372 HUGH S. FULLERTON 



the envelopes are fed automatically, or by a boy. They are 

 sealed and turned out at the rate of from 3,000 to 10,000 an 

 hour, dependuig upon the efforts of the boy who feeds the 

 machine and the speed with which it is run. As a final touch 

 there is a machine, not entirely successful as yet, however, 

 that stamps the letters. Machines that stamp letters at the 

 rate of 1,000 an hour are in use and giving satisfaction.^ 



Another invention, in use in several offices, and which the 

 promoters claim will come into general use, is the talking 

 telephone, a combination of phonograph and telephone, that 

 is a comparatively new device. The invention is the work 

 of a German, but the machine was perfected and is being 

 manufactured by an American firm. A small phonographic 

 recorder is placed at the receiver of the telephone. When 

 the o\YiieY of the telephone leaves his office, or decides that he 

 is too busy to answer the phone, he throws a switch that places 

 a mechanism in readiness. A friend or customer calls him up. 

 The completion of the circuit animates the phonographic 

 device, and the person at the other end of the telephone speaks 

 his message as if the person were at the other end of the wire. 

 The machine faithfully records his words. Then he hangs up 

 the receiver. A dozen messages may be received this way, 

 and when the owner of the phone desires to Usten to them, 

 he removes the cylinder, places it in another machine and 

 turns the switch. In the space of a few minutes he hears all 

 the messages that have accumulated since he placed the 

 machine at the phone. 



Another office device in which the phonograph figures 

 largely, is a new invention known as the talking postal card, 

 the invention of a New Yorker, which has been placed on 

 exhibition and on the market. The machine resembles to 

 some extent a phonograph into which a specially prepared 

 postal card is inserted. The machine is started and a mes- 

 sage is dictated into the machine, the merchant speaking as 

 rapidly as he can, giving instructions or making business offers. 

 The postal card, apparently as blank as before, is addressed 

 and dropped into a letter box and sped on to John, He 

 receives it, places it in a machine in his office, starts the 

 mechanism, and hears the message as plainly as if his friend 



