Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1901-12-20
Telephone TALES.
Learning A Song Over The Wire-A Mes
sage from the Dead.

, Learning A Song Over The Wire-A Mes
sage from the Dead.
; Jessie Bartlett Davis used the tele
: phone to great advantage last summer
She was singing In vaudeville In Buf
, falo and was expecting to begin the
second week of her stay there with q
new song which had been extensively
advertised. Unfortunately the song
which was by Chicago composer, was
lost somewhere in the mails and did
not arrive at the expected time Mrs.
Davis at once called up the composer
in Chicago over the long distance wire
and told him that she was determined
not to disappoint her audience that
evening and that be must sing her the
song over the telephone.
This the composer did, Mrs. Davis
taking down the words and humming
them over 80 as to catch the music and
!putting down the notes as the compos-
er sang them. Then she sang the song
over as she had caught it from the
composer and he corrected her when
she made mistakes. 1t took two hours
altogether, but in that time Mrs. Davis
was master of the new song and had
the score SO that the orchestra leader
could take it and arrange it for his
musicians. The bill for the use of the
long distance telephone for the time
that Mrs. Davis had been learning the
song was something like $400, but it
was worth the money. for by the use of
the telephone Mrs. Davis had learned a
song, words, air and accompaniment
from the lips of the composer himself
while he was 500 miles away.
Many of the hotels in the larger cities
are now being equipped with telephones
in each room. The telephone in the
room of a swindler in Philadelphia led
to his detection and arrest. A man
who had been a guest of New York
hotel for some time and finally left, &C
companied by large number of dia-
monds and other jewelry, as well as a
considerable quantity of money which
had belonged to his fellow guests, went
to Philadelphia, and taking a room re
NAMED in hiding there, giving illness
as an excuse for having his meals
brought to him and to account for his
never leaving his room. The New
York hotel proprietor had called up
the proprietors of several Philadelphia
hotels and described the man he want
ed. The proprietor of the hotel where
the thief and swindler was in hiding
said he had suspicion that his mys-
teriOus guest was the man wanted, but
that it would be impossible for any
body to see the man, as he kept his
room zealOusly and no one but the
hambermaid or waiter carrying in
the meals was permitted to enter. The
New York hotel man arranged with
the Philadelphia landlord to have the
chambermaid go into the swindler's
room and take down his telephone and
talk with the New York man. who was
in his own hotel $50 miles away. The |
maid carried on a conversation as |
though she were talking to one of her |
friends in the next block or two.
In the midst of her conversation,
when the man in New York was listen |
ing intently, the maid held the receiv-
er of the telephone carefully in her |
hand so that it pointed squarely at the
bed and asked the swindler if her con-
versatiOn annoyed him. He answered |
at once that it did not annoy bIm in
the least and she might 60 ahead and
talk all she pleased. The mans voice |
was plainly heard by the hotel man in
New York, who recognized it at once,
and soon an officer armed with the
proper papers was on his way to Phila-
delphia, and that night the swindler
was taken into custody and the next
day was escorted back to New York,
still reviling the telephone which had
been the means of his undoing.
Telephoning from the graveseems an
uncanny sort of thing but that is what |
happened in Florence, Italy. Ayoung |
and beautiful girl of patrlcian lineage,
named Teresa Allesandi, had been |
consigned to the family vault in a |
trance, her family believing that she |
was dead. A relative who was in the |
habit of paying periodical visits to the
tiny mortuary chapelforming an annex
to the sepulcher, for the pious purpose
of reciting masses for the repose of the
souls of those resting therein, and who
had also apparently been possessed of
a healthy regard for her own mundane
comfort and well being. had had a
telephone installed in the building so
that her servants in the adjoining
chateau might more easily notify her
when lunch or dinner was ready.
When the supposed dead girl recover
ed from her swOOn and found hersel
lying in coffin in a tomb her terrors
LII o. OFOl uCIs 4ACd Oh-
tangled in her grave clothes and scream
ing with fright she wildly CROPPED her
way around the damp walls of the
sepulcher until her fingers grasped the
telephone. More from force of habit
than anything else she took down the
receiver and put it to her ear and rung
up her relatives in the chateau. When
they answered the telephone and heard
tbs voice of one whom the day before
they had laid away to "her last long
sleep" the shock oyerpowered them for
a moment, but they soon recovered
and made all haste to the tomb and
carried the revived girl to the house.
Teresa AlleSandi is now one of the