WIRELESS TELEPHONY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLVIII, Issue 10943, 15 June 1927, Page 6

WIRELESS TELEPHONY

"A TALE OF TWO CITIES." There was a small but amusing mystery about the inauguration of the new wireless telephone service between London and New York recently, writes the London correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian." What took place was, in fact, as prosaic as possible, the Secretary of the C.P.O. merely ringing up the president of the American lelcphonc and Telegraph Company and exchanging with him some official congratulations. This took place in the recesses of the Post Office, and was altogether as humdrum and automatic as possible for a historic event. One or two newspapers were not content with anything so dull. We were all told that the first sounds heard by New York were not those of an official's voice, but the chimes of St. Paul's "indicating that it was a quarter to two in old London." A girl operator in the Post Office, tho report ran, put a line through to a 'special telephone fixed in the south tower of St Paul's and rang up the New York exchange, so that the operators on duty there heard the great bells' booming over London. This was all very nice, but earnest inquiry, both at the Post Office and at St. Paul's, could obtain nothing so dull as confirmatiion. The Post Office heard the "news" with interest. The head verger of St. Paul's was even a little indignant, for Dean Inge and the other Cathedral authorities have been getting inquiries about it, and photographers have been up to take pictures of the special installation. It is a pitv that public events so often refuse to live up to the picturesque. One may guess at the germ of the .story. It'is true that one quiet Sunday afternoon, when they were experimenting at the G.P.0., the door of the cabinet was left open and the bells of St. Paul's, which under those condimitted faintly to New York. It is even possible that the bells of St. Paul's were heard in America, but by accident, not design.