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Wall. 428 (20 L. ed. 452); Woodruff v. Parham, 75 U. S. 8 Wall. 123 (19 L. ed. 382); Nathan v. Louisiana, 49 U. S. 8 How. 82 (12 L. ed. 996); M'Culloch v. Maryland, 17 U. S. 4 Wheat. 428 (4 L. ed. 606), License Cases, 46 U. S. 5 How. 625 (12 L. ed. 311); Brown v. Maryland, 25 U. S. 12 Wheat. 448 (6 L. ed. 688); Slaughter House Cases, 83 U. S. 16 Wall. 36 (21 L. ed. 394); Bradwell v. Illinois, 83 U. S. 16 Wall. 141 (21 L. ed. 445); State v. United States & C. Express Co. 60 N. H. 219; State v. Lancaster, 63 N. H. 267; Bliss's Petition, Id. 135.

Mr. John Kivel for the State.

Bingham, J., delivered the opinion of the

court:

Gen. Laws, chap. 119, § 9, relates to grant ing license for the sale of lightning rods. The material part of it, as amended by Laws 1879, chap. 34, is: "The treasurer of the State may grant such license, for the term of one year, upon receiving from any applicant the sum of $500, and from any applicant who has for the five years last past been a citizen of this State the sum of $100." Citizens of other States cannot take a license unless they pay $500, while a person who has been five years a citizen of this State may take one for $100, and in this respect the citizens of other States are not given the privileges and immunities of citizens of this State. State v. Lancaster, 63 N. H. 267; Bliss's Petition, Id. 135.

Demurrer sustained.

Lewis DUBÉ

V.

|itors does not operate as an assignment of an insurance policy.

May, Ins. p. 568, § 379, and cases cited. Where property is assigned for the benefit of creditors, the assignor remains liable to them for any balance remaining due after the distribution of assets; he still retains an insurable interest therein to the extent of the entire value of the property, because that would be the extent of his loss. But where, by statute, by such assignment he is absolved from all further liability to his creditors, an assignment devests him of all interests in the property, and amounts to an absolute alienation.

Wood, Ins. § 317, and cases cited.

Under the statutes governing assignments in this State, the debtor, upon making an assignment, is not absolved from all further liability to his creditors; but, on the contrary, unless he pays 70 per cent of his liabilities, he remains liable to them for any balance remaining unpaid after the distribution of his assets. Laws 1885, chap. 85, § 15.

Messrs. Chase & Streeter and W. H. Cotton, for defendant:

The contract of insurance is one of indemnity, and not of wager.

May, Ins. § 2, 7, 74; Wood, Ins. 2d ed. § 329; Dadmun Mfg. Co. v. Worcester Mut. F. Ins. Co. 11 Met. 434; Cummings v. Cheshire County Mut. F. Ins. Co. 55 N. H. 457; Lahiff v. Ashue lot Ins. Co. 60 N. H. 75.

It appertains to the person or party to the contract, and not to the thing which is subjected to the risk against which the owner is protected; it does not run with the real or personal estate insured.

Wood, Ins. § 310; Cummings v. Cheshire County Mut. F. Ins. Co. supra; Adams v.

MASCOMA MUTUAL FIRE INSURANCE Rockingham Mut. F. Ins. Co. 29 Me. 292; Car

CO.

An assignment by a debtor of all his property, under the statute, for the benefit of his creditors, operates as an assignment of, and renders void, a fire insurance policy held by him, which contains a provision that it shall be void if assigned without the assent of the company. (July 19, 1888.)

penter v. Providence W. Ins. Co. 41 U. S. 16 Pet. 495 (10 L. ed. 1044).

Therefore an alienation of the property insured works a forfeiture of the policy, whether so stipulated therein or not, if the title remains out of the insured at the time of the loss. The insured must have an insurable interest in the property at the time of the loss as well as at the time when the policy is written.

May, Ins. § 264; Baldwin v. Hartford F. Ins.

ASSUMPSIT on a policy of insurance. Judg- Co. 60 N. H. 425.

ment for defendant.

The policy in suit was on the plaintiff's stock of goods contained in a store in Suncook, for one year from March 13, 1886. The property insured was totally destroyed by fire, January 11, 1887. The policy contained a provision that it should be void if, without the assent of the company, "said property shall be sold or this policy assigned. January 1, 1887, the plaintiff made an assignment for the benefit of his creditors under the statute, and on the same day a messenger was appointed to take charge of the property. The defendant moved for a nonsuit on the ground that the evidence showed an alienation of the property and an assignment of the policy without the assent of the company, before the loss occurred. The motion was granted pro forma, and the plaintiff excepted.

