Opinion ID: 92222
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Drawbaugh's Visit to the Centennial.

Text: The failure of Drawbaugh to ascertain, when visiting the Centennial Exhibition, whether the telephone instruments there exhibited by Bell were similar to his own, seems to have been regarded by the court as strong evidence against his claim. But the court, after citing questions and answers from 386 to 398, inclusive, overlook the answer to the very next question, in which Drawbaugh testifies that none of the instruments he saw at Philadelphia were the instruments represented in the cuts of Bell's instruments as given in the record in this case. The testimony of Prof. Barker (Add. Proofs, p. 7) says that the Bell instruments were not easily accessible in the building at that time. They seem to have been merely exhibited to invited individuals at times of private tests. A fair inference from Drawbaugh's answers cited in the opinion of the court, and the one omitted is that he saw the instruments he supposed to be the subject of comment, and they were not telephones at all, but were harmonic telegraphic instruments, which his answers fairly describe.