xxiv President's Address 



there are 1330 in the English Post Office Department and 

 40,000 on the Continent. Reading by sound is fast super- 

 seding the old dot and dash record on tape. In 1869 there 

 were no sounders used in England, whilst at the beginning 

 of this year there were 2000 ; and it is remarkable that, 

 while hardly any other instrument is used in America, there 

 is scarcely one used on the Continent of Europe. He further 

 states that in Japan last year over 2,000,000 messages were 

 sent over their wires, of which 98 per cent, were in the 

 native tongue. 



Telephony has made also immense progress, and we see 

 our streets now so netted with wires that the sparrows must 

 find their locomotion seriously interfered with. This multi- 

 plication of overhead wires in a densely built and populous 

 city is fast becoming a serious and difficult problem. Few 

 people, I think, quite realise what mischief might accrue if 

 some of the heavily laden posts were, through fire or any 

 other accident, to break or fall ; and the simple rupture at a 

 busy time of day of one of the wires which cross some of 

 our thronged thoroughfares might lead to most serious con- 

 sequences. Surely science will furnish some more common- 

 sense mode of carrying on this most valuable application of 

 electricity than that of multiplying, apparently almost inde- 

 finitely, these potential elements of overhead dangers. 



In my last address I spoke somewhat at length of the 

 progress of the application of electricity to illuminating 

 purposes, and I shall now only refer to a few of the most 

 interesting points in connection with it. There can be little 

 doubt that, financially speaking, electric lighting so far has 

 been a failure, for the tens of thousands invested or expended 

 in it do not appear to have produced a tangible percentage ; 

 nevertheless, I believe a well and carefully managed company 

 in the Australian cities, not unduly burdened with the pur- 

 chase of concessions, use of patents, &c, would soon pay as 

 well as gas companies. Hitherto competition has been so 

 keen as to be ruinous, and an immense amount of public 

 lighting has been done simply for advertisement purposes. 



