12 SEPTEMBER 1981, Page 9

One hundred years ago

Perhaps the most marked feature of the hour, outside politics, is the anxious and hopeful attention paid to applications of Electricity. Investigation and experiment have been going on for years, hundreds of minds have given themselves to the subject; in one department, telegraphy, great results have been achieved and great fortunes made; but this explosion of interest in the matter is new. The world, as sometimes occurs to it, is on intellectual tip-toe. The terminology of the science is novel and unusually abominable, the difficulty of showing experiments is considerable, and the reporters constantly misunderstand alike what they hear and what they see; but the interest of the public overcomes every obstacle.

Spectator, 10 September 1881