Messrs. H. G. Sargent and William L. Foster, for plaintiff:

Alienation, within the meaning of the insurance law, is "any method of acquiring title wherein estates are voluntarily resigned by one man and accepted by another, whether that be effected by sale, gift, marriage settlement, devise, or other transmission of property by the mutual consent of the parties.'

May, Ins. 264; Burbank v. Rockingham Mut. F. Ins. Co. 24 N. H. 550, 558; Bragg v. New England Mut. F. Ins. Co. 25 N. H. 289, 298.

Accordingly, it has been held that a transfer of a bankrupt's estate to an assignee by a decree of the court under the bankruptcy laws of the United States, upon the bankrupt's petition, is an alienation, and forfeits the policy.

Adams v. Rockingham Mut. F. Ins. Co. 29 Me. 292; May, Ins. § 264; Wood, Ins. 2d ed. §337; Perry v. Lorillard F. Ins. Co. 61 N. Y. 214, 221.

A voluntary assignment for the benefit of A general assignment for the benefit of cred- I creditors constitutes an alienation.

May, Ins. § 264; Young

Eagle F. Ins. Co. | The assignment, being without the consent of 14 Gray, 150; Dadmun Mfg. Co. v. Worcester the insured, made the policy void, and the Mut. F. Ins. Co. 11 Met. 434; Hazard v. Franklin Mut. F. Ins. Co. 7 R. I. 429; Re Caron, 4 Nat. Bankr. Reg. 543.

Allen, J., delivered the opinion of the court: The policy, which is the contract of insurance, provides, among other things, that it shall be void if it is assigned without the consent of the company. Ten days before the loss by fire, the plaintiff assigned all his property, under the insolvent laws of the State, for the benefit of his creditors. By that assignment his property became vested in the judge of probate and in such assignee as the judge might appoint (Laws 1885, chap. 85, § 1); and, however made or expressed, the assignment must be construed to pass all the plaintiff's property not by law exempt from attachment. Gen. Laws, chap. 140, § 1.

The plaintiff must be held to have intended an assignment as full and complete as the statute required, and the requirement to construe the assignment, "however made or expressed," as transferring his property not by law exempt from attachment, leaves no room for excluding from its operation any property, or right or interest in any property, whatever, not embraced within the exception. The policy of insurance is a contract which gave him a valuable right, and was a part of his property not within the exception exempting it from attachment, and was included within the assignment.

The policy of insurance being a contract of indemnity, and personal with the insured, did not pass by the transfer or assignment of the property insured as incident to it, but as an integral part of the plaintiff's property, all of which was assigned. The assignment was voluntary, and was as effective to pass the policy as a written transfer upon the instrument without the consent of the insurer would have been. If, because without the consent of the insurer the policy could not be available to the assignee, the assignment was void and so no assignment, a formal express assignment not consented to would be equally a nullity, and no assignment without the insurer's consent could be made which would render the policy void. With such a construction of the assignment, the clause in the contract prohibiting its transfer without consent of the company, under penalty of avoiding the policy, would be a meaningless absurdity, and no violation of its terms would accomplish what was prohibited.

In Lazarus v. Commonwealth Ins. Co. 5 Pick. 76, it was decided that a general assignment by the plaintiff of all his property, including his policies of insurance, did not have the effect to transfer a policy then in the hands of a third person as security for a debt. But it was distinctly stated in the opinion, Parker, Ch. J., that "the general words in the assignment must be held to affect all such policies as the plaintiff had a legal control over."

The statute requiring a construction of the plaintiff's assignment to mean a conveyance of all his property, there is no room to contend for any different intention on his part than to include in the assignment the policy of insurance, according to the terms of the contract.

See also 42 L. R. A. 331.

plaintiff cannot recover.

Judgment for the defendant.

Blodgett, J., did not sit; the others con curred.

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ASSUMPSIT by the plaintiff as assignee of Levi Hicks, under Gen. Laws, chap. 140, and Laws 1885, chap. 85. Judgment for de fendant.

