Being curious about the source of the quote “it is quite possible that the man who has taught us to put up electricity in bottles has accomplished greater things than any inventor who has yet appeared”, I located the original New York Times article (1881), appended below. It makes interesting and amusing reading. I couldn’t help but think of those flour/rice-filled Ultrafire cells when the author correctly anticipated the temptation to adulterate batteries. Enjoy!
BOTTLED LIGHTNING.
Hitherto the great trouble with electricity has been the impossibility of bottling it. In all cases it has been necessary, to draw it from the cat - or other machine - and use it on the premises. Were it impossible to bottle whisky and carry it away from the distillery the whisky business would be small and unprofitable, and it has always been perceived that unless electricity could be bottled it would never become an article of commerce so important as to permit the formation of electrical “rings” and to enable enterprising patriots to grow rich by the manufacture and sale of “crooked lightning.”
There has recently been invented in England, and hence will doubtless 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 for 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 reasonably 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 cellars that will be as mendacious and unprincipled as the gas meters, and the moment we refuse to pay for ten thousand feet of electricity which we have not used our lights will be cut off and we shall be left to candles and kerosene?
But now that we shall soon be able to buy electricity just as we buy kerosene, wo shall have all the electric 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 monopolists manage to “corner” all tha electricity in the market and hold it for a rise, even men with small incomes, who would now be ruined by admitting such a luxury as a gas meter into their houses, will be able to hare electric lights blazing in every room.
There are, however, certain possible, 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 by servants in kindling fires, and we shall read every day of unfortunate cooks who have struck themselves with lightning while incautiously pouring electricity on the fire. The exhilarating 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 on 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 metallic substances and other good conductors. When these evils have become notorious, we shall witness an energetic movement among those who now call themselves “temperance people”, against the great evil 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 to 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.
Whatever may prove to be the practical uses of bottled electricity, the inventor has certainly accomplished what no other man has ever been able to do. If he can adapt his electricity to guns and cannons, and thus enable us to dispense with gunpowder, there will be an immense saving in the cost of the heavy magazine trains which now accompany our armies, and if he can also bottle thunder and sell it a low rate, he will make his name revered forever by the American small-boy, who will discard fire-crackers for bottled thunder. In fact, there are countless uses other than that of lighting our houses to which bottled electricity may be put, and it is quite possible that the man who has taught us to put up electricity in bottles has accomplished greater things than any inventor who has yet appeared.
New York Times, June 11, 1881 PDF source