Faces From The Past

Since we are a magazine that relies heavily on illustrative material, we are, of course, most interested in new finds in the field of historical photography. Unfortunately, the invention of the camera postdates our nation’s birth by quite a few years. We have often regretted this; it would be quite wonderful to have photographs of, say, Washington and his aides touring the lines before Yorktown or of Fulton’s Claremont chugging gamely up the Hudson. Now, however, we are delighted to learn that the possibility of obtaining such significant visual documents is not so remote as we had thought. A recent issue of the Photographic Historical Society News has reported an extraordinary breakthrough. Their source, The National Enquirer , the largest feature paper in America, has published a major article featuring a photograph of Jesus Christ. This picture was taken by an Italian monk, a late renaissance man who recently abandoned his studies of ancient church music to invent a camera that captures past sound waves. The machine is about the size of a television set and has an eight-inch viewing screen that has shown pictures of Christ, Pope Pius XII , and —less gripping but still nothing to sniff at—Benito Mussolini. The Enquirer took its story from articles in the English and Italian press but was unable to interview the inventor. He has applied for a patent and, in the meantime, refuses to reveal any technological details. We hope that the patent is quickly granted and anxiously await the arrival of the camera in the New World. We have many assignments for it, especially if it will record the doings of the Founding Fathers.