October 21, 1885, Hicks, being indebted to the defendant in the sum of $146.50 upon two promissory notes given prior to 1885, made a new note to the defendant for that sum, payable on demand, and executed a mortgage of a yoke of oxen and a horse to secure its payment. October 26, 1885, he sold the oxen for $130 and paid the money to the defendant, who indorsed that amount upon the note. Afterwards, and before January 16, 1886, he sold the horse, and out of the avails paid the remainder of the note and took it up. January 16, 1886, he made an assignment of his property for the benefit of his creditors, and February 14, 1886, the plaintiff was appointed assignee of his estate. The action is brought to recover the money paid by Hicks to the defendant.

Mr. J. I. Parsons, for plaintiff:

Defendant claims that it is unconstitutional to pass a law by which a new note and a personal mortgage, taken after the passage of the law of 1885, shall be void as to an assignee, and the funds received by virtue of such mortgage recoverable by the assignee.

No case cited by defendant sustains this view, but all expressly or by implication hold, on the contrary, that contracts (this mortgage) made after the passage of the law, between citizens of the State, are made with reference to and subject to the law.

See Kent v. Gray, 53 N. H. 576, in which it is held that the test is the distinction between right and wrong, and that the whole subject stands on the ground of substantial equity. Mr. T. F. Johnson, for defendant: The question raised here as to the balance of $146.50, the debt having been created prior to 1885, is whether the provision of Laws 1885, chap. 85, when applied to the facts of this case,

operate injuriously, unjustly, oppressively, and, 1, 66 (2 L. ed. 347, 367); Re Rochester Water retrospectively within the meaning of the Bill of Comrs. 66 N. Y. 414, 420-422. Rights, art. 23 (N. H. Const.); or whether said chapter impairs the obligations of the contract, within the meaning of U. S. Const. art. 1, § 10. Defendant obtained the security in good faith, as the case finds, at the time the mortgage was executed, and by means of the same received the payment of the debt, all in accordance with laws and rights existing at the time the consideration passed from the defendant to the insolvent. Any infringement of these rights by the Legislature is unconstitutional and void, as it attempts to attach a new disability to a consideration already passed.

Merrill v. Sherburne, 1 N. H. 213; Woart v. Winnick, 3 N. H. 481; Willard v. Harvey, 24 N. H. 351; Rich v. Flanders, 39 N. H. 314; Kent v. Gray, 53 N. H. 580; Simpson v. City Sar. Bank, 56 N. H. 466.

The statute impairs the obligation of pre-existing contracts, within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States.

Sturges v. Crowninshield, 17 U. S. 4 Wheat. 122 (4 L. ed. 529); Ogden v. Saunders, 25 U.S. | 12 Wheat. 213 (6 L. ed. 606); Farmers & M. Bank v. Smith, 19 U. S. 6 Wheat. 131 (5 L. ed. 224); Golden v. Prince, 3 Wash. C. Ct. 313; Roosevelt v. Cebra, 17 Johns. 108; Smith v. Mead, 3 Conn. 253; Hammett v. Anderson, Id. 304; Medbury v. Hopkins, Id. 472.

State insolvent laws cannot affect antecedent debts. "This position has always been maintained by the Federal courts, and universally accepted by the tribunals of last resort in the several States."

Black, Const. Prohib. § 118, and cases cited.

Carpenter, J., delivered the opinion of

the court:

The statute does not expressly and in terms decree void payments made within the time specified, upon contracts existing at the time of its enactment, and cannot be construed as extending to them unless such an intent of the Legislature is clearly manifested. The mere fact that the language is broad enough to avoid payment on such contracts will not alter the rule. Boston & M. R. Co. v. Cilley, 44 N. H. 578, 579. This doctrine for the interpretation of statutes is applied without regard to the constitutional authority of the Legislature to give them a retroactive effect. Colony v. Dublin, 32 N. H. 434; Dickinson v. Lovell, 36 N. H. 364, 366; Atherton v. McQuesten, 46 N. H. 205, 211. Its application is imperative where such an effect cannot be given to the statute without a violation of the Constitution of the State or of the United States. Whatever may be the language of the Legislature, the court is bound to presume that it intended to keep within the limits of the Constitution. Woart v. Winnick, 3 N. H. 483; Kennett's Petition, 24 N. H. 139, 141; Rich v. Flanders, 39 N. H. 367; Opinion of Justices, 41 N. H. 555, 556; Kent v Gray, 53 N. H. 576; Rockport v. Walden, 54 N. H. 167, 174; Chase v. Jefts, 58 N. H. 43.

