worship, a general crusade of organ destruction was instituted.

Since that time, however, the organ has steadily advanced in skilful construction and musical excellence, and increased in favor with all classes of people. The modern instrument is not an invention, but a growth; it is not the creation of any individual or of any age, but the result of many centuries of development and the embodiment of the genius of many minds and hands. In the progress of its development there has been lavished upon it all the finest of the arts and costliest of materials, as well as a multitude of experiments. Organ pipes have been made of gold, silver, tin, lead, copper, iron, metal, glass, wood, stone, earthenware, feathers, horn the bark of trees, and paper. An organ in the Bavarian Court Chapel is described as built of ebony and ornamented with precious stones, and one in the Escorial near Madrid is said to be of solid gold.

The art of organmaking has kept pace with the progress in its playing, so that now, as a writer observes, 'Organ-building, once done by any monk of a mechanical turn of mind, or a clever blacksmith, or other artisan, has now developed into a science requiring the utmost skill and the greatest appreciation

on the part of its exponents." The three leading nations in the craft at the present are England, France and Germany. America is making rapid strides and may in the near future equal her rivals. Some American firms, it is said, employ so large a nnmber of workmen they can execute an order in four or five days,-a remarkable feat when the immense amount of delicate machinery that has to be fitted into a modern instrument is considered.

In one respect, however-the more

CHOIR-ORGAN, ST. PAUL'S, LONDON.

to be regretted because of the great advance in other particulars-the modern organ is very deficient. This is in its external appearance from an artistic and architectural standpoint. Many a professional architect and person of artistic taste will agree

ORGAN IN EXETER CATHEDRAL.

with the statement of an eminent English authority, who says:

"It is very remarkable that, of all objects in a modern church or music-room, the organ is nearly always the most ugly and meagre in its external appearance. Most modern instruments possess nothing at all which can honestly be called a case; while

on the other hand, where exceptions occur, the architectural treatment of the woodwork is so utterly bad, that those who have studied the external features of ancient organs see nothing but the most painful vulgarity, or the most ludicrous embellishments. in an object so grandly treated by the craftsmen of old."

This deficiency, let us hope, is in a fair way to be remedied with the revivalistic tendency of ancient arts and crafts that now seems to be manifested in England and America.

Besides those already mentioned, some famous and historic organs are those at Yorkminister, the Winchester cathedral, Westminister Abbey, Exeter cathedral, Ely cathedral St. Lawrence Jewry in England; that in the

Stadtkirche, Schaumburg-Lippe, built in 1613-18; the one in the Reformed Church, Emden, Hanover, erected in 1789; that in the Church of St. Williboard, Wesel, Prussia; that in Notre Dame, Valenciennes, Nord, France; that of San Domenico, Naples; that at Haarlem, Holland; and the really wonderful one at Weingarten in the Benedictine Monastery. The one formerly in Music Hall, Boston, was also of wide distinction, while a good illustration of the best instruments of the present day is the new one in the church of the Immaculate Conception, in Boston.

The organ has been called "the

TH

HIS is an anniversary year in the history of the telephone. It was in Lowell, Massachusetts, in August, 1879, a quarter of a century ago, that the sound of the human voice was first transmitted from one city to another over a stretch of intervening country. The telephone, when exhibited at the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, in 1876, was regarded as a toy. Only here and there was a man to be found who recognized the new device as a factor in commercial life, and investors treated the proposition to enter into telephone enterprises much as the man, seeking a use for his money, might look to-day upon an offer to take stock in an airship navigation company.

There were exceptions to the rule, however, and in the three years following the Philadelphia Exposition telephone systems had been established in many towns and cities. Subscribers were few at first and the customers did not include many large commercial houses and manufacturing concerns. The managers of such enterprises still looked askance at the scheme of doing business by talking over a wire. Even after exchanges had been established, the service was one generally regarded as purely local in character, and this makes all the more remarkable the course adopted by the founders of the Bell telephone companies. Men who were in the business then and are in it to-day will tell you that the original members

of the company foresaw with wonderful accuracy the marvellous development of the telephone system. At a time when many were still obstinately clinging to the idea that the telephone was a plaything, these farsighted pioneers in the business were laying plans for connecting town with town, in the upbuilding of a national telephone system.

The time was ripe for the new means of communication. While the public generally had little faith in the possibilities of the telephone, the need of some means of communication better than that afforded by the ordinary service of the telegraph companies had been felt. Before the possibility of sending the sound of the human voice over the wires was recognized, it was natural that experiments should be made with an idea of extending the use of the telegraph, and in one notable instance telegraph lines were used in a manner similar to that which makes it possible for people to be put into communication with one another over telephone wires to-day. In Bridgeport, Connecticut, a Social Telegraph Company had been organized and was in operation in 1877. It connected business offices and houses, and the telegraph wires ran to a switchboard in a central station. When one member of the company wanted to talk with another he began calling in the usual manner, and the call was sounded on a key at the central office, where the operator saw that the connection

was made upon the board. It is said that at that time there were more telegraph operators in the town of Bridgeport than in any place of its size upon the globe. School children. learned "to talk Morse." Clerks and bookkeepers in business houses were able to send and receive the messages of their employers. Had there been no telephone, the Bridgeport experiment might have been tried elsewhere, until to-day we should have been a nation of telegraphers. Mr. Thomas B. Doolittle, now an official of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, was one of the members of the Bridgeport band of amateur telegraphers. He saw the possibilities of the telephone, and, procuring a number of instruments, attached them to the wires of the Social Telegraph Company. Bridgeport people were thus among the first to become familiar Iwith the modern use of the word "Hello." Then Mr. Doolittle acquired the control of the telegraph company, devised a telephone switchboard and prepared to make the invention something more than a toy in the town of Bridgeport. At the same time, an exchange was established in New Haven, and it has since been a matter of considerable good-natured controversy as to which of the two places is entitled to the distinction of having the first telephone exchange.

As the local exchanges multiplied during the next two years, the founders of the Bell company were laying their plans and were soon able to forecast with accuracy what has happened in the past twenty-five years. They saw that it would not be difficult to find people in every locality who would undertake to establish a local service, and consequently leases were given for the

formation of companies, the Bell reserving to itself the right to connect town with town. In 1879, just a quarter of a century ago, over an iron wire, a conversation between Boston and Lowell was found to be possible, and business was actually transacted over the telephone. The service was not very satisfactory, but there had been a general awakening to the utility of the telephone, and experiments were continued. Attempts followed to establish a workable line between Boston and Providence, but without much success, and it was soon realized that besides the adoption of a return circuit a better conductor than iron must be found. It was known that copper possessed the desired characteristics, but the copper wire of that day was so soft that to string it from pole to pole was impracticable.

Mr. Doolittle, whose interest in the telephone had led to its introduction in Bridgeport, had been in business connected with copper manu facture, and believed that with care the wire could be hard drawn and made to answer. At the works of the Ansonia Copper and Wire Company experiments were made under his direction, and soon copper wire was actually in use for telephone purposes in Bridgeport. But it was still thought by many scientific men that, while the wire undeniably worked well when first strung, it would rapidly deteriorate and require frequent renewal. It was not until several years after, when repeated tests had shown that the copper wire used in Bridgeport was still in as good condition as the day on which it was put up, that the directors of the company sanctioned its use to construct the long-distance line from New York to Boston. That was in 1884, just twenty years ago.