52 



The Review of Reviews, 



SCIENTIFIC EAVESDROPPING. 



A NEW terror to life has apparently come in the 

 shape of the dictograph, which little tell-tale machine 

 has made real the saying " Walls have ears." Mr. 

 Lyell Fox, writing in Popular Electricity, says that the 

 dictograph has in the last six months revolutionised 

 criminal detection : — 



In walls, under sofa and chair, in chandelier, behind a desk, 

 beside a window, it has hidden — the unseen listener to secret 

 conversations. The secrets of prison cells have been tapped, 

 hotel rooms and offices have given up incriminating conversa- 

 tion. To representatives of the law it has proclaimed loudly 

 the whispered words of cunning malefactors. It has figured 

 sensationally in the undoing of dynamiters, legislative bribe- 

 takers, grafters high and crooks low, across the continent. It 

 eavesdropped in McManigal's cell in the Columbus, Ohio, 

 bribery case, in the Lorimer ease, in the office of the Iron 

 Workers' Union at Indianapolis, in Gary, Ind., in — who 

 knows ? Always listening where we know not, it promises 

 more and more sensational disclosures, more confessions — an 

 "automatic third degree." 



THE DICTOGRAPH. 



Mr. Fox interviewed the inventor, Mr. Turner, and 

 thus describes the working of the machine : — 



For a time Mr. Turner generalised in scientific theories 

 applied to his invention. This over, he confessed the invention 

 of the acousticon and the interior telephone, as well as the 

 dictograph. And as abruptly he asked, *' Have you been 

 dictographed ? " on general principles, I said " No." Where- 

 upon he asked me to stand in the most remote corner of the 

 room and whisper, " Do you hear me?" This I did, pitching 

 my voice so low that Turner himself couldn't have heard me. 

 Imagine my surprise, then, when an instant later there issued 

 from a small wooden box beside his desk a distinct, full-toned 

 voice that said, " Yes I Of course I hear you." 



I moved towards the box, and stood close against it. In a 

 moment the invisible voice reported that a queer rustling sound 

 had been heard. Mr. Turner said it was the motion of my 

 clothes caused by breathing. I wondered if that infernal ear, 

 with its electric-charged wires leading to some man in another 

 part of the building, could hear my heart beat. 



"That," suddenly remarked Turner, with a wave of his hand, 

 "is the dictograph for the business man." 

 COMMERCIAL USE. 



And, rising, he dissected it verbally for me. The "com- 

 mercial dictograph" consists principally of the Iransmitting-disk 

 or sound-collector, which is the same as that of the " criminal 

 dictograph," and an orifice which talks back the answer of the 

 person at the "other end of the wire." In the box are half a 

 dozenlpegs which may be depressed to put the user in touch 

 with as many instruments in adjoining offices. In fact, it is a 

 wonderfully simplified form of the interior telephone. Only 

 there is no "leaking" switchboard, and no bother of taking 

 down receivers from hooks. All you do is to sit in your office, 

 talk, and listen to the answers that, full-toned, come throbbing 

 from the box. Thus you can dictate to a stenogr.apher in an 

 adjoining room, and hold a business conference with several 

 other rooms simultaneously. 



" Corpbrations will have the meeting-rooms fitted with 

 dictograph cars," remarked Turner when we were seated. 

 " It is applicable to all lines of business and professions." 

 Then he told me how an officer of a corporation wanted to 

 know the secrets of a room which had solid walls and no 

 furniture except a desk in the centre. Over the desk hung a 

 chandelier, and at the base of the chandelier was a metal ball. 

 In this was rigged a dictograph sound-collector — the unseen 

 ear. And a noted banker, he told me, has the instrument 

 hidden in a clock on his desk. If he wants the conversation 

 of a caller recorded he presses a button under the rug with his 

 foot to notify a stenographer in the next room. She, pad and 

 pencil in hand, sits beside her dictograph and writes. 



SMALL AS A POCKET KODAK. 

 T.et US see what this instrument is. Turning it over in our 

 hand, we estimate that it weighs a half-pound. If we put it 

 in a little leather case, it looks like a small pocket kodak. 

 Regarding its mechanics, there is a sound-collector or trans- 

 mitter, a receiving-disk, a couple of small dry batteries, and a 

 double length of black silk-covered wire. Tlie sound-collector 

 is a disk of black hard rubber, weighing a few ounces. It is 

 about three inches across, and an inch thick. There is a metal 

 eye by which it may be hung on a nail behind a disk or a 

 picture. The wires are inserted at the lower end of the disk. 

 To the receiving-disk which the eavesdropper holds to his ear 

 the wires are connected at their terminus. Necessary current 

 is provided by the dry batteries. Unlike the " commercial 

 dictograph," no provision for a chat between two persons is 

 m.ide. An eavesdropper doesn't want to talk back to the 

 person whose conversation he is overhearing. 



" This sounds simple," says Mr. Fox, " yet the 

 construction of the mechanical ear, we are told, is 

 most intricate. On the outer extremity of the sound- 

 collecting disk is a series of oblong, semicircular 

 openings. Inside there is a cone, the point of which is 

 an electrode, and which reaches the centre of the disk. 

 The sound-vibrations, striking the bottom of the cone, 

 climb a circular mountain, so to speak, and become 

 focussed at the peak. The action suggests a burning 

 glass. The disk gathers the vibrations within a circle 

 about nine and a half inches in circumference, and 

 transforms them into electrical impulses to be sent 

 over a wire. 



USE IN GAOLS. 



" The surprising part about it all is that despite the 

 publicity, the more it is used the more effective it 

 becomes. Most people scoff at it until they have been 

 sent to gaol by its agency. Even then, many of them 

 are inclined to doubt. You cannot get around the fact 

 that men must talk, and the dictograph must listen. 

 They cannot see it ; they cannot find it. . . . 



" I recall an instance that Mr. Turner told me. Two 

 Italian crooks were placed in the cell of a Pennsylvania 

 gaol. In the cell was a dictograph, and some distance 

 away, waiting for the electric current to carry their 

 conversation to him over the wires, sat an operator. 

 For five days, fearing that they would be overheard, 

 the Italians kept silent. On the sixth day they could 

 endure it no longer, and broke into speech. And the 

 metal eavesdropper heard every word." 



LINES ON A SUNDIAL. 



From an article on Sundials, by Mr. Gerald Poston, 

 which appears in the Treasury for June, we quote some 

 quaint lines by Bishop Edmond Redynglon. They 

 were written in 1665 for a dial at .Addington, and are 

 as follows : — 



Amyddst y' ftlowres 

 I lell y° hourcs. 



Tynie wanes awaye 

 As ftlowres decaye. 



lieyond y* tombe 

 Freshe ftlowrets bloome. 



Soe man shall rysc 

 Above y° skyes. 



