Stole the Girls' Clothing.

New York, 1895

Three young and pretty girls went out to Wildwood lake, Riverhead, Tuesday afternoon to bathe. After they had taken their dip they found that some person had stolen their clothing. After waiting until dark they walked through the woods in their bathing suits to the house of Benjamin Terrell, about a mile and a quarter distant. As Mr. Terrell has no girls in his family the unfortunates had to keep on to the next neighbor, who fitted them out with temporary costumes, and they returned home.


Held Up a Telephone Girl.

Michael Hardy of Port Jefferson held up Miss Lizzie C. Lawrence, the Western Union operator, on Monday and frightened her into giving him money. When the follow repeated his demands the terrified girl succeeded in attracting the attention of a passerby and Hardy was made a prisoner. He was sent up for thirty days.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, June 28, 1895, p. 8.

A Trolley Telephone

1895

Passengers riding on the electric railway between West Farms and Mount Vernon have the privilege of listening to an acoustic manifestation that in a remarkable manner illustrates some of the earlier experiments in developing the telephone.

The track is a single one, and the potential of the current is high. Its amperage is also considerable as a result, when a car is waiting on a switch for one coming in an opposite direction, the approach of the latter is audible at the distance of a mile to the passengers in the waiting car. The sound vibrations are carried along the wire, through the trolley, to the wooden roof of the car. This acts as a diaphragm, which faithfully reproduces the rumble of the approaching car. A mile away the noise of the wheels is distinctly audible, and at the distance of 1,000 feet the sound becomes a loud roar outside the car, however, practically nothing is heard until the moving car is within a few hundred feet of the switch. — Brooklyn Eagle.

More Jokes

1916

Well, Y Not?

He (to new acquaintance) — How do you spell your first name?
She — E-d-y-t-h-e. How do you spell yours?
He — J-y-m-e.


A Militant, Perhaps

"Wanted — Young Men to Join Army." Looks inviting. What's her scheme?


Indeed It Does

"Telephones are great time savers, aren't they?"
"Well, that depends upon who calls you up."

Telephone in the Woods

1905

"I've been reading," remarked a citizen who spends five months of every year in the woods, "that the telephone is a great convenience in the wilderness. The Electrical Review says that throughout the forests, from St. John to Vancouver, the telephone brings the lumber camps into touch with one another, letters are read to lumbermen snowed in 50 or 300 miles from civilization and the human side of life is made warmer and more vivid by this means of communication.

"A telephone does heat up considerably anywhere, especially when it won't work; but I'm inclined to think a telephone in the wilderness is a great nuisance instead of a great convenience. What an angler, hunter or botanist wants of one of the things is more than I can understand. They've got the Adirondacks fixed so that there's a push button in every other tree, and if you stub your toe a waiter'll pop out of the bushes with a champagne cocktail or a telegram. That's all right, perhaps, but why not stay in the Waldorf?

"A telephone in the woods is a good thing for game, though. We had our cabin wired to a village down at the end of the railroad one summer. Never again for me. I'd be dangling for trout. 'John, John,' would come my wife's voice, resounding through the aisles of pine and hemlock. 'What?' I'd say, mad clean through. 'Your Boston brokers want to talk with you a minute.' Or I'd be almost within range of a deer and that same 'John' would come floating on the air from the shanty. 'What?' I'd have to call back, and the deer'd be in the next county. 'New York's waiting; long distance,' the servant would holler. "Line's held open for you.' The only trout I got that season was a tame one I bought of a man who fattens 'em for market, and the only thing I shot was the ace of spades. I tacked it up the last day and blazed at it for spite. And now," he concluded, "when I go into the woods the central office can't find me with a guide and a brass band." — Providence Journal.

Sees Glare in Thug's Eyes; She Humors Him

1915

Felt He Was Insane, so Lay Still to Be Bound — Summons Police by a Moan

Suppose you were all alone in the house —
And the back door bell rang just about the time the grocer's boy usually came around for morning orders —
And instead of the grocer's boy a man stood there pointing a gun at you —
What would you do?
Scream? Run? Bang the door shut? Become paralyzed with fear? Try to grab the gun? Pray? Let the thief in?

