Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-05-01
PREACHING BY TELEPHONE.
How the Same Sermon was Heard at Once
in Six Cities and Towns.
IN. Y. Sun, April 18th.

The congregation of Plymouth church,
Brooklyn, was widely scattered yesterday,
for the sermons were transmitted to vari-
Gus points in New York and New Jersey
through the telephone. The transmitters
in the church were placed under the Mount
Olivet table on the platform. The instru-
ments were arranged by Charles E. Gin
mock, the electrician of the Bell Telephone
Company, so that whichever way the
preacher turned his words were caught up,
even as he walked up and down his fifteen
foot rostrum, and carried along the circuit.
Instruments were placed in the Brooklyn
office at $40 Fulton street at the home of
Alfred E. Beach, Nineteenth street, New
York at the executive office of the COM
pany, Twenty-first street, New York at
Newark and Orange at the home of Mr..
Chinook, Nassau street, Brooklyn; at the
home of Robert Brown, Carlton avenue !;
at the Nassau street, New York, office; at
the Jersey City branch office; at the home
of Fl. W. Pope, General Superintendent
of the company, at Elizabeth. This was
the first attempt to transmit sermon on
such an extended scale, and was regarded
as sufficiently successful to demonstrate
the possibility of distributing sermon to
any number of hearers.
Owing to the necessity for concealing
the transmitters from the congregation, as
well as to the drawback of having but one
wire, the sound was not at all times dis
tinct, but was interrupted by inquiries
from various points or the circuit. When
ever the preacher thumped his bible there
was whiz and whirr that was anything
but solemn.
The music of the choir of the congrega-
ton and the soloist were heard plainly all
over the circuit, but the big organ sounded
like very diminutive melodeon. The
sermons were rather disconnected, from
the fact that the listeners at the instru-
ments were constantly changing, and occa-
sionally the wires would get crossed or the
plugs pulled out, so that the discourse
would get mixed with the messages. The
morning sermon ran something like this:
"What can be more pitiful Halo
Halo ] than the spectacle recently pre-
sented at West Point? Halo! Chin
referring to Mr.. Chinook, the electrician
don't cut me off. How is the young
man treated? There, you've cut me off
rades. Halo Beach Halo j Insults
were sHOWtieu UPON HILL Ii Ut lUaC pug
in little tighter He works his way on
ward But the detestable prejudice of
those who should have been his comrades
and associates [Stop calling and listen, will
you j single him out Brown, be quiet for
persecution, and the brutal Twhirr-r-r-r-r
caused by the preacher pounding the
tablet, cowardly outrage there sound like
the clashing of cymbalsl with accounts of
which the newspapers have been teeming
for week, is committed upon him."
As soon as all the listeners got quiet,
however, the sermons were heard with dis
tinctness, and when the number of listen
ers on the circuit was decreased, the sound
became much more distinct than when the
circuit was open for all. Mr.. Chinook
said that with separate transmitter and
separate wire there would be no trouble
whatever in hearing the whole of any SER
vice without any interruption. The pecu-
liar tone and accent of the preacher were
easily recognizable, aid the sermon might
have been heard by any one of the 800
persons who are in communication with the