The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1910-08-07

the attectionate young girl could no
longer control her feelings and was
overcome by passion of tears. At this
the susceptible Bell. like i true Sir
GaIahad, dashed after the moving
train and sprang aboard, without ticket
or baggage, 0bhyious of his classes and
his poverty ana of all else except this
one maiden 5 distress i never saw
a man. = said Watson, $50 much in love
as Bell was. -
As it happened. this impromptu trip
to the Centennial proved to be one of
, the most timely acts of his life. On
the following Sunday afternoon the
, judges We're to make a special tour of
inspection, and Mr.. Hubbard, after
much trouble, had obtained promise
, that they would spend a few minutes
examining Bells telephone. By this
time it had been on exhibition for
more than six weeks. without attracting
the serious attention of anybody.
| When Sunday afternoon arrived, Bell
J was at his little table, nervous, yet
! confident. But hour after hour went
by, and the judges did not arrive. The
! day was intensely hot. and they had
many wonders to examine. There was
, the first electric light, and the first
i =
| graph of Elisha Gray, and the mar
velous exhibit of printing telegraphs
! shown by the Western Union Company.
BY the time they came to Bells table,
through litter of school desks and
blackboards. the hour was seven
o clock, and every man in the party
was hot, tired, and hungry. Several
announced their intention of returning
to their hotels. One took up a tele-
phone receiver, looked at it blankly,
and put it down again. He did not
even place it to his ear. Another
! judge made a sighting remark which
raised a laugh at Bell expense. Then
a most marvellous thing happened
!, such an incident as would make a chap
ter in 1.-The Arabian Nights Entertain
| ments.''
) Accompanied by his wife, the EN-
T press Theresa, and by a bevy of court
iers, the Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pc
dro de Alcantara, walked into the room,
} advanced with both hands outstretched
to the bewildered Bell, and exclaimed:
: "Professor Bell, l am delighted to see
g you again. The judges at once for
G got the heat and the fatigue and the
l hunger. Who was this young inventor,
!, with the pale complexion and black
: eyes, that he should be the friend of
Emperors2 They did not know, and
+ for the moment even Bell himself had
e forgotten that Dom Pedro had once
| visited Bells class of deaf-mutes at
d Boston University. He was especially
e interested in such humanitarian work,
e and had recently helped to organize
the first Brazilian school for deaf-mutes
e at Rio de Janeiro. And so, with the
+ cd bp
?, center. the assembled Judges and sci
r entists-there were fully fifty in all
t. entered with unusual zest into the pro-
e ceedings of his first telephone matinee
|, A wire had been strung from one end
d of the room to the other, and while
e Bell went to the transmitter. Dom Pc
= drO took up the receiver and placed il
/ to his ear. 1t was a moment of tense
expectancy. No one knew clearly
e what was about to happen, when the
e Emperor. with a dramatic gesture
$ raised his head from the receiver and
d exclaimed with a look of utter amaze
'e ment: MY God-it talks!''
Next came to the receiver the oldest
l. scientist in the group, the venerable
u Joseph Henry, whose encouragement to
2 Bell had been SO timely. He stopped
g to listen. and, as one of the bvstanders
III afterWard said, no one could forget
a the look of awe that came into his face
a as he heard that iron disc talking with
human voice ''This,'' said he
e ''comes nearer to overthrowing the
y doctrine of the Conservation of energy
T. than anything l ever saw
1t Then came Sir William Thomson
le latterly known as Lord Kelvin. It was
Il fitting that he should have been there
- for he was the foremost electrical
=, scientist at that time i'll the world, and
- had been the engineer of the first At
\ lantic Cable He listened and learned
" what even he had not known before
IS that a solid metallic body could take
A up from the air all the countless varle
re ties of vibrations produced by speech
le and that these vibrations could be
re carried along a wire and reproduced
lie exactly BY second metallic body. He
ct nodded his head solemnly as he ros'
from the receiver cit does speak. ,
G. he said emphatically cit is the mos
Of wonderful thing I have seen il
t. America
J, So, one after another. this nOtabl
company Of men listened to the voic
y Of the first telephone, and the more they
~ knew Of science the less they wer
r. inclined to believe their ears TIL
), wiser they were, the more they wonder
q ed. To Henry and Thomson. the master
Al of electrical magic this instrument wa
to as surprising as it was to the man j.
or the street And both We're DobI
enough to admit frankly their astonish
II ment in the reports which they mad
e as judges, when they gave Bell Cert