CLEVELAND, Ohio, Dec. 16. — Pretty Lucille Hoyt, a 17-year-old high school pupil of this city, opened the door in her home to find a man pointing a gun at her.

Lucille says she just backed slowly away.

"As soon as I reached the dining-room door I intended to run and lock myself in the upstairs room," Lucille said.

"But the thief caught me in the dining-room. My impulse was to struggle, but as the burglar grabbed me by both shoulders and shook me, I knew by the glare in his eyes he was insane.

Lay Perfectly Quiet

"It flashed thru my head that some one had said the quieter you were with insane people the less violent they would be.

"So when the fellow threw me on the floor and grabbed a couple of card table covers to tie my wrists and ankles with, I lay like a dead person.

"Then he gagged me with a napkin. The knot was loose and the gag slipped down.

"But the man didn't notice. And he stepped right over the telephone that had fallen to the floor, and ran upstairs.

"I wriggled over to the phone, and just as I got it into my bound hands it buzzed.

Moans "Send the Police"

"It was my cousin, Mrs. B. A. Gilliland. I heard the thief coming down the stairs, so I just had time to say 'Send the police,' when in he rushed.

"He ran past me, cursing. Then I heard him lock the back door as he went out.

"I lay there waiting for the police and I kept thinking 'Where have I seen that face before?'

"Then I remembered he was the same man who had come to the back door to ask for a drink of water Monday. I was all alone, then, too. But he didn't try to get in that time."

The police broke thru the window to release the girl.

Civilization Flying Merrily Along

1911

Editorial Winks

Siam is to have an aviation week, and so the march of up-to-date civilization goes — or rather flies — merrily on.

The United States Army wants aeroplanes. They will probably be manned by the flying divisions.

Winter may be trying to keep it up until March. It began early and it has been told throughout.

The new census of Berlin and its suburbs shows a population of 3,400,000. It is camping on New York's trail.

Over-study killed a promising youth in Baltimore, but there is no danger of this malady ever becoming an epidemic.

A German has invented a noiseless telephone booth. A noiseless telephone party line would be a greater blessing.

It is necessarily true that the worst is yet to come.

No man becomes a jailbird just for a lark.

Doctors Locate Bullet By Phone

1915

London Surgeons Have New Method of Discovering Presence of Foreign Body

London. — One of the romantic touches in modern surgery which the exigencies of the present war have introduced is a method of detecting bullets and fragments of shell in the human body by means of a telephone. This method is employed in special cases in one of the large London hospitals.

To a telephone receiver two short lengths of wire are attached. One of these ends in a small piece of platinum; this is placed upon any part of the patient's skin which has been moistened with salt water. The other end of the wire terminates in a thread of antiseptic silver, and this is bound around the surgeon's probe or lancet or other instrument. The surgeon then places the receiver to his ear and makes the incision.

The instant the instrument touches the bullet a very distinct rattle is heard, quite different from the faint murmur audible as the instrument merely cuts through the flesh, and in this way when X-rays fail, as they sometimes do, the foreign substance is located.


He Is a War Hero At 13

Youngest Noncommissioned Officer in the French Army

Paris. — The youngest noncommissioned officer in the French army is Marcel Vernier, who is thirteen years and seven mouths old. He followed the artillery as a kitchen helper at the opening of the war and learned to ride a horse and was quickly promoted to be a corporal. He has been named adjutant sergeant major and his name has been proposed for the military medal for valor in action. He was recently wounded and was brought to a Paris hospital.

Vernier is an orphan and is one of a large family of young brothers and sisters.

Growth of the Telephone in Thirty Years

1906

By John Vaughn

"Hello, Central," was first heard in 1878. Today the exchanges are numbered by the thousand, the telephones by the million. Various industries, unknown thirty years ago, but now sources of employment to many thousands of workers, depend entirely on the telephone for support. Numerous factories making lead sheathing, dynamos, motors, generators, batteries, office equipment, cables, and many other appliances, would have to close down and thus throw their operatives into idleness and misery if the telephone bell should cease to ring. The Bell Companies employ over 87,000 persons and, it may be added, pay them well. Many of these employes have families to maintain; others support their parents, or aid younger brothers and sisters. It is safe to say that 200,000 people look to the telephone for their daily bread. These figures may be supplemented by the number of telephones in use, (5,698,000), by the number of miles of wire (6,043,000), in the Bell lines, and by the number of conversations (4,479,500,000), electrically conveyed in 1905. The network of wire connects more than 33,000 cities, towns, villages and hamlets.

