The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-11-11
A VERSATILE MAN.
Henry Guy Carleton, Journalist, Play
wright and Scientist.
Washington Post.

Washington Post.
No one who has really known that as
tonishing person, Henry Guy Carleton. the
playwright will be surprised TO hear that
he has recently made his debut as an in
ventor of electrical devices which show a
profound knowledge of the principles and
the application of the science. Some one
has sent US a clipping from a New York
newspaper which we have no means of
Identifying. We assume that il is an or
gan OF some of the neutrality-suspicious.
electricity-but shall have to borrow it
with our apologies and thanks. The ex-
tract refers TO a 'group of well-known
electrical engineers, chatting in the Fifth
avenue Hotel, last Sunday" one of whom,
after expressing wonder at Cartoons
amazing versatility, went on to say:
4 saw his central station instrument for
the P%an-signal yesterday, and II is the
most extraordinary bit of automatism /
have seen in some years. 1t really has only
four moving parts, and these of surprising
simplicity, and yet IL performs eleven diff
ferent simultaneous electrical operations,
and IL Is almost human in the way in which
Ii performs its task of compelling a few
bits or brass, iron, and wire TO single out
from 500 different circuits the particular
one over which a call is coming; start the
distant Instrument; direct its currents to
their places in the recorder; hold off all
other signals till that one is fully recorded:
call bellboy TO the desk; cut off the bat
terry when 1t is no longer needed; prevent
other calls already set from Interference;
hold back those set after 1t begins 10 oper-
ate. and do a number of other stunts with
a delicacy and accuracy which cannot be
easily understood even after you have
watched the thing at work.
Carleton must be daring In his concep-
tons, or he would never have attempted
such a seemingly impossible achievement. !"
Guy Carleton was once well known in
this city and IL no doubt remembered
very generally still. He is a son of the
late Gen. James III. Carleton. u. s.. A.,
famous as an indian fighter, and once
held a commission in the service himself.
The idea OF his doing garrison duty Is too
preposterous- At any rate, ne didn't do
1t long. He left the army very soon after
entering IL, and in 1871 turned up at New
Orleans and was shortly engaged In driv-
ing a quill on the Times newspaper or
that city. He occasionally threw a little
too much ginger into the paragraphs,
which. IL those days. were not carefully
edited. and It was not long before the
proprietor, a devout churchman. received
a call from a committee of deacons and
found himself entangIed In a strictly pious
but extremely ~strenuou controversy The
proprietor at last came to see that Carrie
ton was nothing but a tub after all, so
he threw him overheard TO the whale.
About this time. however, the famous
yellow fever epidemic of 1878 broke out
and Carleton was once more In demand.
Concurrently with hic work on the Times
for he stuck 20 his post from beginning 10
end-he wrote for the New York Times
the most brilliant and Intelligent series OF
letters on the yellow fever visitation that