Edison's Phonograph

If Mr Edison is at work, as reported, upon a phonograph which will reproduce in an audible voice a morning newspaper for every breakfast table, he ought to reflect upon the moral responsibility which the success of such an experiment will entail upon him. He would he a reckless father who should deliberately set a phonograph of that kind a-going at his breakfast table. Imagine, for instance, the effect upon a respectable family of listening to the first page of one of Tuesday's morning papers in which the place of honor is given to a detailed account of an adventure by a notorious gambler in a haunt of other gamblers, with full particulars of the man's disreputable career. The reader can skip this kind of news if he wishes to, but he would have to listen to it, and have his family listen also, if he had to take his news in regular order from the mouth of a phonograph. In fact, few heads of families would tolerate an infliction of current "journalism" in that form for longer than five minutes; after that they would either order the instrument out of the house, or smash it with the first heavy weapon within reach.

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