Such tremendous growth as these statistics show would imply not only steadily increasing appreciation of the telephone, but would also suggest improved instruments, more skillful operators, and better service. There would be no flattery in such suggestion. Electrical science has undergone radical reformation since 1876. Telephony has raised the utilization of electricity to the height of a profession. Of course such advances have not been won without cost. Fortunes were spent in experiment and investigation before a dollar came back. Communication by the first telephone was limited to a few thousand feet. Now, conversation can be carried on by persons 1,600 miles apart. Tomorrow long-distance lines will span the continent; and the day after oceanic telephony will be a commonplace of mercantile routine. But science and money had to collaborate for years before they could work the trade of enabling Boston and Omaha to talk together. — From the "Thirtieth Anniversary of a Great Invention," in Scribner.

The Telephone — The Operator Wants to Connect You

1907

What It Means When the Operator Announces "Line Busy."

It is easier for an operator to establish a connection than reply, "Line busy." Recollection of this simple fact may perhaps smooth out the asperities of a state of mind evoked by a hasty conclusion that the operator simply is shirking.

Follow a call into the main exchange, for example. You ask for a certain number. The operator immediately informs you the line is busy. How does she know? Simply by a little admonitory click in the receiver when she tries to "plug in" on the line asked for. She cannot tell you who is talking on the line, how long it has been in use or how long it is likely to be "busy." All the information she possesses is a click, but it is sufficient to advise her that some one of the 150 other operators in the exchange had a prior call from or to that number. Had the line been clear the effort to complete the connection would have been no greater than that required to get the click; hence the task of informing a caller that the line is busy is just so much extra labor — in fact, it involves a double burden, as the subscriber will usually repeat the call until he is able to transact his business.

Obviously, therefore, the desire of the operator is to establish the connection when it is first called for. She has no motive in doing otherwise. — Telephone Talk.

Inventors At Work — An Idea in Parachutes

1896

An Italian aeronaut named Copazza has invented two balloon attachments, which are said to have fully realized the expectations formed of them. The one is an enormous parachute stretched over a balloon, and the other a folded parachute hanging under the basket.

If the aeronaut finds that his balloon is rising too fast he opens the folded parachute, which immediately acts as a huge air brake and effectually retards progress.

On the other hand, should the air vessel explode through expansion, fire, or any other cause, the top parachute comes into action and a descent may be made without the slightest inconvenience.


A New Telephone

A Russian electrician named Kiltschewsky has perfected a telephone which practically disregards distance. At a recent test between Moscow and Rostoff, 890 miles, talking, singing and instrumental music at one end of the line were distinctly heard by listeners at the other. An experiment is to be made by land wires and Atlantic cables in talking between London and New York.

The Opera Through the Telephone

1879

Very many persons among the opera audiences at the Academy of Music recently noticed a curious little box on the stage, immediately beside the prompter's box, with a tin funnel opening toward the singers, but probably very few had the slightest idea of what were its uses.

In reality it was a scientific marvel, and played a quite important part in an experiment that was completely successful. The instrument was a Blake's Battery transmitter, made very much like an ordinary Bell telephone, but having, in place of the permanent magnet, a Bhumkorf coil and one cell of battery attached. Its usual function on a telephone line is to increase the volume of sound by the action of an induced current, but at the Academy it was employed to gather in the music of the opera and convey it to distant residences. A private wire led from it to the office of Dr. Alan P. Smith, and to the homes of Mr. A. G. Davis. No. 429 Madison avenue, and A. Wilson, Jr., 162 Mosher street, connecting to telephones at each place.

Listeners at these houses placed an ear to the telephone, and heard all the music of the opera almost as distinctly as if seated in the auditorium of the Academy. The voices and the orchestral music were transmitted perfectly. Even the words of the prompter were audible, as well as the applause from the front of the house. The test was a most interesting one, and was perfectly successful. — Baltimore American.

