The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-05-19
ME ON ELECTRICITY.
St. Louis Post Dispatch.

~ St. Louis Post Dispatch.
 aElittle did B. Franklin wot that
 ne day the little start he made
 en he baited his pin hook with
 d conductor and tapped the low pS3wed and believing nimbus with his buoyant kite, and the pickle jar of electricity thus crudely acquired be the egg from which inventors and scientists would hatch out a system which could not only encircle the Iglobe with messages swifter than the Might of Phoebus, but that anon the Tight of day would be filtered through q crowd of cables loaded with de- sfuction, sufficient for whole army, A1 the air be filled with death deal { dangling wires.
 title did he know that he was bot "a the genie which would one day p1 out the stopper with it's teeth a1 grow till it overspread the sky, pl ted it's bare bleak poles along ev&k highway, carrying day mes sad by night and night messages WI it got ready, darkening the air vi it's rusty .wings-provided, of ou that the genii wear wings \ ,d th the harsh, metallic, GOuldish kl ter of a signal with one tootpn the neck of the sender and one on he neck of the recipient, with on Aand on the throat of the con- vention and the other in the pockets of the world, defy aggregated hu- manity to do its worst, and command all civilization in terse, well-chosen terms to either fish, cut bait or go ashore.
 Could Benjamin have known all this at the time, possibly he might have considered it wisdom to go in . when it rained.
 Tam not an old fogy, though may have that appearance, and l rejoice to Nsee the world move on. One by one Nhave laid aside my own cucumber
 prejudices in order to keep up kth the procession. Have I not gradually adopted everything that would in any way enhance my op- portunities for advancement, even through tedious evolution, from the paper collar up to finger bowl, eye- ther and nyether?
 This should convince the reader that l am not seeking to clog the wheels of progress. I simply look with apprehension upon any great centralization of wealth or power in the hands of any one man who not only does as he pleases with said wealth and power, but who, as I am informed, does not read my timely suggestions as to how he shall use them.
 To return, however, to the subject of electricity. I have recently sought to fathom the style and motif of & new system which Is to be introduced . into private residences, hotels and police headquarters. In private houses it will be used as a burglars welcome. In hotels it will take the mental strain off the bell-boy, reliev- ing him also of portion of his bur densome salary at the same time. In the police department it will do al- most everything but eat peanuts from the corner stands.
 The system is on exhibition in a large room down town, with the sig nals or boxes on one side and the an- nunciator or central station on the other. By walking from one to the other, distance in all of thirty or forty miles, I was enabled to get a slight idea of the principle.
 It is certainly a very intelligent sys- tenn. l never felt my own inferiority any more than did in the presence of this wonderful invention. It will do almost anything, it seemed to me, and the main drawback seems to be its versatility, for it thereby becomes so complex that in order to become at all intimate with it policeman ought to put in two years at Vassar and at least a year at Leipsic. An extended course of study would thus perfect him in this line, but he would not then be content to act as policeman. He would want to be scientist, with dandruff on his coat collar and far away look.
 Then, again, take the hotel scheme, for instance. We go to dial which is lmarked Room 32" There we find hHr .S.yeating it a certain way it b Sf. tnce to the clerk that Room S fire, ice-water, pens, ink, af<9f sssnons, towels, fre-escape, Mill yankee Sec, pillow -shams, menu, Cro- on ffappe, carriage, laundry, physi- Iaq, sleeping-car ticket, berth mark Prame, Halford sauce, hot fiat-iron
 ironing trousers, baggage, blotter
 ~ for chair, or any of those things.
 hot I have not given half the list
 this barometer, because could not
 member them, though I may have
 led others that were not on the in-
 atof. The message arrives at the
 cs, but the clerk is engaged in con-
 ntion with | lady. He does not