490 



The Review of Reviews. 



June 1. 290^ 



When the Poor Law Commission has finished its 

 task, which should be in two or. at most, three years' 

 time, then will be the time for — 



drawing together the Bcattered legislation on tlie subject 

 of uuemploj-ment. and relating it to the Poor Law in some 

 comprehensive scheme which wiU enable us to deal accord- 

 ing to their merits with tie genuine out-of-work, the aged, 

 and deserving poor, the vagrant, the incapable and the 

 incorrigible. 



The public have at last got into their minds _ the 

 thoroughly sound idea that the poor cannot be wisely 

 treated " in the lump," and that pauperisation covers a 

 multitude of different conditions which can and ought to 

 be discriminated and variously treated. It remains for a 

 statesman to tra^-e the far-rea-ching results of this idea 

 and to give effect to them in legislation. 'Ihere has never 

 been an administrator at the Local Government Board 

 more thoroughly qualified than Mr. John Burns for a re- 

 form which, if it is to be sure and lasting, must have tlie 

 working classes behiud it. If one may trust the signs of 

 the times, the hcst working-class opinion is thoroughly 

 prepared for a system which shall be far more punitive 

 to the loafer and sponger, provided that it deals humanely 

 with the deserving and curatively with the feeble. Here is 

 the key to the problem, a.nd I do not think the public 

 need fear that serious working men. who know better than 

 any of us how genuine distress is overlaid and exploited 

 by imposcure, will bring any weak sentimentality to its 

 solution. 



"A NEW HOUSE FOR THE COMMONS." 



Under this title Mr. H. W. Lucy, in Blackwood, 

 savs that the most hopelessly congested district al 

 the present time is enclosed by the walls of the 

 Palace at Wes'minster. For 670 members sitting, 

 room is provided for 306, with galleries for 122 

 more. Mr. Lucv reminds us that this trouble has 

 been the subject of complaint and inquiry earlier. 

 A Select Committee was appointed in 1867, and Mr. 

 lAicy recalls the plan presented by Mr. E. M. Barry, 

 son of the architect of the present Horses, of a new 

 building so ingeniouslv and so happily conceived 

 that " if at near or distant date it should be resolved 

 to bui'.d a new House for the Commons, it will un- 

 doubtedlv be adopted." The essence of the scheme 

 is as follows : — 



Adioinins tbe House of Commons is a courtyard known 

 as the Commons Court that serves no indispensable pur- 

 pose. He nroposed to util'se it as tlie si'e of V-e new 

 House, which mis-ht continue to serve ordinary purposes 

 till the new building- was completed. That done, the old 

 buildin? would not be discarded. The irlass ceiling re- 

 moved, and the hidden beauties of the roof restored to 

 the lieht of the dav. it would serve as a lobby, giving 

 access to t'-e new House, and reserved exclrsively for the 

 use of Members. It would contain .a, post-office, rooms for 

 the Whips, and a refre'fhment b,a,r in lieu of the stall 

 which at that period disfigured the lobbv. 



The new H"nse. thus buttressed, would seat 569 Members, 

 benches for 419 be'n? set on the floor. Room would be 

 provided for 331 strangers, making a total of 930 less one, 

 an increase sliehtl^ exceeding 200. Provis>on of 23 inches 

 sittin? room re' Member is made in this estima'e. B-it 

 Mr Barrtr sansai'relv anticipated that on crowded nights 

 it would he nossib'e to seat 600 Members. .At the bar end 

 of the House accommodation would be nrov'ded for 44 

 Peers. At the oiuosite end. behind the Sneaker's chair, 

 eight seats wuld be allotted for the convenience of per- 

 manent seo-etaries and the like having occasion to he 

 In attendance at sittings with which their Department 

 was specially concerned. 



Apart from the legislative chanber, spacious read- 

 ing ard news rooms were provided. A new refresh- 

 ment-room on a large «cale was olanned to face the 

 River Terrace. The Press Gallery was to be ex 

 tended, with the addition of three wrtinsr-out rooms, 

 a refreshment-room, and a hat and cloak room. In 



shape the new House would be a square with the 

 corners cut off, forming an octagon with four long 

 and four short sides. The cost Mr. Barn.- estimated 

 at, taking it roughly, about _;^roo,ooo. Subsequently 

 this was increased to _;^i 20,000. The Committee 

 reported emphatically in favour of the scheme. 



THE BEST MUSIC FOR THE MILLION. 



The Marvel of the Telharmonium. 



In the American Revieiv of Rn'iews there is a very 

 interesting article describing a new electrical instru- 

 ment invented by Dr. Thaddeus Cahill, by which it 

 is claimed that all the difficulties of the electrical 

 transmission of music have been overcome. In 

 future, instead of Paderewski having to travel from 

 city to city in order to delight people by his mar- 

 vellous p'.aying, he will be seated by himself alone 

 in some central point of the world's circumference, 

 and by the aid of the Telharmonium audiences in 

 everv city of the planet will be able to hear simul- 

 taneously, and to enjoy as much the effect of his 

 playing as do the favoured few who nowadays can 

 squeeze themselves into the concert halls which he 

 visits. For the full developinents of this great in- 

 vention we must wait until the planet is more plen- 

 tifully begirdled with cheap telegraph wires than it 

 is at the present moment, but, judging from this 

 article in the American Review of Reviiws, there is 

 no reason why concerts should not be rendered per- 

 fectly audible to a hundred audiences in any great 

 city. 



Mr T. Commerford Martin declares: — 



In the new art of telharmony we haTe the latest gift of 

 electricity to civilisation, an art which, while abolishing 

 every musical instrument, from tJie jew's-harp to the 

 'cello, gives everybody cheaply, and everywhere, more music 

 than they ever had before. Sucii music can obviously be 

 laid on " anywhere — in homes, hospitals, factories, res- 

 taurants, theatres, hotels, wherever an orchestra or a 

 single musician has served before, or wherever tliere is a 

 craving for music. The dream of Bellamy in " Ijooking 

 Backward " is thus realised, and beautiful music is dis- 

 pensed everywhere for anyone who cares to throw the 

 switch. 



The machine weighs 200 tons, and costs about 

 ;^40,ooo. This is how Mr. Martin explains the 

 machine: — 



The Cahill telharmonium may be compared with a pipe 

 organ. The performer at its keyboard, instead of playing 

 upon ■air in the pipes, plays upon the electric current that 

 is being generated in a laree number of small dynamo- 

 electric machines of the " alternating-current " type. These 

 little " inductor " alternators are of quite simple construc- 

 tion, from the mechanical standpoint, though it is need- 

 less to say that the inventor did not find out at once all 

 he wanted to know about them. That took a good ten 

 years. In each alternator the current surges to and fro 

 at a different frequency or rate of speed — thousands and 

 thousands of times a minute: and this current as it 

 reaches the telephone at the near or distant station causes 

 the diaphragm of that instrument to emit a musical note 

 characteristic of that current whenever it is generated at 

 iust that " frequency " or rate of vibration in the circuit. 

 The rest is relatively easy. The revolving parts, of the 

 little alternators .are mounted upon shafts, which are 

 geared together. Each revolvine part, or "rotor," having 

 its own number of poles or teeth, in the magnetic field 

 of force, and each having its own ansular velocity, the 

 arrangement gives us the ability to produce, in the initial 

 coijditioD of musical electrical waves, the notes throngn 

 a compa?" of five octaves. 