Crime Time — Burglary, Reckless Riding, A Mysterious Call

Council Bluffs, Iowa, 1908

BURGLAR WAS A JACK-IN-BOX

Leaps Through Trap Door and Scares Servant Girl

Startled by seeing a man jump through the outside trap door of the furnace room a servant girl in the home of J. E. Wallace, 315 Oakland avenue, rushed up stairs Monday evening, and informed Mr. Wallace that there had been a burglar in the house.

Mr. Wallace reported the matter to the police, but the girl was able to give only a meager description of the man. She had gone down into the furnace room about 8:30 o'clock, and her sudden appearance startled the intruder, putting him to flight.

Harry Taylor and Renos Anderson, 19 and 16 years of age, were arraigned before Judge Snyder yesterday on the charge of fast and reckless riding. The case was continued until April 10 and the boys were released on good behavior, under orders from the court to appear on that date and give an account of themselves.

The boys were stopped by Deputy Marshal Crum in the midst of a race down Vine street, from First street to the police station, where they were taken in custody and later released on their own recognizance.

The hearing of the case of William Frisbie and George Drummond, charged by William Van Brunt with larceny, occupied considerable time before Judge Snyder, but the court held that while the evidence was strong, it was not sufficient to warrant their being bound over to the grand jury.

Frisbie refused to tell to whom he telephoned until pressed by the court, when he said he had called his home through a neighbor, not caring to call his own number for family reasons. He gave the number he had called to Deputy Marshal Crum, who inquired of the family whether Frisbie had called there, receiving a negative answer. Frisbie explained this by saying that he had not thought the people would care to answer for fear of being dragged into the family differences.

—The Daily Nonpareil, Council Bluffs, Iowa, March 11, 1908, p. 5.

Jazz By Wireless Heard 1,500 Miles

1920

Low Power Generators Used in Experiment

Expect to Talk to England by Telephone If Present Trials Are Successful

England and the United States soon will be talking to each other by telephone if experiments which now are being conducted in both countries are successful. Already nightly efforts are being made by the British to make American operators hear their voices over the wireless telephone. So far the attempt has been fruitless.

However, just the other day Americans set a new record for talking by wireless, when operators in Chicago, Topeka, Kan., and half a dozen points not more than 1,500 miles from New York distinctly heard the New York operator talking and then listened to a jazz record on his talking machine.

Low Power Generators Used

The record was made because generators of only one-third of a kilowatt of power were used. When last year, for the benefit of President Wilson, navy operators sent his voice ringing around the world by wireless, they used a 300-kilowatt generator. There is no limit to the distance which can be covered the wireless telephone provided sufficient power is used, but to come within a reasonable expense present devices must be made more perfect.

New York and Chicago now have a little talk every night and all over the country the members of the American Radio Relay League, which has half a million members, strain their ears in an effort to overhear what is being said. The New Yorker is Robert F. Gowen of the DeForest Radio company, and the Chicago operator is R. G. Mathews, who worked with the navy wireless during the war. They now are trying to get an operator at Roswell, n. M., to hear Gowen talking. If he succeeds then the wireless talk will be directed at a San Francisco operator.

Span Country Without Wires

"When we can span the country with the human voice without the aid of wires we will have solved the question of how to take care of the ever increasing long-distance telephone business," says Mathews. "Now, if a fellow wants to make a long distance call he has to wait an hour or two because all the trunk lines are busy. When the wireless telephone is an assured thing central will plug the patron in on an aerial trunk line and he can get to talk right away. The chances are he won't know the difference, either, except that he can hear more distinctly and there won't be any of the tinny sound that now interferes with telephoning.

"The great problem is to make it possible to use the telephone without making it so expensive the average person can't afford it. The low power and short wave lengths we are experimenting with now are within the reach of almost every amateur wireless fan."

Sergeant Joe Reed Now Telephone "Girl" for Police

Lima, Ohio, 1922

SERGEANT JOE REED IS NOW TELEPHONE "GIRL" AT POLICE HEADQUARTERS

Joe Reed, day desk sergeant at police headquarters, spent the larger part of the day Monday, learning to operate the new telephone switchboard.

