The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1878-02-16
Is the Telephone a Failure?

THE telephone has formed the theme
for much jubilation upon the exceeding
cleverness that prevails in this last
quarter of the nineteenth century. I'm
like many great inventions, the tele-
phone has had in its infancy little pop
ular or scientific hostility to combat.
When the announcement was made that
it had been definitely decided-as it had
before been supposed-that sound was
transmissible by electricity, the public
believed in the telephone at once. The
new invention had just the elements for
popular appreciation. 1t was awe
striking and inexplicable, and at the
same time flattering to the generation
discovering the fact that the voice could
be sent on an errand for an undeter-
mined number of miles. After the first
facts had been demonstrated every
thing that followed was readily taken
in, 1t would be great disappointment
if it were discovered that, after all the
the growing over our ancestors, the tel
ephone, undoubtedly the invention most
Characteristic of the spirit of the age,
was merely scientific toy, but as
commercial undertaking and for prac-
teal, everyday use failure. 1t is so
limited by gentleman whom so good a
Judge as the editor of Chambers Journal
pronounces good authority.
The great objections urged to the tele
phone are that it requires first perfect
and then a silent wire. Otherwise, at
imperfect points, the leakage is so
great that the force of the voice is lost;
and at all points where the telephone
wire approaches other wires which are
being worked with Instruments, oppos-
ing currents are set up by the wire hav-
ING the stronger current in the one that
has the feebler current, and, as the tele-
phone is much the feebler, that is the
one to suffer. 1t is not necessary that
there should be actual contact in order
to mar the working of the telephone.
1t is sufficient if the wires approximate
to each other, anu the distance at which
they are safe varies often and widely.
In some experiments recently made on
this point of transmitted noises, such
vibrations of the telephone diaphragm
were produced by neighboring wires as
to cause a curious pot-boiling sound,
which the experimental likens to that
given out by a conch-shell. This was
when the telephone battery itself was
at rest. AS soon as the current from
that battery was set going the noise
from the neighboring wires increased
so as to make the operator drop his in
strument in terror and to completely
drown out message transmission.
Another serious defect in the tele-
phone is the ease with which the wires
can be tapped. Hitherto no one but an
experienced telegrapher could steal
lightning. To tap wire that is run
ming under the Morse or Wheatstone
code of signals requires knowledge of
those signals and the possession of in
struments. But the telephone is SO
easily managed that the understanding
of it could be made the duty of every
non-commission@l officer in the army.
The invention is thus entirely untrust-
worthy in war, in which business it was
confidently expected it would find its
chief value. Any traitor could tap the
wires at any point and convey to the
enemy what he learnt. 1t would not
be necessary for him to cut the wire or
put it out of the circuit, and the opera
tors at either end could not detect that
their line was being MIXED
Hence it seems that at present the
practical uses of the telephone are linn
tied to those-in long wire-rather
rare instances where a completely iso-
J lated line can be secured, and to situa-