THROUGH THE NEEDLE'S POINT 



Xlll 



played in the Metropolitan Opera House 

 from the gramophone fills the whole au- 

 ditorium. 



And now let us see what this wonderful 

 little instrument is going to do for people 

 who live in the towns and smaller cities. 

 In the first place, take the young ladies 

 who, after four years at college, return to 

 their little homes with many graces and 

 accomplishments, particularly an apprecia- 

 tion of the best classical music. They find 

 themselves suddenly in uncongenial sur- 

 roundings, where most of the pianos are 

 out of tune, and most of those who play on 

 them play badly. The gramophone gives 

 them a breadth of art life in the rendering 

 of the great compositions they love by the 

 finest performers. With this they have 



" Annie Laurie " and " Down on the Su- 

 wanee River," and " The Last Rose of 

 Summer," and the old glees from years 

 ago, sung to them, not by amateurs from 

 the village choir, but by the greatest artists 

 of the day — sung through the needle. 



And then the comic songs — every one 

 likes these now and then, but few who live 

 away from the cities ever hear them sung 

 in the best style; they must content them- 

 selves with the whistlings of the village 

 lads, who pick the airs up as best they may 

 a year or so late. But now the gramophone, 

 with its discs kept closely up to date, gives 

 the country the best that the city has — 

 those much advertised entertainers from 

 the music halls of London and Paris, whose 

 enormous salaries are told of in the news- 





THE GRAMOPHONE IN THE HOME. 



masters to imitate in their own parlors, 

 sources of inspiration ever present. 



Then take the boys. What one of them 

 does not love to hear the banjo played, a 

 lively strumming of the strings by a cun- 

 ning hand? The gramophone gives them 

 what they want, and the best banjo-playing 

 — gives it to them whenever they choose to 

 listen. And if they tire of the banjo they 

 can turn on a crashing brass band, with 

 marches and songs of the regiment until 

 their hearts beat with valor. 



And the old folks themselves, with hearts 

 ever fresh for the old emotions, will find 

 themselves won over by the gramophone 

 on many a winter's evening, otherwise 

 lonely, when they will gather about fires 

 of crackling logs, in farmhouse and country 

 home, and listen to the dear old songs. 



papers. All these the country may have 

 now almost as soon as the city, and at 

 nothing like the price; and it is plain that 

 a great change will soon be wrought in the 

 farmhouse Sunday — a dreary enough thing 

 in the past. No more wheezy melodeons 

 laboring away in cheerless parlors, no more 

 feeble singing of hymns by untuned voices, 

 but the finest anthems as sung in churches 

 on Fifth avenue, and the beautiful solos of 

 high-priced specialists, and the chanting of 

 surpliced choirs, and the harmonies of 

 double quartettes, not to mention inspiring 

 addresses by the greatest preachers of the 

 day. 



Not only in the home is the gramophone 

 to find itself a cause of entertainment, but 

 already small and large private gatherings 

 are using this many-sided instrument as a 