It is now complete and ready to be cut in for use.

The board controls the entire report system of tin police department, special danger and emergency signals and the entire phone system of the department and criminal court.

It is considerably more intricate than the ordinary phone switchboard, because of the additional and special stations with which it is hooked up.

Telephone company employes expect to "cut it in" for use beginning Tuesday morning.

"Guess I'll have to don a blue gingham apron, Reed opined as he tried switches and plugged stations.

—The Lima News, Lima, Ohio, Aug. 28, 1922, p. 2.

Adept at Marriage Game: Five Days, She's Gone, Wants Money

1910

Judge Scores Woman

Says She Has Been In Game Long Enough to Be Adept.

WASHINGTON, Ind., Feb. 17. — In granting a divorce to Ephraim Hogshead, a wealthy farmer, today upon a cross-complaint, Judge Houghton took occasion to score Mrs. Hogshead, who, before her marriage, moved in local social circles.

"It appears to me," said the judge, "that there has been an attempt on the part of the woman to hold up Hogshead. I doubt whether she could have recovered a penny against him. This has been her third appearance in my court in suits to disentangle matrimonial alliances and evidently she has played the game long enough to have become an adept."

Mrs. Hogshead's complaint asked for divorce and maintenance. The cross-complaint set forth sensational allegations. The Hogsheads lived together but five days when the wife drove to the city, tied the rig in a hitch-lot and telephoned her husband she would not return home.

—Indianapolis Star, Feb. 18, 1910, p. 5.

Budapest Has Telephone Journal, News and Music by Phone

1895

TELEPHONE JOURNAL

BY WIRE TO EVERY SUBSCRIBER'S BEDSIDE.

The Telephone Herald of Budapest — Has 6,000 Subscribers — In Operation Two Years — News Carefully Edited — Between Editions Concerts Are Given

The telephone newspaper organized at Budapest has now been working successfully for two years. It is the only newspaper of the kind in the world. It is called The Telephono Hirnondo, or Herald, costs 2 cents like a printed paper and is valuable to persons who are unable or too lazy to use their eyes or who cannot read. It has 6,000 subscribers, who receive the news as they would ordinary telephone messages. A special wire 168 miles long runs along the windows of the houses of subscribers, which are connected with the main line by separate wires and special apparatus which prevents the blocking of the system by an accident at any one of the stations.

Within the houses long, flexible wires make it possible to carry the receiver to the bed or elsewhere in the room. The news is not delivered as it happens to come in, but is carefully edited and arranged according to a printed schedule, so that a subscriber at any time knows what part of the paper he is going to hear. It begins with the night telegrams from all parts of Europe. Then comes the calendar of events for the day, with the city news and the lists of strangers at the hotels. After that follow articles on music, art and literature. The staff is organized like that of any other newspaper and is on duty from 7:30 in the morning till 9:30 at night.

After the copy has passed through the editor's hands, for the paper is subject to the same restrictions as ordinary newspapers and is liable for its communications, it is given to the "speakers." These are ten men with strong voices and clear enunciation, who work in shifts of two at a time and talk the news through the telephone. There are 23 editions uttered a day. Additions to the first edition are announced as news items. To fill up the time when no news is coming in the subscribers are entertained with vocal and instrumental concerts.

These were at first given for them especially in the office of The Hirnondo, but now the wire is in communication with the opera house and the music halls and on Sundays and saints' days with the churches. The music is transmitted at times to other places in Austria-Hungary, and recently The Hirnondo michrophone was connected with the circuit going from Triest, through Vienna, Bremen and Budapest, to Berlin, the music being heard in all these places with equal clearness and force. The happy Hungarian can lie abed all day and hear everything that is going on in his town.

Such a newspaper as the one described was foreshadowed by a writer in the British and Colonial Printer and Stationer in December, 1893. In the article, which was entitled "A Fairy Tale For Printers," an attempt was made to forecast the future of the daily newspaper, and The Telephono Hirnondo closely resembles the writer's ideal. — Newspaperdom.

—Davenport Daily Republican, Davenport, IA, Oct. 5, 1895, p. 3.

