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Page 37
This is what might be, if the magnetic alarm only struck _long_ and
_short_, and we had all learned Morse's alphabet. Indeed, there is
nothing the bells could not tell, if you would only give them time
enough. We have only one chime, for musical purposes, in the town. But,
without attempting tunes, only give the bells the Morse alphabet, and
every bell in Boston might chant in monotone the words of "Hail
Columbia" at length, every Fourth of July. Indeed, if Mr. Barnard should
report any day that a discouraged 'prentice-boy had left town for his
country home, all the bells could instantly be set to work to speak
articulately, in language regarding which the dullest imagination need
not be at loss,
"Turn again, Higginbottom,
Lord Mayor of Boston!"
I have suggested the propriety of introducing this alphabet into the
primary schools. I need not say I have taught it to my own
children,--and I have been gratified to see how rapidly it made head,
against the more complex alphabet, in the grammar schools. Of course it
does;--an alphabet of two characters matched against one of
twenty-six,--or of forty-odd, as the very odd one of the phonotypists
employ! On the Franklin-medal day I went to the Johnson-School
examination. One of the committee asked a nice girl what was the capital
of Brazil. The child looked tired and pale, and, for an instant,
hesitated. But, before she had time to commit herself, all answering was
rendered impossible by an awful turn of whooping-cough which one of my
own sons was seized with,--who had gone to the examination with me.
Hawm, hem hem;--hem hem hem;--hem, hem;--hawm, hem hem;--hem hem
hem;--hem, hem,--barked the poor child, who was at the opposite extreme
of the school-room. The spectators and the committee looked to see him
fall dead with a broken blood-vessel. I confess that I felt no alarm,
after I observed that some of his gasps were long and some very
_staccato_;--nor did pretty little Mabel Warren. She recovered her
color,--and, as soon as silence was in the least restored, answered,
"_Rio_ is the capital of Brazil,"--as modestly and properly as if she
had been taught it in her cradle. They are nothing but children, any of
them,--but that afternoon, after they had done all the singing the city
needed for its annual entertainment of the singers, I saw Bob and Mabel
start for a long expedition into West Roxbury,--and when he came back, I
know it was a long featherfew, from her prize school-bouquet, that he
pressed in his Greene's "Analysis," with a short frond of maiden's hair.
I hope nobody will write a letter to "The Atlantic," to say that these
are very trifling uses. The communication of useful information is never
trifling. It is as important to save a nice child from mortification on
examination-day, as it is to tell Mr. Fremont that he is not elected
President. If, however, the reader is distressed, because these
illustrations do not seem to his more benighted observation to belong to
the big bow-wow strain of human life, let him consider the arrangement
which ought to have been made years since, for lee shores, railroad
collisions, and that curious class of maritime accidents where one
steamer runs into mother under the impression that she is a light
house. Imagine the Morse alphabet applied to a steam-whistle, which is
often heard five miles. It needs only _long_ and _short_ again. "_Stop
Comet_," for instance, when you send it down the railroad line, by the
wire, is expressed thus:
... -- . . ....,... . . -- --- . --
Very good message, if Comet happens to be at the telegraph station when
it comes! But what if Cornel has gone by? Much good will your trumpery
message do then! If, however, you have the wit to sound your long and
short on an engine-whistle, thus;--Scre scre, scre; screeee; scre scre;
scre scre scre scre scre; scre scre scre,--scre scre; screeeee screeeee;
scre; screeeee;--why, then the whole neighborhood, for five miles
around, will know that Comet must stop, if only they understand spoken
language,--and among others, the engineman of Comet will understand it;
and Comet will not run into that wreck of worlds which gives the
order,--with the nucleus of hot iron and his tail of five hundred tons
of coal.--So, of the signals which fog-bells can give, attached to
light-houses. How excellent to have them proclaim through the darkness,
"I am Wall "! Or of signals for steamship-engineers. When our friends
were on board the "Arabia" the other day, and she and the "Europa"
pitched into each other,--as if, on that happy week, all the continents
were to kiss and join hands all round,--how great the relief to the
passengers on each, if, through every night of their passage, collision
had been prevented by this simple expedient! One boat would have
screamed, "Europa, Europa, Europa," from night to morning,--and the
other, "Arabia, Arabia, Arabia,"--and neither would have been mistaken,
as one unfortunately was, for a light-house.
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