NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11857, 8 January 1902, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

The use of the telephone for other than conversational purposes is not altogether new. The well-known Buda PestH telephonic news service has already been described in these columns, and the telephone has also, been used to send the time ■ to distant ; points, and in connection with the 1 , fire-alarm service. ;- Now one of .the largest exchanges in America, the Cuyahoga, : of , Cleveland, ! Ohio,. has established '; an information bureau, which, although it has been working I only , six months, is reported to be remark- | ably successful. The following is a description of this enterprise: " The information bureau now at the Cuyahoga exchange is fitted up expressly for the purpose. It is | apart from the main exchange, and it is provided with a very complete reference library. There are encyclopedias, dictionaries, Handbooks, time-tables, geographies, histories, works of law. and medicine, religious reference books, directories of Cleveland, and many other cities in fact, a list of books which might in any way contain the answer to any question likely or un- | likely to be propounded. Questions are j written out as they are asked, with the I telephone number, and address of the inquirer. Sometimes they can be answered at once, but frequently the reference books must be referred to. Often the operator is obliged to call up someone who is likely to be familiar with the matter in 'question, and frequently it is necessary to enter ; into correspondence with parties in other cities before the information can be obtained. '-:.':.: Sometimes questions T are asked which are clearly outside the province of the bureau, and in such cases the inquirer is referred to someone who is likely to: be able to furnish the desired information. ';: Of course, the majority of questions are concerning matters of common occurrence. I. People want to locate parties in or out of town, to learn addresses of business houses or manufacturers of certain articles, time of arrival or departure, of trains, best routes to given points, what the weather is likely to be, postal rates, ; etc. The location of fires is a frequent question, and the most common during the summer time is concerning the ;baseball score; in fact, this is sometimes asked a hundred times a day, and the operator never keeps any record of this question. Sometimes the questions are silly, and these are discouraged, sharply: and sarcastically. , The bureau is for public information, but at first starting the funny man was much in evidence, asking such questions as ' Can a man marry his widow's sister,' but a few sharp turn-downs were effective.. The questions are., now more reasonable, although many of them are extremely difficult. Among the questions asked in a single clay recently were the following : Will money. lost in a registered letter be refunded by Uncle Sam? What is the average number of tons of coal consumed on a voyage by an ocean steamer? v In What county is Glastonbury, England? f What are the" necessary preliminaries to become a notary? 'Is there any law to prevent a President from holding a third term ? " : ;What is - the greatest: and 'average depth of Lake Erie? ■ How much does a cubic foot of gold weigh? "'What is the cost of a.: copyright? How old is Olga Nethersole? Will the people of Cuba vote for the President of the United States? What was the cost and displacement of the steamers Great Eastern and Celtic? -To what countries do Greenland and Iceland belong? ', What is the total valuation of the world? May, a man

shoot rtfbits on his own farm? y How to* ; .;. is it tojheaven? (This is.from a funny, man [Are stamps required '. on a letter to ; the Wife House? Is there any clause in . the Corftitution permitting a woman to become president?" ' . " ■ / -——"■ r-> , • - PrJ>ably the . most important action//,-/ take?' in the United States, in regard to /';'■;/ orthography was that of -the National'" Educational Asocial when it formally adapted for use, in all its official publico* tions a simplified spelling for these twelve '. ; " wevds—program, tho, altho, thoro, thoro* ',;:' fa/e, thru, thruout, catalog, prolog, decaleg, demagog, pedngog. From this, an<J . ' . ; from the subsequent employment of thesa forms in various periodicals edited by mem* vbers of the association, Professor Brander "- = Matthews argues in the International -/* Monthly that a sot remote.future will see a\decided change in orthographic stand- ; : ar<s. He says .-of the. simplified ; spellings ; mentioned:—" They are very likely to appears with increasing frequency in the i "■ schoo. books thay. members (of the N.E.A.) M may hereafter pespare; and any simplified : spelling that onc'f gets itself into a school hook is pretty site to hold its own in the future. After in interval of 10 or 15 years, tin Natioial Educational Association will )>e in a'.position to consider the situation again; Ind it may then decide • : that i these 12 wds ' have established " ';• themselves in ther new form sufficiently ; widely and firmly to make it probable that the association , coutl put forward another list of a dozen mire • simplified spellings* ' with a reasonable' certainty that thsy would also be accated. And thus the '§ good work would & on, gaining a little "'. in every decade." I Professor,' Matthews , says, however, that here are,a good many people in the Unitii States who hold to the "ignorant belie; that a word gains dignity by needlessk increasing the number of its letters."! In illustration he makes reference to the , invitations issued to the opening exercises of the Pan-Ameri-can , Exhibition at juffalo, as follows: M " More. than one nevspaper; commented on the V fact that ; the commission requested the honour of thdr guests' company, whereas it is the amost universal usage of Americans to spjll this word without the ' u'; and the newspaper writers asked what might be the pason for this strange affectation on the jjart of the Buffalo gentleman. This [affectation, indeed, ■'' seemed doubly stran|e on the part of the managers of an American exhibition, since honour is recognised at once as an orthographic Briticism. probably , the commission'had more important matters to con- - sider than any queltion of spelling, and the anachronism—for, such the insertion of the .' u' in words ending in , ' or' cannot but ///N seem to us who dwell on the Western shore of the Atlantic due to the snobbishness of the engravers of the invitation." ' - This, and other British orthographic "anachronisms," he goes or. to say, have been increasingly visible hi American books since the passage of the Copyright Act of 1891, not because we have any desire ~ to abandon the various simplifications of spelling generally adopted in' the United States, but because thai; Act made it necessary for a book to be set up, in type here, if it was jto claim the protection of . ~(M our courts. "As many:. books were not, ' : worth the cost of double composition, tie plates necessary for the American edition j ' served , also for the British, and. were made' .'„•) to accord with the British notions of ortho* graphy rather than with the more advanced and more sensible American practice." , ' : ■.■„■■■ ...,,;/-; : ': : ;.-»•;' .// .;/" /■" ■ ,! ';'■■''/■■"''///<///il|§|l |«, Is the automobile a plaything or a serious ' j factor in the problem of transportation ? Of L course there is no reason why, like its pre- v decessor the bicycle, it should not be both,; ' but it is quite possible that just at present ' j automobilism as .* a: ; sport is occupying tha 1 I public attention to the detriment of auto, ■ ■' I mobilism as a business. * This view of the j situation is taken by the Electrical World -: I and Engineer. After premising that the % subject seems a proper one for an electrical .-; journal to discuss on account of the success. of many of the electrical types of machines* it goes on to say:— are strongly in* clined to the opinions, first, that automobilism is not properly a branch-of sport, but. : . a part of the far. more ;■ important ! business of transportation: in r general, and, second, that in so' far as it can be considered as a 1 sport if is starting out along lines that are . ; x objectionable and likely to bring it into ill - f repute. We believe heartily in the future -\ of the automobile, and that it is destined to replace animal traction to an extent which "« can as yet scarcely be realised. But we If! likewise believe that the automobile is a i vehicle destined for work and for pleasure rather than for the race-track, and it is destined to replace the truck" and > the cab " and the trap rather than the sulky. Eor ; this reason we earnestly deprecate speeding as an important part of its early .development. . The electric automobile has more -U than once held up its end even in such trials,:; , ' ■ :.-■!. X ■ - . . . . ' but as a serious practical business, an im- H portant factor in urban transportation, the : * electric hansom or delivery waggon. is far more worthy of consideration. The great work in hand is the displacement of animal flfp by mechanical traction, and to this the j energies of inventors and manufacturers" ';>! should be bent."