Professor Teaches Telephone Girls to Smile, Speak Pleasantly

1902

Telephone Girl's Smile

Chicago telephone girls are learning the art of sending smiles over the wires. It is true only a few of the young women at "Central" have been initiated into the mysteries as yet, but it is beginning, says the Chicago Record-Herald.

The smiles reach the subscribers in the form of ecstatic thrills. Under their magnetic influence men are transformed into superior beings, for when was man ever proof against the smile of a pretty woman? No matter how cross or worried or hurried the caller may be, the modern young goddess, whose fillet clasps her scalp instead of encircling her brow, immediately puts him under a spell by smiling at him over the wire. The curmudgeon is transformed from an ugly bear into a placid human being. The man with worries forgets them while basking in the radiance thrown about him by electrical magic. The hustler who ordinarily works under 400 pounds pressure lingers at the telephone as long as the smile diffuses its delicious sensations, and he even cries for more.

"How absurd!" Doubtless that is what some readers are saying. Several of the telephone girls made the same remark when Professor George A. Vinton, teacher of expression, unfolded the new art to them. They also added:

"The idea of our grinning into the transmitters! Why, it is foolish, and will make us a laughing stock."

"Now, my dear girls," said the professor in his suavest tone, "let me assure you, out of my long experience, that you are mistaken. If you wish to be treated pleasantly by other persons you must be pleasant to them. Furthermore, my dears, you are never so lovely as when you are smiling. You cannot smile without having a kindly feeling, and if you speak while smiling you cannot keep that feeling out of the tones of your voice. If you are cross you may be sure your tones will irritate the man at the other end of the wire. If you are pleasant your tones will soothe him, and you cannot be pleasant without looking pleasant. Now, Miss Jones, just try it once; please do. Put on your sweetest smile in answering that subscriber who has just called. Ah, that's it. Now, didn't you observe a change in his manner when he spoke after you smiled?"

Miss Jones answered affirmatively, and the professor beamed even more cheerily than before. But the art of smiling over the telephone wires is only a part of the instruction Professor Vinton is giving a class of girls at "central." He is teaching what he believes to be the most effective, correct and pleasant manner of using the English language. He is training them in the art of articulation and expression — to enunciate words distinctly and to use tones of the greatest carrying power. "Articulation is the diamond of uttered speech, but expression is almost as important. To get the full force of language the expression should be suited to the words. Listen to anyone reading poetry. It is jingle, jingle, jingle, and half the meaning of the lines lost. You can tell to what denomination a minister belongs by the mannerism of his voice. Few lawyers know how to read aloud effectively. At the woman's club the speakers use breathy voices that cannot be understood 15 feet away. Children are graduated from the high schools with foreign accents and abominable English. It is a shameful condition of affairs, but it can be remedied if the school authorities will only make the effort.

"In Germany children are taught the phonetics of their language. Something of the same sort is done in some of the schools of this country, but for the most part it is a bluff. Clean, clear articulation should be taught in the public schools of Chicago. Who ever saw a school child in this city use any but the most stilted expression? There are elocutionists who profess to train the voice for speaking, but they generally make the mistake of running to form, of teaching the use of rolling, sonorous tones at the expense of expression. As a matter of fact, the conversational tone, made in the front of the mouth, is the most effective.

"I am teaching the telephone girl a low, gentle, modulated tone of voice that will reach subscribers much more distinctly than loud, rough tones. The direction to smile is only carrying out the idea of expression. The man at the other end knows instinctively from the tone of the voice, without seeing the girl, that she is smiling. He is soothed instead of irritated, the girl is saved many gruff retorts, and the service is bettered for all concerned."

Using The Telephone – Some of the Travails of "Hello Girls" (Operators)

1878

They All Carry Hard Questions to 'Hello' Girl

Do you know how to use a telephone?

It would seem that everyone knows how to manage a small instrument so much in service as the telephone, but the central girls are of the opinion that there are several who have but a small conception of what a telephone is for.

Information, the young lady who tells you what others want, is probably the most unfortunate of these "hello girls" so far as being subject to the inexperienced patrons is concerned. One girl who had sat in information's chair declared she was tired of having the lady at No. — ask her what her washwoman's phone number was. The gentleman at some other number is forever demanding to know what was the matter with his phone, declaring that he could hardly hear.

