istics. No matter how much they are impinged on the phonograph, each will give a different tracing.

Since the invention of the multiplex phonograph by George W. Moore, of Atlanta, Ga., much will be added to the practical usefulness of an autogram library. This improved attachment increases the capacity of the machine fivefold, the construction being such that five autogramic cylinders are held in po

this article. Let us now come down to the use of the phonograph as a collector both of autograph-phonograms and of a phonographic library. The question naturally arises as to its advantages and how it can serve us in recording and in reproducing autograms. In autograms we gain not only the autograph of the writer but also his voice. It is spiritual. Such an autograph-autogram is not dead material, it lives. It is a photo

sition for instant use. This ad ditional contrivance enables the user of the phonograph to shift, during his listening, from one record cylinder to another even while the phonograph is in operation. This attachment greatly increases the capacity of the machine and renders it more valuable in many ways. It is obvious that the number of cylinders need not be limited to five, as the principle involved can be readily adapted to ten or to twenty just as well as to five.

Enough for the scientific part of

graph, so to speak, of the living voice, and a man could be recognized as well by it as by his real photograph. This would also do away with some of the possibilities of counterfeiting a special document or autograph, many instances of which abound in the history of literature. Had it been possible to record the voices of departed kings, poets, statesmen, singers, and actors, what an achievement it would have been. Now we have the means, so let us take advantage of them.

in many ways. Nevertheless, suggestions are always acceptable to beginners. One must not think that he will be able to record the voices of famous singers and actors in the first days of his experience. Do not let that idea impregnate your mind, as some practice is required in the art before success is reached. All, however, can learn it. No matter how complicated the sound you desire to record may be, do not let it disturb you. It is as easy to take many sounds on its recorder as it is

one.

the written specimen is ready to be read, have the author sign and date it. When finished, always have the phonograph and recording cylinders in the best of order and readiness to receive the written manuscript to be recorded, or whatever is to be spoken in audible tones. To record singing and musical compositions more practice is needed. The speed of the machine for talking autograms should not exceed eighty revolutions a minute, and for music and singing not less than 120. At this slow speed it will take about four and one-half or five

minutes' speech to cover the entire recording cylinder. Should the end of the cylinder be reached before a composition, letter, etc., is ended, it is only necessary to say, during the recording process, "Continued," and finish up on another cylinder. The newest pattern of the phonograph for this purpose has a capacity many times larger, and thus can receive many pages of material on a single cylinder.

HOW THE AUTOGRAMS AND BLANK CYLINDERS SHOULD BE CARED FOR.

These wax cylinders are somewhat brittle and should be handled gently. Even these are now being made of imperishable material. Thrust the first and second fingers of the right hand into the thick end of the cylinder and hold fast by spreading these fingers apart. Although touching the surface will not destroy the autogram, there is at all times a certain degree of moisture in the fingers and the hands, that will leave a mark upon the wax and make an autogram sound harsh and scratchy on being reproduced. Filled autograms and blanks should be kept in boxes or in special cabinets with pegs at fixed distances, to prevent them from coming in contact with each other. These cabinets should be free from dust and kept as much as possible from heat and from cold. Place them with the beveled ends down upon these peg-blocks. Before reproducing any autograms, a fine, large camel's-hair brush should be used to remove dust and chips of wax.

A few suggestions regarding the benefits derived from the study of autograms, in enabling us to judge the character of persons from them. This can have any reality only when the voice, acting without restraint, is guided by and indicative of the natural disposition. From a photograph or a print, an etching or an engraving, we are able to analyze fairly a

person's disposition; and I hold that from an autogram we can do the same. It is a reproduction of the individual voice, and by careful study and comparison of voices and temperaments in everyday life, we can readily become versed in the art of analyzing character by the voice. From that to the reproduced voice is but a step. To autogram libraries and to such autograph-autogram collections, authors, statesmen, actors, singers, kings, presidents, and all famous men of the day should contribute freely some of their works, both in the shape of autograms and autograph-autograms. By this means coming generations will have the great pleasure not only of reading the works left in print, but also of listening to the wise sayings of the men who are no more, but who have left their souls behind them to live on for centuries.

The reason for making the remark here regarding the study of character by means of the autogram-autograph is this: Nature gives to every individual a distinct voice and manner, just as she has given to each a peculiar handwriting. The flexibility of muscles differs in every individual, and the voice and the hand will naturally follow the direction of the thoughts, the emotions and the habits of the individual. So with the handwriting. The phlegmatic man will portray his words, while the playful haste of the volatile will scarcely sketch them; the slovenly will blot, efface, and scrawl, while the neat and orderly-minded will view themselves in the paper before them. The merchant's clerk will not write like the lawyer or the poet. Even nations are distinguished by their writings. The vivacity and variableness of the Frenchman show themselves as opposed to the delicacy, suppleness and strength in the handwriting of the phlegmatic German, Dane, or Swede. In grief we do not

write as we do in joy. The elegant and correct mind, which has acquired the fortunate habit of concentrated attention, will write with scarcely an erasure, as did Fénelon, Gray, and Gibbon. In Pope's manuscripts, on the other hand, we find many corrections and frequent interlineations, as though the lines had been struck off in haste. Lavater's notion of handwriting is by no means chimerical; nor was General Paoli fanciful when he told Mr. Northcote that he had decided on the character of a man from his letters and his handwriting.