The statute not only denies to the creditor, for the period of three months next before the debtor's assignment, any practical aid of the law to enforce payment of the debt; withdraws from the operation of legal process all the debtor's property, leaving to the creditor nothing but the barren right to sue and obtain judgment; but also forbids a voluntary satisfaction of the debt by the debtor during the same time. If it were made in express terms applicable to pre-existing contracts, it would be to that extent a violation of the provision of the Federal Constitution which declares that no State shall pass any law impairing the obliga tion of contracts. Green v. Biddle, 21 U. S. 8 Wheat. 1, 84, 85 (5 L. ed. 547, 568); Bronson

"Whenever an assignment to the judge of probate is made, as provided by $1 of this Act, all attachments shall be void except such as have been made three months previous to such assignment; and all payments, pledges, mortgages, conveyances, sales, and transfers made within three months next before said assign-v. ment and after the passage of this Act and before the 1st of September next, and also all payments, pledges, mortgages, conveyances, sales, and transfers whenever made, if fraudulent as to creditors, shall be void; and the assignee may recover and hold the property attached, mortgaged, conveyed, sold, or transferred as aforesaid, disincumbered of all such liens or claims." Laws 1885, chap. 85, § 9.

The unmistakable intent of the statute is to make void all payments, pledges, etc., made after the passage of the Act and within three months next before the debtor's assignment. No effect consistent with this intent can be given to the words "and before the 1st of September next;" and they must be rejected as without meaning. Green v. Wood, 7 Q. B. 178; Huidekoper v. Douglass, 7 U. S. 3 Cranch, 1 L. R. A

Kinzie, 42 U. S. 1 How. 311 (11 L. ed. 143); McCracken v. Hayward, 43 U. S. 2 How. 608 (11 L. ed. 397); Planters Bank v. Sharp, 47 U. S. 6 How. 301 (12 L. ed. 447); Howard v. Bug bee, 65 U. S. 24 How. 461 (16 L. ed. 753); Hathorn v. Calef, 69 U. S. 2 Wall. 10 (17 L. ed. 776); United States v. Quincy, 71 U. S. 4 Wall. 535 (18 L. ed. 403); White v. Hart, 80 U. S. 13 Wall. 646 (20 L. ed. 685); Walker v. Whitehead, 83 U. S. 16 Wall. 314 (21 L. ed. 357); Wil mington & W. R. Co. v. King, 91 U. S. 3 (23 L. ed. 186); Louisiana v. New Orleans, 102 U. S. 203 (26 L. ed. 132); Louisiana v. St. Martin's Police Jury, 111 U. S. 716 (28 L. ed. 574); Fisk v. Jefferson Police Jury, 116 U. S. 131 (29 L. ed. 587); Seibert v. Lewis, 122 U. S. 284 (30 L. ed. 1161).

Judgment for the defendant.

Smith, J., did not sit; the others concurred

UNITED STATES CIRCUIT COURT, NORTH. DIST. ILLINOIS.

AMERICAN BELL TELEPHONE CO.

et al. D.

ued for several years after such invention. Cushman, as appears from the proof, is now about seventy years old. In his early manhood he

AMERICAN CUSHMAN TELEPHONE studied, and afterwards for a short time prac

CO. et al.

1. The proof of the prior knowledge and use of a device covered by a patent, to defeat it, must be so clear and satisfactory as to leave no room for reasonable doubt.

2. Where the proof shows that a device similar to the Bell telephone was constructed by a Dr. Cushman in 1851, through which he transmitted articulate sounds short distances; that the attempts to talk through it were often failures; that the device was set up in a certain place where anyone could use it, but that it attracted no attention, and that all experiments with it were unsatisfactory; that the device cannot now be found, and that no contemporaneous

newspaper accounts of the experiments appear; and that not until after the Bell telephone had gone into use did Dr. Cushman give it out that he was the first inventor, all that was done by him must be treated as an abandoned experiment. (July 21, 1888.)

BILL ILL in equity to restrain infringement of patent and for an accounting. Decree for complainants.

The facts are stated in the opinion. Messrs. West & Bond for complainants. Messrs. C. D. F. Smith and J. L. High for defendants.

