The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1898-04-26
DAILY REFkRI1CAN, WuMTNGTON DELAWARE, TUESDAY, AP
a TALKING NEWSPAPER.
The Un1qus Journalistic Enterprise Car.
fted en In Budapest.

| The Unique JsprnaIistio Enterprise Car.
Sled ep In Budapest.
A Budapest letter to the London Pail
Mall Gazette says: A small diamond
shaped board screwed on to the wall Of my
room and provided with couple Of hooks,
from which hang two tiny, round tele-
phone earpieoes connected by two wires
that Is all-but my proprietor has been
singing Its praises for the last 30 minutes,
and as he oonfdentially assured me that
1t will not play any part In my hotel bill
at the end Of my stay, there Is no earthly
reason why should enter any protest
against his profuse enoomiums.
"This," said he, "is the telephonio
messenger, or talking newspaper-the
only thing Of It's kind in the world. 1t
has now boon established in Budapest
about three years. II differs from the Or
binary telephone In the fact that the latter
Is directly connected with the central Of
flee, whereas we are able to connect from
i 200 or 800 subscribers in one circuit. The
city Is divided into 80 circuits. All day
long news 10 spoken into q specially CON-
structed apparatus at the central Office,
varied with entertainments, the opera and
linguistic lessons. 1t Ia not telephone
In the strict sense of the word and there
fore does not infringe the telephone rights
of the government II combines the func-
tioDs Of your tape machines and electro
phones, while 1t Is ten times cheaper.
That buzz you hear just now was to pre-
vent Subscribers talking to each other on
their own account"
ut seems strange that such an excel
lent idea as this appears to be should not
be introduced In other towns than Buda-
psst," ventured.
"The answer Is very simple. OF course
the newspaper feature would be impossible
In London, where time Ia everything, and
man oonld not sit the whole day with
the apparatus to his ear, waiting for some
particular news or exchange prices. Then,
again, other towns are not 90 advantage
ously situated In this respect as Budapest
where the law empowers the company to
introduce the apparatus into any house in
the city in spite Of the objections Of the
landlord. We have here Q, 600 subscribers,
and each pays only Is forms year. With |
US 1t is as in England with certain soap
our families don't feel happy until they
get 1t. 1t is 90 cheap that many Of the |
rooms IN my hotel are fitted up with 1t. |
II the visitor finds 1t inconvenient to go
to the opera, all he has to do is to put this
apparatus to his ear and he can be enter
tnined the whole evening. The general
public, too, can have news In advance of
the newspapers. Why, o few weeks ago,
when the German kaiser gave that oele-
brated toast Of his to the Hungarian ma
ton, thousands of families were listening
to its recital half an hour later. Without
this apparatus they would have had to
wait until next day."
"Hava you a regular daily programmed"
Eyes. 1t is announced in the morning
and changes every half hour or so. The
greater part of the morning Is taken up
with prices on change, q summary Of the
news in the dailies. At noon we begin to
get report of the doings in parliament
kilograms of Importance are communi-
Gated at once, the telephone messenger
being in direct connection with leading
Budapest newspaper. At about o'clock
tho morning news Is in part repeated, then
come exchange prices, kilograms, law re-
ports, short, entertaining story, theat-
rical items and sometimes concert, and
for an hour in the evening we get lesson
In English, Italian and French. You
have no idea what benefit this Is to the
young generation and how popular these
lessons are among them. A complete set
Of graduated exercises has been published
IN these languages. Each telephone sub
'oriber who cares to listen holds a copy Of
ihe book in question before him, and the
eacher speaks into the double microphone
at the central Office"