■274 



The Review of Reviews. 



Se ft ember 1, 1906. 



ELECTRICAL MUSIC SUPPLY. 



From a pajxT on Music by Electricity, which 

 Marion Melius contributes to the World's Work, it 

 seems as though the dream of Bellamy is near ful- 

 filment. Dr. Thaddeus Cahill is the inventor. His 

 invention is thus described : — 



At a keyboard of hia device a performer lightly presses 

 down the keys, and at receivers — perhaps many miles dis- 

 tant — music pours forth, lu pressing the keys the _ per- 

 former throws upon a wire a vibration, or a set of vibra- 

 tions, which turn into aerial vibrations, or audible music, 

 when they reach the diaphragm of a telephone receiver. An 

 alternatins current generator has been built up for ea«h 

 note of the musical scale. Each of those generators pro- 

 duces as many electrical vibrations per second as there are 

 aerial vibrations per second in that note of the musical 

 scale for which it stands. From the generators a mass of 

 wires leads to the keyboards. The keys operate switches 

 which conduct the desired vibrations from the generators, 

 much as in a pipe organ the player, by pressing certain 

 keys, turns the air from the liellows into different pipes 

 to produce the tone he desires. These vibrations are passed 

 through several transformers, or tone-mixers, to become still 

 more complex, and then the interwoven vibrations go forth 

 on a wire. 



In the music-room where the performer sits, there would 

 be absolute silence if it were not for the receiving horn 

 pl.aced near him. so that he can judge of the character of 

 his playing. The vibrations do not turn into sound until 

 they reach the telephone receiver. Yet the wires all the 

 time are full of silent music, which could he distinguished 

 if the ear were constructed to catch electrical vibrations 

 as it is to catch aerial vibrations. 



TO FILL THE VVORLU WITH MUSIC. 



It is expected that when Dr. Cahill completes 

 bis system he may literally fill the world with a 

 r.etwork of music. The new musical instrument 

 not only produces the tones of almost all the known 

 •orchestral instruments, but it creates musical sounds 

 never heard before. There is none of the rasp and 

 harshness of the phonograph about it. Its tones 

 are pure, clear, round and rich. The instrument 

 responds more sympathetically to the soul of the 

 musician than any other instrument, with the ex- 

 ception, perhaps, of the violin. " A Bauer or a 

 Paderewski at the instrument could delight an audi- 

 -ence ten miles distant as thoroughly as if the list- 

 eners were in the concert hall with the musician." 

 The first commercial installation has been com- 

 pleted. A second is being prepared for a central 

 station in New York for distributing music. The 

 ■first weighs more than 200 tons and cost ^^^40,000. 

 The music has been sent successfully over seventy 

 miles. Some of the notes have as much as 15 to 

 19 h.-p. behind them. It is easy to see how this 

 supply of music will operate: — 



Dr- Gahill plans to place the system at first in theatres, 

 concert halls, restaurants, hotels and department stores, 

 but later he expects it will come into private use. In small 

 towns where fine music is rarely heard a connection could 

 be made from private homes with the central station in a 

 large city, and the masterpieces of music could be heard 

 at will. The electrical music will go over its own wires 

 and not over leased wires. Central stations will probably 

 be not more than fifty miles apart, in order to feet the best 

 results. Tliere will probably be operators or performers at 

 the central station for twenty-four hours, and music will 

 be on tap all horns of the day or night. An individual 

 may go to sleep to music or rise to it a^-cording to his 

 temperament, and a hostess may furnish an orchestra for 

 ^er dinner-party at the turn of a button. 



ARE WE UNDER A CIVILISED SAVAGERY? 



Mr. Harold Spender, m the Contemporary Re- 

 vieiv, treats of tire great Congo iniquity with almost 

 prophetic earnestness. More important even than 

 his disclosure of the damning facts of King Leo- 

 pold's inferno are his reflections on the moral trend 

 of the times. He says: — 



Perhaps the most disquieting fact in the present state of 

 the world is the freciuent triumph of acknowledged wrong. 

 Roth in the Old World and the New the forces of evil seem 

 to be more powerful and impudent than they were a score 

 of years ago. Disclosure does not dismay them; that great 

 universal judgment of the human race, once armed with 

 thunderbolts, seems now more frightened of itself than 

 capable of alarming others; the vast powers of the modern 

 community, with its highly centralised government and its 

 gigantic machinery of agitation and publicity, seem easily 

 defeated and disarmed, or even turned, like captured can- 

 non, against the common good. We still lock up the 

 smaller criminals; but the colossus seems beyond our reach. 

 He sins boldly and defiantly, seated on throne or judg- 

 ment seat, in the very blaze of noon. He seems safely 

 guarded by some new stagnancy of the common world-con- 

 science. AVe look back with scepticism to the days when 

 Mr. Gladstone with a few bold letters could rouse the whole 

 of Europe into a fi.a.me of wrath against King Bomba's 

 •■ Negation of God." Now. .\bdul Hamid still reigns. Tales 

 of wrong seem to produce less echo in the "' armed camp " 

 of 1906 than in the peaceful mart of 1850. 



But every other instancS of this new malady pales before 

 the continued survival, after fifteen years of crime, of the 

 Independent Congo Free State. The security of King Leo- 

 pTld lies in the very magnitude of his offences. He has 

 sinned beyond all ordinary credibility: and he has proved 

 so successful in his large drafts on the bank of intemar 

 tional 2ood faith that he will not hesitate to go on draw- 

 ing as long as liis "schemes" are honoured. In the past 

 we have been taken unawares, but now we know, and our 

 guilt will he all the greater if we allow ourselves to go on 

 being deceived. 



THE CHIEF PERIL OP THE MODERN WORLD. 



--V much-needed note of warning is struck in the 

 fellow ing paragraph: — ■ 



For a new thing has appeared in the world. Wliile we 

 have been dreaming of progress and benevolence, there has 

 grown up among us a strange product, born of the union 

 between greed and science, suckled on cynicism, and 

 schooled in the subtleties of the law. It is nothing less 

 than a civilised savagery, infinitely more dangerous and 

 ternble than primitive barbarism, because free from all 

 passion, and working in an atmosphere of cold and sinister 

 calculation that admits neither reform nor repentance. It 

 is fortified by a moneyed command of brain-power in every 

 country, and armed in its own work with all the machinery 

 of destruction that science has given to the modern man. 

 This new savagery is not without its champions. \ certain 

 vague popular philosophy that has become " procuress t-'. 

 the Lords of Hell " is ready to justify the " Over-Man." 

 whether he reigns in Brussels or Chicago. Deception is 

 among his avowed weapons, and the folly of mankind is his 

 cliief asset. Here lies the chief peril of the modern world. 

 Now. King Leoiiold has shown himself the boldest master 

 in this new school of " State-craft." For the chief senti- 

 ment on whicli Leopold has traded has been the vague 

 benevolence of the world. He has built his pyramid of 

 Congolese skulls on a foundation of specious phrases which 

 deceived even General Gordon It is not the least quarrel 

 that humanity has against him that he has trafficked in 

 high ideals and played the pirate under the guise of the 

 missionary. 



A verv interesting article in the new number of 

 the Rivisia Musicale Itaiiaim is that on Madame 

 de Stael and Music, contributed by H. Kling. 

 Much has been written about Madame de Stael, but 

 the present article is probably the first to bring out 

 the musical side of her culture and her enthusiasm 

 for mu.sic. References to music found in her writ- 

 ings are quoted at length, but the writer notes as a 

 curious fact that Madame de Stael seems not to 

 have included musicians among the men of letters 

 and others she had always about her. 