About the time she gets through answering his question, a lady from another part of the city wants to know when her train leaves and just how many steps it is to the depot. Hundreds of others will ask other people's phone numbers instead of looking in the phone book, or ask for street addresses. Some inquire of people who never exist — "hello" girls say.

Then at the close of a hard day's work, information has all her troubles topped by a growled request that should have been submitted to an attorney or a doctor.

Telephone girls would endorse the opening of a school to teach people the use of a phone, what to ask information for, how to get the best service, and how to make life itself half enjoyable for the operators.

—The Ada Weekly News, Ada, OK, Oct. 27, 1921, p. 11.

Use of Typewriter Still In Its Infancy, Will Definitely Grow

1901

WRITING BY MACHINE

EMPLOYMENT OF TYPEWRITER YET IN ITS INFANCY.

Use Will Increase Until Every Hotel Will Provide Them for Guests, and All Business Men Will Use Them Themselves, Not Depending Upon Others.

Bicycling was a fad, but typewriting is a fact. The typewriter it, he, or she — is in the same class as the telephone, telegraph, and linotype. As to usefulness and universality, typewriting is in its infancy. Thus far it is used only by those who cannot get along without it. The business man puts in a writing machine as a luxury, and regards it as expense. A young woman who learns to use a typewriter feels called upon to explain that she may have to earn her living, and she can equip herself more quickly in this way than in any other. A superintendent or principal who advocates the introduction of typewriting into the schools feels obliged to prove that it is due those who may have to earn a living.

The attitude of business men and school people toward typewriting must change entirely, and the time for such change is already here. Where one writing machine is used now there will be ten in use in the near future. The only trouble up to this time has been that business men, superintendents, and principals rarely use the machine personally and advantageously. The typewriter is a servant, a helper, doing what the proprietor would have it understood that he is above doing, whereas the difficulty is that he cannot do it.

As a Yankee, I venture the guess that in the not-distant future the ablest men and women in home and office, in hotel and train will use the machine. To-day, away from home, if one wishes typewriting, he pays a dollar an hour or more for the service, but soon every first-class hotel will have all the writing machines which their patronage requires in the writing room and free to all guests. Already every first-class new hotel has a long-distance telephone in each room and a man has its use at any hour of day or night at the same rate that he would pay if he went out and sought a "pay station." In the same way one will be able to say when he registers at any first-class hotel, "I would like a room with a writing machine." At first he might have to pay fifty cents a day extra, as he does for a room with bath and lavatory appointments, but that will soon pass away, as the extra charge for the bath is going. Already it is appreciated that a bath is as important as a washbowl, and so the necessity of the writing machine will be early acknowledged.

In a word, the future of typewriting is with the schools. Teach it as universally as you teach penmanship, not for the sake of the girls who are to be typewriters, but for the greater advantage of the boys and girls who are to be the leaders in social, business, and professional life; not for the purpose of helping a poor girl to be independent, but for making rich and poor alike independent. The time has come for a universal and emphatic demand for the writing machine in every upper grade of the grammar school, and in every high school, academy, seminary, college, and university. — A. E. Winship, in Normal Instructor.

Fake Exposed By Telephone

1903

Young Woman, Pretending to Be a Mute, Foiled in Her Game

A Poughkeepsie (N. Y.) telegram to the Philadelphia Inquirer says that a young woman giving her name as Delia Flynn called on several of the pastors in the city, posing as a mute and describing her pitiable condition with pen and pencil.

Chief of Police McCabe at that moment came in and began to express sympathy for the woman. Suddenly he stepped to the telephone and began an imaginary conversation.

"We have a woman here," he said, "who says she comes from Albany. We must know all about her history, as she cannot talk, or she must be sent to the penitentiary."

The woman, hearing this, made a dash for the door, and fought desperately to get out of the station. Chief McCabe took her into his office and questioned her.

The woman said that she had feigned dumbness in Albany, Troy, Philadelphia, and Brooklyn. She declared that she was compelled to beg for a one-armed man, Edward Burnett of Brooklyn, with whom she eloped from her home in Philadelphia when she was 16 years old. She is now 22.