Morning journal and courier., 1880-11-03

DOAAASSANNH-S
 Professor Graham Bells photophone is progressing we'll The inventor has trans ferred the scene of experiment from the United States tossEurope and he has been sig nally fortunate in improving on his first ap- paratus. He now uses the electric light in stead of the concentrated rays of any other artificial illuninator, to transmit without wires the ordinary telephonic vibrations. The best light of all is that of the sun. But as that powerful agent is available only on fine days, the electric light supplies the most practicable medium of communication in cloudy weather as well as the night time.
 Charles D. McGuffey, of Chattanooga, has been endeavoring to get some idea of the magnitude of the national debt at the close of the war. He has made the calculation that if four men were to sit down to pay the interest and count silver dollar @ second, and work every second of the year, they could not keep down the interest of the original debt and if another should sit down at two years of age to count the principal at the same rate, he would be over 107 years old by the time he counted the last dollar, interest on the principal having ceased from the first moment The pile of silver dollars, more over, which he would make in counting that principal would be four feet square and fif- teen times as high as Lookout Mountain G. 600 feet above Chattanooga ) and if the sil- yer were conveyed in a continuous wagon train, each wagon carrying ton and each wagon and team occupying thirty-ive feet, that train would stretch from Chattanooga to Columbus.
 The increasing encroachment of America on the industrial supremacy of Great Bri- tain, notwithstanding the, disparity of wages favorable to the latter, is calling forth anx- ious inquiry and debate on the part of Eng fish mechanical engineers. recent essay on the subject by John Standfeld attributed the decay of many British industries to the English patent law, which, instead of stimu lating inventors, discourages them, by the exorbitant fees demanded. Consequently, says Mr. Standfeld, one-third of our invent ors are driven to America and another third are buried carrying the secret of their in ventions into the grave. If patents were as cheaply obtained in England as America, the essayist felt certain that instead of 5000 patents, the English would take out 45, 900 to the Americans 30, GOO. Germany, Belgium and France are also pressing rivals of Great Britain in the industrial race. But it is with this country that competition is keenest. The wonderful inventions of ma chinery in the United States calculated to cheapen and improve manufacturing pro cesses have, for instance, driven the watch and silk trades out of Coventry and Clerken- well, given almost a monopoly of piano. making to New York, and produced cutlery and tools superior to any that Sheffield or Birmingham have to offer. The same insid- ious superiority of Yankee over British ma- ehinery is extending to locomotive building and many other manufactures.
 Members of the French bar are not per mitted to wear boards and writer in 8 Pa risian newspaper in discussing the question whether they should be permitted to grow them gives some particulars showing how many men, prominent in yari- GUS ways, have been addicted to the use of the razor. He begins by challenging proof that, apart from a very few exceptions, great orator ever wore beard or moustache. Among eminent French speakers and states men, Mirabeau, Danton, Vergniaud, Berry CT, Foy, Manuel, Chateaubriand, DeBroglie,