the enratred savant swoaiing that tho tortures tti'ch he had endured from the piano wen not to be atoned for easily. Tho ease of Miss Else's pitno became-widely 1 known, chiefly becauue now- and then the old cloar music: returned to [ the keys. The greatest musicians and pianist doctors came in Hocks to,: examine the strange owe; but uo one could solve the riddle, which-was explained as follows: A large electro magnet was put into the room of the tortured savant, and it poles pnt oloee to the wall, againsfc-whioh stood the piano in the next house. An electrie battery was connected with tho electromagnet. Whenever a strong stream of electricity was turned on, iteeffectwenldbe easily felt through t|ie wall by the hori* rontal steel rings of the piano,; and although the' electricity,- Wa«/not very powerfully fell, it was 'quits powerful enough to put the piano, out of. tune. Whenever the electric stream ras stopped which occurred as often as .ftp piano placed went out, the rafluence stopped, and Miss Flae could play.