one reads how
thoroughly a century ago the entire theory of the modern electric
telegraph was comprehended; for a most remarkable premonition, so to
speak, of this great device is contained in a letter recently brought
to public notice, written by the abbe Barthelemy (the once famous
author of the _Voyage of Anacharsis_) to the marchioness du Deffand.
"I often think," says the abbe, writing under date of Chanteloup, 8th
August, 1772, "of an experiment which would be a very happy one for
us. They say that if two clocks have their hands equally magnetized,
you need only to move the hands of one to make those of the other
revolve in the same direction; so that, for example, when one strikes
twelve, the other will denote the same hour. Now, suppose that
artificial magnets can some day be so improved as to communicate their
power from here to Paris: you shall procure one of these clocks, and
we will have another. Instead of the hours, we will mark on the two
dials the letters of the alphabet. Every day at a certain hour we will
turn the hands. M. Wiart will put the letters together, and will read
them thus: 'Good-morning, dear little girl! I love you more tenderly
than ever.' That will be grandmother's turn at the clock. When my turn
comes, I shall say about the same thing. Besides, we could arrange to
have the first motion of the hand strike a bell, to give warning that
the oracle is about to speak. The fancy pleases me wonderfully. It
would soon become corrupted, to be sure, by being applied to spying
in war and in politics; but it would still be very pleasant in
the intercourse of friendship." In 1774--that is, two years after
Barthelemy's letter--Lesage, a Genevese professor of physics,
guardedly intimated that an apparatus could be constructed to
fulfill these vague suggestions. There were a few experiments in
electro-magnetism during the succeeding half century. It was reserved
for our own Morse to put into practical application the grand system
which the abbe Barthelemy had so curiously foreshadowed in a freak of
fancy.

* * * * *

Endless are the blandishments and the seductive devices of trade. A
famous dry-goods store lately startled the shopping community of Paris
by opening a free restaurant, a billiard-hall and a reading-room for
the use and behoof of its customers. When ladies go to purchase at
this place, while preparing their lists a polite clerk escorts them to
the _buffet_