The Musical Courier publishes an article, in which a tuner from Tiffin, Ohio writes: “in the greatest number of cases it is an unintended blessing in that it provides means for some expansion and contraction that does not affect compression or downbearing of the strings… I am entirely out of sympathy with the sales person who will and does condemn the product of the New York maker… because his soundboard split, for they know not whereof they speak…” (This somewhat obscure text addresses the issue of the “split soundboards” that will haunt Steinway & Sons six decades later, in 1990s.)