rconi, the boy and the
man, has shown but little--he is the strong character that does things
and says little, and his works speak so amazingly, so loudly, that the
personality of the man is obscured.

The Marconi station at Glace Bay, Cape Breton, is now receiving messages
for cableless transmission to England at the rate of ten cents a
word--newspaper matter at five cents a word. Transatlantic wireless
telegraphy is an everyday occurrence, and the common practical uses are
almost beyond mention. It is quite within the bounds of possibility for
England to talk clear across to Australia over the Isthmus of Panama,
and soon France will be actually holding converse with her strange ally,
Russia, across Germany and Austria, without asking the permission of
either country. Ships talk to one another while in mid-ocean, separated
by miles of salt water. Newspapers have been published aboard
transatlantic steamers with the latest news telegraphed while en route;
indeed, a regular news service of this kind, at a very reasonable rate,
has been established. These are facts; what wonders the future has in
store we can only guess. But these are some of the possibilities--news
service supplied to subscribers at their homes, the important items to
be ticked off on each private instrument automatically, "Marconigraphed"
from the editorial rooms; the sending and receiving of messages from
moving trains or any other kind of a conveyance; the direction of a
submarine craft from a safe-distance point, or the control of a
submarine torpedo.

One is apt to grow dizzy if the imagination is allowed to run on too
far--but why should not one friend talk to another though he be miles
away, and to him alone, since his portable instrument is attuned to but
one kind of vibration. It will be like having a separate language for
each person, so that "friend communeth with friend, and a stranger
intermeddleth not--" and which none but that one person can understand.

SANTOS-DUMONT AND HIS AIR-SHIP

There was a boy in far-away Brazil who played with his friends the game
of "Pigeon Flies."

In this pastime the boy who is "it" calls out "pigeon flies," or "bat
flies," and the others raise their fingers; but if he should call "fox
flies," and one of his mates should raise his hand, that boy would have
to pay a forfeit.

The Brazilian boy, however, insisted on raising his finger when the
catchwords "man flies" were called, and firmly proteste