WONDERS OF A TELEPHONE EXCHANGE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LVI, Issue LVI, 26 October 1908, Page 2

WONDERS OF A TELEPHONE EXCHANGE.

A PLACE THAT NEVER GOES TO SLEEP.

Thirty-six years have passed since | Gramham Bell, that great Scotsman, and a native of Edinburgh, invented the telephone, and tliirty-two since he showed the invention to the public for the first time at the Philadelphia Exhibition, and thus set half the world talking, made his name immortal and, incidentally, his fortune. Were you, however, to pay a visit to the London Wall Exchange, the greatest exchange in the world, you would find it hard to believe that so comparatively few * years have passed since the invention was made, and that but a dozen years or so have elapsed since the telephone came into permanent and popular use. The splendid and gigantic building, which, if laid out floor by floor, would cover over two acre 3 of ground, presents the appearance of an institution that has been in existence for a much longer period. As you go from room to room each with its hosts of, for the most part, girl workers, some receiving calls, some both receiving and connecting, some taking the country and longdistance calls, some standing in readiness to relieve those at work, some keeping the books and recording the calls, at first lieve those at work, some keeping the books and recording the calls, at first you imagine you have walked into some fairy land. The order and quiet that prevail, the incessant appearance and j disappearance of small electric lights, coming and going like momentary shooting stars in the night, and th© incessant talking of the operators in almost whispers to' what at a glance look to be but perforated -walls, certainly fill the place with a strangeness and mystery that is quite uncanny. ! It is truly one of the sights of London, and as wonderful as it is interest- ! ing, this vast building with its army of nearly five hundred workers, in which the lights are never entinguished, for like London itself, the Exchange never goes to sleep. Day and night, from one year's end to another, Sundays and general holidays included, it is very wide awake and very hard at work, the places of the young women who work through the day, as in all exchanges, being taken before nine at night by young men— for the telephone has grown to be looked" upon as much an everyday necessity as food or elo- j thes. It is in use in every London and provincial office and shop of any importance and size, and in hundreds c>f private suburban and even countty houses.

lhe .London Wall Exchange is controlled by the National Telephone Company, whose wires extend over an area of a thousand square miles, and wh>se subscribers number over 70,000. It is calculated that each of these subscribers gives on an average five calls a day of twenty-four hours. The call* coming in from the country and abc\>ai amount to 400,000, so that close upon a million calls are dealt with -laily. The system in vogue here, as for Ihe most part elsewhere, is what is calted the central battery. It is extreme! y simple, though it is to be doubted if even those who use the telephone every day know much about it. Ew.ry subscriber is aware that by simply lifting the 'phone from its rest, he automatically signals the Exchange that he wishes to call, ,and by replacing it on the rest signals that the conversation is finished. But here the average per son's knowledge of modern telephony begins and ends. In the first place the Londoi W ill ; Exchange contains three big operating galleries. One hundred operators sit j at each gallery, with a supervisor to each eight, standing behind. A single operator deals with the calls of as many as 200 subscribers. Two of toe galleries are devoted to the departure and one to the arrival "traffic," or in other words, two to the calls originated hy London Wall subscribers "fr.r subscribers either on the same or otßer exchanges, and one to the calls comjng into the London Wall Exchange to- its own subscribers. The opera+ats .fcal- j ing with the former are called "A," i and those handling the 'atter, ''B" i operators. ! The girls sit on long rows cpposite the galleries, or operatiug boards, which are studded with thnusauJj, of numbered holes, called "sp? ng jacks " The board or table beneath ihe springjack is fitted with a double i.«w ol plugs, a double row of tiny signal lamps, no larger than a bi^ bead, ai;d a number of small red bui+ons, each of which bears the number of an exchange. On her head the operator wears a head-piece fasten lug the 'phone to her ear, and on her bidu& a seit of breast-plate, to which the speaking tube is fixed, both head j^ttre and breast-plate being connected with the telephone wires beneath the operating table. fa j HOW THE EXCHANGE IS WORKED. Now, let us suppoße you are n I ondon Wall subscriber, that your number is 20, and that you, wish to bo put into communication with SO Civjiurd. As you lift your 'phone :o speak l)io lamp opposite your number as the f-x-change glows, and the "A" operator promptly puts one of a pair oi plugs into the hole, or spri.i^-jnck. This puts her in communication with you, and in accordance with the strict n-gu-lations of the marvellous Hisdijution, you hear her say: — "Num'jer, please." Then she presses a button markrd "Gr.," which calls up the "B" fjt-ra-. tor at the arrival platform nt the G<rrard Exchange, to whom she say a "30 London Wall," meaning that she requires 30 on the Gerrard Exchange for/ a London Wall subs..vi!)or The "B" operator at the Gerra-1 Kxubange then gives the London Wall operator a junction line — there are i nun.ljer cf lines between each exohau^o, caUel junction lines — telling her th« number of the line selected. If the nuinbo" is 6, the feondon Wall operator uc ence puts the second plug of the pmr into the spring-jack before her lrinrbul '6 Gerrard"; as she does so tho • Bl'B 1 ' operator at the Gerrard exoUaa^oputs a plug into a spring- jack nurkacl 30, and presses down a' button 1 hnt riuga thirty's telephone bell, an.l nt the same time lights a signal 'amp on the "A" operator's table at Londoi Wall, (Continued on page 3,)

On the commencement of the ccnvrisation the lamp goes out, un«J on Ibe termination of the conversati in, UgKs again. So the operator knows exactly when a conversation begins jiii<l <»ds. On the re-appearance of the li*;*"-. *be first registers the call by pres-mg down a button and then disconnects L-v taking the plug out of the spnig ;aHc The whole operation takes, as a rule, only thirty seconds to accomphsi, though in the busy part of the day, when an operator is receiving as many as twenty calls a minute, the connections are often given in a shorter tm-> THE TELEPHONE VOICE.

This then is the central battery .system, and thus you can be put in com munication with people not only all over the United Kingdom, but also m all Continental cities of any importance. A.ll the operators at the foreign sections must be able to speak at Tea.fc French and German fluently. Agam, all operators before coming into the Exchange must spend two or three months in learning what is called the telephone voice, or in other words, m learning to speak without being beard by the rest of the operators at the gallery, and yet quite distinctly by the caller. This accounts for the little noise that is to be heard in the Ex- ! change, where, although, as I have stated already, nearly five hundred people are always employed throughout the day, unless you are standing very close to* an operator, you cannot tell that she is speaking. But wondertul as is this department of the Exchange, there is another department more wonderful still. This is the observatory room. Two men sitting m this room with telephones to their ears can actually tell the speed at which an operator is working without her knowing that she is* under observation—indeed, can hear all she says to a caller. Naturally it is a hard place, that of a female operator, but all that can be done, within reason, to make her work as ligtit as possible is done. Every hour or two hours she is relieved for- a short time, when she may go into a large recreation room and chat and gos- j sip witli her fellow- workers, or look through the latest and brightest magazines and newspapers. Again, the pay ( is good and the holidays long. There- , fore, all things • taken into consideration, a girl should not complain, but, in these days of competition and small wages, feel grateful that she has found employment in so desirable a business house, and bless the name of Graham Bell as long as she lives.