Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-09-15
THE TOPICAL TALKER.
How n Brass Band May be Carried In a
Cont Pockct-Parlor Concerts-A Coin
cidence-The Bont Race Referee.


Cont Pocket-Parlor Concerts--A Coin
cidence-The Bont Race Referee.
SCIENCE and frivolity have lain down togeth-
er-the subtlest machine the brain and hand
of man have evolved has been led out for
dance by Madamoiselle Fashion. In plain En-
| glish society has taken up the photograph.
Here and elsewhere it is now the very proper
est thing to invite ones friends to spend an
evening with the phonograph. The phono-
graph, as it is generally known to business is
! not sufficiently equipt to move in full dress
| society, but Mr. Edison has been equal to the
emergency.
In hail attached to Mr. Edison's laboratory
at Llewellyn Park, Orange, N. j., you might
hear any afternoon you chose one Of the crack
bands of New York playing the latest popular
| airs apparently for their own diversion or prac-
tice. Nobody, save one or two of Mr.. Edison's
employees, are present. In place OF a living
and breathing audience there are ranged
about the hall number of monographs
whirling away under the influence of
an electric engine. Each phonograph has on
its biggest-sized ear a wide-faring funnel of
tin. They are most attentive listeners, and each
photograph inscribes upon its waxy cylinder
| every note it hears. The deep growl of the
! basses the shrill shrek of the picolos, the
| alarum of the cornets, the soft harmonics OF the
| flutes and every atom of music in short as it
comes from the players, all float into the gaping
tunnels and are cut into the cylinders with per-
| feet accuracy
AS EACH number is finished by the band the
wax cylinders are taken from the monographs
and set aside, while new ones are fitted on in
their places Then another tune is started and
the same process of sound preservation is srepeat-
ed until good-sized concert has been slowed
away in wax The cylinders marked with
little paper tags inscribed with the name of the
air. Further for the Identification of the
musical cylinders as preface to the perform
ance of the band the conductor or someone
else with big voice, announces the name of
the piece, and all the monographs make a note
of it automatically.
These cylinders are packed up and sent to
the various depots from which monographs
are distributed. Anyone who owns phono-
graph can buy one or hundred of these
pocket brass bands. 1t becomes easy to give
full brass band concert in the smallest
drawing room imaginable without the least in
convenience. Thus it has come to pass that
society has taken up the phonograph. Phono-
graph band parties are the style, and inquiry
at phonograph headquarters yesterday re-
vealed the fact that dozens of well-known
PIttsburgers are indulging in band concerts at
home,
Sounds strange, doesn't it, to hear Of man
carrying home a brass band of hundred
pieces in his coat pocket? That's what many
a man is doing.
TALKING of monographs, Mr. Polk, the
well-known actor, introduces one in his new
play THE Silent Partner" in most ridiculous
way. It is always in the room when the villain
falls to talking about his malicious plots and
awful deeds, and the phonograph is supposed
to record these tell-tale solilcquies and reveal
them in the nick Of time to discomfit the bad,
bold man. This has humorous look, but If
the audience happens to know anything about
the phonograph,. the laugh will be on the
author. For, of course it Is utterly impossible
for phonograph to record sounds unless it be
set in motion by some human agency. Neither
can it catch correctly the speech of man unless
he talks into it-that is, where the big receptive
funnel is not used, and in Polk's play it is not.
50
IT has been proved down at the Exposition
that the number of receivers that can be at
tached to one phonograph is practically illimit-
able. Eight or ten persons hear the same con-
versation. piece of music or what not from one
instrument. Of course this makes the enjoy
ment of concert such as have spoken of full
and complete to the whole company present
The rather dry discourses descriptive of the
phonograph which the machines at the Expo
sition doled out at first to the crowd of visitors
were not appreciated by the majority. A change
has therefore been made. Cylinders full of
jocular remarks, limitations of dogs and cats,
and stump orations have been substituted with
immediate success. The familiar jests and
talk strike sympathetic chord in the hearts Of
the rural visitors particularly.
kxr
WAS it merely a curious coincidence or had
it a prophetic meaning?
When a certain wellknown attorney entered
the cafe of the Monongahela House at lunch
time yesterday he saw seated at one table,
John S. Robb, w. D. Porter and R. II. John
ston.
There" said he, sis the District Attorney of
Allegheny county past, present and future"
and the remark drew upon the trio an amount
of attention they did not understand or per-
haps altogether appreciate.