The invention of the telephone taught the Genie of Electricity to do better than to carry mes-sages in the sign language of the dumb.

It taught him to speak.

As Emerson has finely said: "We had letters to send.

Couriers could not go fast enough, nor far enough; broke their wagons, foundered their horses; bad roads in Spring, snowdrifts in Winter, heat in Summer--could not get their horses out of a walk.

But we found that the air and the earth were full of electricity, and always going our way, just the way we wanted to send.
WOULD HE TAKE A MESSAGE, Just as lief as not; had nothing else to do; would carry it in no time." As to the exact value of the telephone to the United States in dollars and cents, no one can tell.