474 
POPULAE SCIENCE EEVIEW. 
haviDg bells in bis bouse wbicb be did not cboose to avow, 
and so gave out tbat there was some peculiarity in tbe shape 
of bis residence, or tbe arrangement of its rooms, wbicb 
presented great difficulties to their employment ; but that at 
length, pressed by tbe remonstrances of bis guests, be issued 
invitations to tbe public to send in plans. Tbe class most 
competent to furnish them, tbe professional bell-bangers, 
vfould probably stand aloof, not only because their know- 
ledge of the subject would enable them to appreciate more 
clearly than others tbe hollowness of tbe pretext hitherto 
assigned for dispensing with bells, but also from a feeling tbat 
it was derogatory to their professional character to countenance 
the delusion tbat any invention, properly speaking, was 
required to execute what any tradesman, ordinarily master of 
bis craft, would be competent to perform. Our readers will 
now understand bow it happens tbat so few drawings and 
models have been sent to tbe Polytechnic Institution, and 
that out of these few not one has been sent by a professional 
telegraphic engineer. In short, tbe character of the exhibi- 
tion becomes perfectly intelligible when it is regarded as 
having emanated from a few well-meaning simple-minded 
individuals, who have been imposed upon so far as to receive 
the stories of the alleged difficulties of signalling between 
the carriages of a railway-train for statements made hona 
jidej instead of being mere pretexts for doing nothing, made 
up of an assortment of the first plausible fallacies that came 
to hand considered capable of hoodwinking that portion of 
the public whose simplicity and ignorance of the subject ren- 
dered them credulous and laid them open to deception. 
Most of the railways have a telegraphic engineer on their 
staff, and we entertain a very decided opinion that almost any 
of these gentlemen, if the task were set them by their em- 
ployers, would arrange the details of a perfectly feasible plan 
of signalling between the carriages of a train in motion in a 
couple of hours ; such a plan as, with a few minor alterations 
dictated by experience, would be capable of being practically 
adopted with success ; for we are unable to conceive that a 
skilful telegraphic engineer would have any difficulty in devising 
such modifications in the connecting wires of the battery as 
the occasional disconnection of the carriages and the fiexibility 
of the train rendered necessary. 
The best of the plans for communicating between the 
passengers and the guard we have yet had an opportunity of 
examining is one which has now been in use for four months 
on the Hampton Court branch of the South-Western Railway", 
where any of our readers who desire, may see and examine 
it for themselves. The author of this — certainly to a large 
