page_title: Speaking tube
section_title: Domestic use
hierarchical_section_title: Speaking tube / Domestic use
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Parlophone (intercom domestique) pneumatique ou tube acoustique. la voix est portée par un conduit. Bruxelles (Ixelles) rue Jean d'Ardenne. Photographié en 2014.
context_page_description: A speaking tube or voicepipe is a device based on two cones connected by an air pipe through which speech can be transmitted over an extended distance.
  Use of pipes was suggested by Francis Bacon in the New Atlantis. The usage for telecommunications was experimented and proposed for administrative communications in 1782 by the French monk Dom Gauthey in a memorandum communicated to the Académie des Sciences. Dom Gauthey launched a subscription supported by Benjamin Franklin and other French scientists to finance further experiments but was not able to raise enough money to go ahead. The British utilitarist philosoph Jeremy Bentham proposed the inclusion of "conversation tubes" in the architecture of his Panopticon and then as military telecommunication mean and at the end as a necessary equipment in the architecture of ministries.
  While its most common use was in intra-ship communications, the principle was also used in affluent homes and offices of the 19th century, as well as expensive automobiles, military aircraft, and even locomotives. For most purposes, the device was outmoded by the telephone and its widespread adoption.
context_section_description: In domestic applications, voicepipes were smaller and referred to as "speaking tubes". The ends of the tube were often flexible for convenience of use. The speaking tube supplemented the array of remotely controlled hand bells that were operated in the upstairs rooms and rang in the servant's quarters in even modest houses in the 19th century.  The phrase "get on the horn" and "give him a blow" as well as the use of "blower" as a synonym for "telephone" are generally accepted as having their origin in this feature of speaking tubes.
  Speaking tubes were employed in some offices, with whistles at either end and were therefore also known as whistling tubes. Several speaking tubes could be hung from the edge of a desk to communicate with different locations.
  Speaking tubes were also used in fine automobiles such as the 1927 Rolls Royce Phantom, allowing communication between the separate passenger and driver's compartments when desired.
caption: Domestic speaking tube on the sidewalk end. Brussels,(2014) Caption is Please listen to the voice-carrier.
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