Blodgett, J., delivered the opinion of the

court:

This is a bill in equity to restrain the alleged infringement of two letters patent granted to Alexander Graham Bell,-the first being No. 174,465, dated March 7, 1876, for an "improvement in telegraphy;" and the second being No. 186,487, dated January 30, 1877, for an "improvement in electric telegraphy," of which patents the complainants are now owners, and no question is made as to their title thereto. Infringement is charged of the fifth claim of the 1876 patent, and of the third, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth claims of the 1877 patent. These are the same patents, and the same claims in each patent, involved in the Telephone Cases,* decided by the supreme court at the last term, where the validity of the patents and of these claims was fully discussed and sustained. The defendants in this case do not deny the granting of the complainants' patents now in question, nor deny complainants' title thereto, nor the fact that their telephones infringe the claims in question, but base their defense solely upon the allegation that Bell was not the first inventor of the speaking telephone covered by these two patents, but insist that the defendant S. D. Cushman in fact invented and put into practical use an electromagnetic telephone at Racine, Wis., in the year 1851, which transmitted articulate speech, and was put into practical use for that purpose during the year 1851, and that such use was contin

NOTE.-Telephone patents. See the Telephone Cases (Dolbear v. American Bell Telephone Co., etc.) 128 U. S. 539 (31 L. ed. 863).

ticed, medicine; but in 1848, or about that time, he became interested in telegraphy, and aban doned his profession, and has since followed the occupations of telegraph operator, constructor of telegraph lines, manufacturer of lightning-rods, and manufacturer and patentee of divers devices, mainly, if not all, pertaining to the application and control of the electric current. His own account of the alleged invention of the telephone by himself is, that in the spring of 1851 he was engaged in constructing a telegraph line from Racine westward to Beloit and other towns, and his attention had also been attracted to a device called a "lightning-arrester," intended to prevent the atmospheric electricity from passing over the telegraph wires and injuring the relay wires and other working apparatus of the telegraph. office; and in order to indicate the presence of the atmospheric electricity upon the wires of the telegraph line, and thereby test the value and efficiency of this "lightning-arrester," he constructed an apparatus consisting of an electric horseshoe magnet, with a permanent magnet placed between the legs, and connected at the bend with the electro-magnet, and these magnets, so arranged with relation to each. other, were placed in a wooden box, with the wires leading outwardly from the electric coils, and with the open ends of the magnets extending upward; and to the under side of the cover of the box, directly over the ends of the magnets, was attached a thin piece of sheet iron, so located that when the magnets were heavily charged with the electric current this sheet-iron plate would be drawn down in contact with the end of the permanent magnet, and there held until released by hand. Two boxes or sets of this apparatus were made, one of which was placed under a bridge in a swamp some distance west of Racine, one of the wires from the magnets being connected with the telegraph wire passing the vicinity of the bridge, with the other wire serving as a ground wire, and the other box was placed in the office of the telegraph company in Racine, and one wire from the magnets connected with the telegraph wire in the office, and the other with the ground. And soon after these magnet boxes were so placed, he discovered that he could hear in the office the peeping of frogs, or sounds like the peeping of frogs, in the swamp; and after the discovery of this fact, experiment-as he says-showed that the sounds of rapping on the lid of the box in the swamp could be heard in the office, or rapping upon the lid of the box in the office could be heard at the box in the swamp, so that messages or communications could be interchanged between the two boxes by rapping, so as to indicate the Morse alphabet; and, as is claimed, some further experiments resulted in transmitting articulate words from one box to the other. He also states that, soon after the discovery of these phenomena, he, with the assistance of his brother, W. P. Cushman, and one B. T. Blodgett, constructed

