Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 September 1881 — Bottled Lightning. [ARTICLE]

Bottled Lightning.

Few York Time*. There has recently been invented in England, and hence will doubtlees be invented in this country within the next six months, a method of bottling electricity. The inventor has demonstrated that he can put up electricity in quantities to suit customers; that he can send it any distance, and that it will keep fresh any length of time. There is not the least doubt that he has solved the problem which has so long baffled other scientific persons, and that his bottled electricity is in every respect as good as "the best electricity* drawn directly from a dynamic engine. This invention will have an immediate and great effect upon the electric light. At present the electric light cannot.be produced without an engine, and whether the latter is driven by steam or water power, it must be kept constantly at work, since the instant it stops the electric light goes out As few persons can afford to -have their own dynamic engine in the cellar, and thus furnish their own electricity, the public must depend for their supply of light upon the electric light companies. Now there is not the least reason to believe that electricity exerts any better moral influence than gas, and we know that when a number of reasonable Christian men form themselves into a gas company they immediately become pirates of the most merciless and extortionate character. Why should we look for better things from the electric light companies? They expect to have us at their mercy, and they will be as merciless as the gas men. We shall have electric meters in our cellers that will be as mendacious and unprincipled as the gas meters,and the moment we refuse to Day for ten thousand feet of electricity which we have not used, our light will be cut off and we shall be left to candles and kero-

sene. But now that we shall soon be able to buy electricity just as we buy kero- ’ sene, we shall have all the electrictrib light companies on their several and metaphorical hips. We can buy a gallon of electricity at a time and fill our own wires without having any dealings with an electric company. Electricity will be as cheap as kerosene, and unless some monopolists manage to “corner” all the electricity in the market and hold it for a rise, even men with small incomes, who would now be ruined bv admitting such a luxury as a gas meter into their houses, will be able to have electric lights blazing in every room. There are, however,certain disadvantages attending the bottling of electricity. The dealers will be greatly tempted to adulterate it. They may either adulterate it with cheap and inflammable substances, such as turpentine, or they may simply dilute it with water. In either case the man who buys what professes to be a quart of pure double distilled electricity will be cheated. Then, cheap electricity will be used to kindle fires, and we shall read every day of unfortunate cooks who have struck tnemselves with lightning while incautiously pouring dectricity on the fire. The exhfierating

effects of a slight electrical shock are well known, and we may reasonably expect that bottled electricity will be used as a beverage instead of whisky and rum. Its effects upon the coats of the stomach and the constitution generally will, of course, be much worse than those of ardent spirits, and confirmed users of electricity will be liable to explode with deadly effect on coming Incautiously in contact with metalie substances and other good conductors. When these evils have become notorious, ws shall witness an energeto movement among those who won call themselves “temperance people” against the great evils of electricity, and they will demand the passage of a prohibitory law forbidding the sale of electricity at retail, except in accordance with the prescription of a chemist. Other less violent reformers will clamor for a license law and the appointment of inspectors to examine all electricity offered for sale and tc confiscate every gallon that is adulterated. .■! Thus it may come to pass that bottled electricity will cease to be sold, and we shall be compelled to return to gas,kerosene, or electric light companies.