Whiteleys' men left their
employ, tempted by the offer of work at better wages in London, and had
there not been four brothers in the firm, all practical men, they would
have been unable to fulfil their contract. The worry was partly
responsible for the death of the head of the firm soon after.

All this sounds like a chapter from the dark ages, of long, long ago,
and we do not deem such things possible now.

But listen! In the year 1895 what was practically the first Hope-Jones
electric organ sold was set up in St. George's Church, Hanover Square,
London, England.

The furor it created was cut short by a fire, which destroyed the organ
and damaged the tower of the church. With curious promptitude
attention was directed to the danger of allowing amateurs to make crude
efforts at organ-building in valuable and historic churches, and to the
great risk of electric actions. Incendiarism being more than
suspected, the authorities of the church ordered from Hope-Jones a
similar organ to take the place of the one destroyed.

About the same time a gimlet was forced through the electric cable of a
Hope-Jones organ at Hendon Parish Church, London, England. Shortly
afterwards the cable connecting the console with the Hope-Jones organ
at Ormskirk Parish Church, Lancashire, England, was cut through. At
Burton-on-Trent Parish Church, sample pipes from each of his special
stops were stolen.

At the Auditorium, Ocean Grove, N. J., an effort to cripple the new
Hope-Jones organ shortly before one of the opening recitals in 1908 was
made. And in the same year, on the Sunday previous to Edwin Lemare's
recital on the Hope-Jones organ in the First Universalist Church,
Rochester, N. Y., serious damage was done to some of the pipes in
almost each stop in the organ.

* * * * * * * *

Robert Hope-Jones died at Rochester, N. Y., on September 13, 1914, aged
55 years, and was interred at Elm Lawn Cemetery, No. Tonawanda, near
Niagara Falls, N. Y.

Since his association with the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company in April,
1910, they have built under his personal supervision the organs in the
Baptist Temple, Philadelphia; the rooms of the Ethical Culture Society,
New York; and amongst others the unit orchestras in the Vitagraph
Theatre, New York; the Crescent Theatre, Brooklyn; the Paris Theatre,
Denver, Colo.; the Imperial Theatre, Montreal; and the Pitt Theatre,
Pittsburgh, Pa., which last Hope-Jo