four boxes substantially like those he had used | the summer of 1853 to talk between Dr. Cushto test the lightning-arresters on the telegraph line; that is, each box contained two coil electro-magnets, the lower ends of which were connected by a bar of soft iron between these electro-magnets, and connected with the soft iron cross-piece was placed a permanent steel magnet, the upper ends of all these magnets being in the same plane and reaching nearly to the under side of the cover of the box. A small hole was made in the cover of the box directly over the upper end of the permanent magnet; and attached by one end only to the under side of this box cover, and in close proximity to the upper ends of the magnets, was a plate of thin sheet iron, so located as to be interposed between the permanent magnet and the hole in the lid of the box. The wires from these electro-magnets extended to the outside of the boxes, so as to connect them with a transmitting wire and the ground wire. These boxes were fastened upon two boards, one box upon each end of the boards. With these boxes, he says, they (that is, himself, W. P. Cushman, and B. T. Blodgett) made experiments upon the telegraph wires on the line west of Racine, and succeeded in obtaining the transmission of articulate speech so as to be understood for a distance of from half a mile to three miles. Afterwards, and during the summer of 1851, a wire was put up extending from the telegraph office in Racine to Thomas Wright's carpenter shop, a distance of about 300 feet, and one of these boxes connected to each end of this wire, and, as is claimed, articulate words were transmitted through these boxes between the shop and the rear room of the telegraph office; the method of using the boxes being to speak into the hole in the cover through a funnel of stiff paper, or tin, so as to vibrate the sheet-metal plate, which he called the "vibrator," which was located over the tops of the magnets; and while this wire was in use between the telegraph office and Wright's shop, some experiments were made by one Oren White, with "vibrators" of different form and material, to, if possible, secure the transmission | of louder sounds through the boxes. After a while the end of this wire, which had terminated in the telegraph office, seems to have been changed from the telegraph office to the watchrepair shop of Oren White, which was located in Howland's bookstore, about the same distance from Wright's shop as the telegraph office; and it is claimed that this wire and boxes continued to be used to transmit conversation, seemingly wholly to gratify the curiosity of whoever wished to use them, for many months after they were thus put in position.

It is further claimed that in the summer of 1853 W. P. Cushman lived on a farm about six miles west of Racine, and Blodgett had a shop in some part of the city of Racine, and as a telegraph line from Racine passed close to W. P. Cushman's house, one of these "talking boxes," as they were called, was placed in one of the rooms of Dr. Cushman's house, and another in Blodgett's shop, and a third in a building near the dwelling-house of Cushman on his farm, and these boxes were connected with the wire of the telegraph line; and that these boxes were used when the telegraph line was not in use for telegraphic purposes during

man's house and W. P. Cushman's house, and between Blodgett's shop and the two Cushman houses; that intelligible orders or requests by articulate words were sent from the farm through these boxes to Dr. Cushman's house for the purchase of groceries and family supplies, for the repair of farm implements, and the interchange of the usual social and family inquiries; that in the summer of 1854 Dr. Cushman, Oren White, and others were engaged in the manufacture of wire cable for lightningrods, in the city of Racine, and had a rope walk for such manufacture, the extremities of which were several hundred feet apart, and these talking boxes were used to transmit orders by articulate words from one end of this ropewalk to the other. It is also claimed that further experiments were made with these boxes some time in 1855, by Josiah B. Cushman, a nephew of Dr. Cushman, and some changes made in the vibrator, so that better results were obtained, and that these talking boxes continued to be used in two ropewalks, one in the south part and the other in the north part of Racine, where this wire lightning rod cable was made; that in the fall of 1857 Dr. Cushman removed from Racine, and some part of his goods were shipped to New Lisbon, Ohio, among which were two of these "talking boxes;" that he went into the lightning-rod business in Cleveland, Ohio, where he remained a few years, and thence removed to South Bend, Ind., and from there he moved to New Lisbon in 1865, and from 1865 to 1867 he was engaged in inventing, perfecting, and putting into practical use a system of electric fire-alarm apparatus in different cities, among which were Cleveland and Detroit. In 1867, or about that year, Dr. Cushman states that he met J. G. Chamberlain, Ira A. Chase, and some other persons, who had capital for which they were seeking investment, and whom the doctor was desirous of interesting in his fire-alarm business, and other business connected with the development of his patents; and, among other things, he suggested the utilization of his "talking boxes" as part of the apparatus of his fire alarm system. With a view to such utilization the doctor had the old boxes, which had been sent with his goods from Racine to New Lisbon in 1857, repaired, and made an exhibition of their capacity to transmit articulate speech to Chamberlain, Chase, and others, in Leetonia, Ohio. The result of this exhibition was not such as to satisfy Mr. Chamberlain and the other persons who witnessed it that these were adaptable to use in any way which could be made profitable, and none of them took any interest in the device. Not far from the time of this exhibition at Leetonia, Dr. Cushman gave some lectures on the subject of electricity at Malvern, Ohio, and there exhibited these boxes, and, as it is stated, articulate words were transmitted through them. The testimony further shows that soon after this exhibition at Leetonia several companies or corporations were formed for the purpose of manufacturing and putting into use the fire-alarm apparatus, and other patented devices in which Dr. Cushman was interested, or which he had invented; and the business of these companies finally concentrated at Cleveland, Ohio,—Dr. Cushman going there to re

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