Morning journal and courier., 1881-04-21
CORRESPONDENCE.

ON THE CARS, April 19, 1881. To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 have just been reading an editorial in a we'll known New York paper upon ''The Ed ison Light" and if you will pardon me the expression Of few more opinions on this subject you will have my thanks, for the req son that, when 1 wrote you several letters upon this matter some months ago, I was beset with questions almost without number as to what would likely be it's future, and not few were a little incredulous of my s.glow- ing" suggestions. At the time in question that paid MT. Edison visit at Menlo Park on New Years day, 1880, Gin company with my wife's father, whom I alluded to at that time as being an expert in the matter of gas manufacturing, he having for twenty-five years been the superintendent of the Rah- way, N. J., gas works and for many years the engineer in chief of the Railway water works, and well tread rp" upon the subject of lighting by electricity it was with consid- erable information that I wrote my letters, and since that time he and Mir. Edison have been somewhat associated together in the matter of perfecting MT. Edison's invention, and ever since that time I have been consid- erably interested in all that pertained to this ''new light" So today with more devel- oped facts before me, and with the prospect of company soon to be in operation in our own city Gas saw by your paper yesterday morning. l will go now further in some of my statements.
 Lighting by electricity is nothing new. For, years ago, it was in use in France, and studied about it in my school days, but there were two principal things to be over- come before it could be made practical and useful to the masses. First and greatest was it's cost, and second and most perplexing was it's subdivision. According to the figures given me by Mr. Edison, when I wrote my former letters,i it could be produced for a very much less price than consumers were then paying for gas, but my father in-law offset that argument by his statement, which no one have since talked with has been able to gainsay-that gas at the present price of coal can be placed in retort for a net cost of about 65 cents per thousand feet. In con- versation with our own gas company's presi: dent yesterday on the cars, I made this state ment to him, and he very truly said, what l know, and what every business man knows that the first cost of article is not it's retail price (for, please don't forget, MT. Editor, that am in the rufie business) The cost of distributing gas through iron pipes, the lay ing of the pipes besides their cost, and the keeping of them in repair, is no small item. But should it become necessary for the gas companies to reduce their price to compete with some newly invented light they could do so and yet make living profit The law of supply and demand always regulates such
 
 produce light to the satisfaction of the public at less price than they are now pay ing, the public will very quickly take due ad- vantage of the benefits of the invention. Therefore the first question will settle itself in the due course of time and in way that is unavoidable.
 Now as to the second. That the electric light can be subdivided is true, but if you should see with your own eyes what saw at Menlo Park, you would want better argu- ment than I can at present produce to con- vince you of it's ever working perfectly. But what seems to one so nearly impossible is often overcome as in this case, for it is claimed that it is already accomplished. I quote from my newspaper article:
 Balancing it's advantages and disadvan- tages, however, the Edison light unquestion- ably has the preponderance in it's favor we now see it exhibited. If the company which owns its patent can really supply shops and dwellings with lamps like those which glow in it's Fifth avenue headquarters, at cheap a rate as that charged for gas there is no doubt that it will be in wide demand. If the light can be relied on for continuous use, if it can be supplied just as people want it, if 1t can be maintained without the necessity for complicated repairs, and if it is cheap, Mir. Edison has solved the question of adapting the electric light to domestic use, and has made great fortune for himself and his backers.''
 Now, as I frequently tide between New York and Philadelphia Gas I am doing at this moment and have over and over again in the night time passed MT. Edison's farm and seen his hundreds of out-of-door lamps glowing over acres and acres of tenantless farm land, and this kept up month after month,s during all the time the newspapers have been criticising at one time and com mending at another, I again state very firm belief in the future success of the electric light. Yet there is something to be said on the other side, as you see by the enclosed cutting from another daily few days ago .
 GA high scientific authority in France, the Comte Dumoncel, refuses to believe, we are informed in special cable dispatch from Paris, that MT. Edison's light can be success. Besides this he charges Americans with stealing European brains-as if we had not enough and to spare.'
 l make another quotation, which many of the ladies have doubtless seen long before your writer:
 'tBut this electric light has it's disadvan- tages also. It pains the eye to look at it, and therefore it ought to be placed high over the heads of people. It is so white and pure that complexions are exposed by it as they are at midday on sandy sea beach. The ar tlhces which women use to enhance their beauty, or to conceal the ravages of age or of care, avail little in the presence of the elec- tric light. It searches out every personal defect like bright, unclouded summer sun. But probably, by means of proper shades, 1t could be softened so as to make it more grateful
 But am writing at length, and to what advantageP I own no electric light stock, nor am I in the employ of Mir. Edison to ad- vance his interests. I am only one of your own numerous correspondents that take a lively Yankee" interest in the improve ments of the age. M. O. s.
 D. s. GIenney & Son,
 No 1R0 State Streef Nav Havou