Let us glance at the promises of the phonograph. Its possibilities are tremendous. In time to come it will bear a part as great as that of telegraphy or the electric light. The field for its application is wide. It will be the great collector of the spoken phrases of the world. We can not call it the immortality of the human voice but it will be its champion against time. It will be the incorruptible record of unfailing, unchangeable sound. It will perform tender duties or it will satisfy business necessities with an equal degree of precision. It may record our earliest words. It will retain our voices when they have returned their forces to the elements. It will serve to note down the hasty thought that the pen might lose. It will hold as a trust autographic letters, tidbits of literature, special events in history, tales related to us. It will record at will lost voices and testaments, speeches of great orators or states

men, autobiographies, and all in the voices of the original. A collection of rare objects always possesses peculiar interest; but when the collection combines the thoughts of great men, written and spoken by themselves and crystalized by a great scientific invention, in calm defiance of time, the interest is largely increased. We have still extant a few precious manuscripts of some of the great Latin and Greek writers; but how it would delight us now to hear Demosthenes declaim, and how much more would we value the manuscripts of Cicero if accompanied by his voice. We all desire to know everything about a great man. We buy his photograph to look on his features, we treasure a scrap of paper that bears his handwriting, we desire to hear his voice. Our interest in him even increases after he has

It

passed away. A truly great man never dies. He has reached the height of his accomplishment. is we who are bereft, and it is in satisfying our thirst after knowledge of the great that the autogram library would prove most valuable. It might also prove a great psychological weapon, the weapon of analysis; but that could be only with cultivation and in the course of its advancement.

Many have valuable libraries in which rare old manuscripts may be found; but such a collection of combined original word-pictures and sound-reproductions must prove much more interesting than printed or even written characters.

TH

HIS paper purposes to call attention to some principles in connection with speech, which are either little known or much neglected. The effect of this ignorance or neglect is widely manifest; not only in school-exercises but in the public utterances of those who have passed through school and through college and occupy the lecture-desk or the platform. The rarest quality among all classes of speakers is the clear, intelligible delivery of words. That which ought to be characteristic of every educated person, we look for almost in vain among the majority of the most highly educated. Instead of sonorously vocalizing, crisply articulating, and speaking out to their hearers, they mutter and mumble and speak in to themselves.

The fundamental fault is the absence of phonetic syllabication. Syllables and words run together, so that the closest attention is required to enable the hearer to gather the sense. Instead of this, we ought to be able to catch the speaker's every syllable. The difficulty is, that a speaker must utter syllables before an auditor can catch them. This art our lecturers and other orators have need to set themselves to study. They deliver words and phrases, but not syllables. Sentences are made up of phrases, phrases of words, and words of syllables. In public delivery the last is the most important, for if syllables are heard, words and phrases will not fail of apprehension; but if syllables are lost, ambiguity and unintelligibility result. The hearer's attention flags, and the best oratorical efforts may in this way be rendered nugatory. Sound travels

only at a definite rate; and before the voice can reach a distant hearer, the speaker's ill-articulated syllables become commingled to the ear, and, of course, confused to the mind.

Spoken syllables are not the same. as written syllables. The latter are divisions to the eye, to show the etymology of words; the former are divisions to the ear, and are governed solely by the sound. Every syllable--even in the quickest utterance-should have a separate impulse of voice. Practically, however, a large proportion of impulses are lost through vocal mismanagement.

e.,

The elements which make up syllables are vowels and consonants. Vowels require an open channel in the mouth; and consonants require a more or less complete closure of some parts of the mouth. Now, herein. lies the grand principle of syllabic articulation. The direction of organic action ought in all cases to be from close to open, i. e from consonant to vowel; whereas the prevailing habit among faulty speakers is to make the action from open to close,-from vowel to consonant. The effect is that vowels, instead of having a free channel through the mouth, directly from the throat, are, as it were, squeezed between consonants, cut short, and often altogether lost.

The principle of oral action-from close to open-can not be too clearly apprehended. Its practical application dictates that any vowel between consonants should be collocated phonetically with the consonant which precedes, and not with that which follows it; and, conversely, that any consonant between vowels should be collocated with the vowel which fol