The arrangements for reporting the British Association this year seem
to have broken down altogether, in London at all events. It is simply impossible to comprehend Mr. Preece's account of the telephone, said to have been an admirable one, from any London report. All that can be ascertained is that jokes made in Plymouth were audible in Exeter, that Sir W. Thomson believed the invention would make a revolution in telegraphy, the correspondent being sent for to listen to a confidential message, and that he expressed either a hope or a belief that audible conversation will presently be carried on across the Atlantic. That will be a boon to all men, except Envoys, Viceroys, and other official persons at a distance, Orders by telegraph are troublesome enough, but verbal orders from a point thousands of miles away will be provocative of suicide. Just imagine Lord Lytton, with his ear at one end of a wire, asking permission, say, to invade Siberia, and Lord Salisbury at the other. When the system is complete, centralisation will be com- plete also, and Marshal Pelissier's temptation—to cut the wires— quite universal.
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