The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1882-12-09

To the Editor Of The Scientific ImeTic0a:-
In No. 10, on page 1874, Of the Scientific
american. we meet with Il correspondence
signed Gravity requesting 10 hear from
others on the subject of Mr.. Bells claims to
the inventorship of that valuable space ami
hilator and distance talker, the telephone.
If that request, as it seems, meets with your
appreciation, the following lines are at your
disposition.
In his late decision of Bells telephone
suit. Judge Lowell said "BeH discovered d
new art Of ranmittitting speech By electricity,
and that he had a right to hold the broadcast
claims for it which could be permitted in
any case" With that judgment no doubt
the Judge committed great blunder, and
Mr.. Bell, if an honest man, ought himself
to take out "writ of error against it.
will give here an abridgement of the his
tory of that invention, by which the public
will be enabled to judge for itself how far
Mr.. Bell is entitled to his claims as the in
ventor of the telephone
Philip Res pronounced Rice was born in
Geinhausen, near Franktort-on-the-M Main on
January Z, 1884, the son of baker. The
teachers of the public school which Reis
had entered in time. discovered early re-
markable mental faculties in the boy, and in
duced his father to send him to higher ed
ucational institution. Thus he became a
scholar of Garnet's Institute of Frankfort,
where his inclination for the study of nat
ural sciences became developed. Unfortun-
ately his father died too early for the boy,
and the appointed tutor did not favor the
boys inclination, but sent him as an aprren
tlce to merchant dealing in paints. Every
spare hour he could obtain here Refs devoted
20 his former studies, besides instructing
himself in physics and mathematics In the
year 1858 we find him employed as teach
err in the same institution where he had re-
ceiyed his first lessons in his favored
studies, and it is from here that we first be-
come conversant with his important discov-
cry of the telephone in a lecture he deliver
cd before one of the scientific institutions
of Frankfort.
at was in 1860" he said "while pursu'
ing my studies of the organ of hearing, that
succeeded in constructing an apparatus by
which that organ, the ear, could be better
demonstrated, and with which also sounds
could be sent TO distant places with the as.
sistance of the galvanic current and could
be reproduced. gave to the instrument the
name telephone.
Refs, so tells us his biographer, had the
satisfaction of seeing his invention highly
appreciated and to be highly complimentec
by the Natural Philosophy Society Of Giles
sen, the University of Hesse Darmstadt.
In the annual report of the Physical So
ciety of Frankfort of lS606l, we find pub
lished lecture by Refs on telephony by th'
galvanic current, which lecture he had de-
livered publicly in Frankfort, containing o
complete description Of the apparatus, &c
This may be sufficient to locate the in
vention of the telephone. Refs could moi
earn all the fruits of his laOors. He died
as poor as he had lived, on the l4th OF
February 1874, Of pulmonary consumption.
When we now observe, after the lapse OF
eighteen years after that remarkable discov'
cry of Refs, another one not only claiming
that invention as his own, but basing on
that claim rights with the object of enrich
ing himself, and when we are informed.
besides, that Judgment has been rendered
in favor of that sham prctension, we in
deed do not know which more to despise
the bold appropriation by Bell or the ig'
norancc of Judge Lowell
In the name Of truth and of the noble
| illustrious beneiactor Of mankind who be-
slowed upon civilization one of the most i'm,
portant inventions of this century and
without any other compensation than the
recognition of his genius deserved, let US
repudate with scorn and indignation the sci
fish and greedy shanI-pretension OF a man
who cannot present n proper legal claim non
title of his invention TraHSsIt IN eJcmpinm
NV ORLEANS. NJ SCHuppERT, NJ. ID.