THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE TELEPHONE. Otago Witness Illustrations.

Otago Witness, Issue 2805, 18 December 1907, Page 43

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE TELEPHONE.

Otago Witness Illustrations.

Just upon 30 years ago, in a New York hotel, Mr Alexander Graham Bell handed a pair of telephones to Sir William Preece, then leaving for Home after his first visit to the United States, after his appointment a« electrician of the British Post Office. They were the first carried to England.

— Bathgate, photo

Until combined with Edison's transmitter, the telephone, in the shape of Bell's invention of the receiver, had been a scientific toy. It was developed into a handmaid of everyday life. The gift ot the Scotsman, Graham Bell, to the Welsh electrical engineer in the service of the English Government was to open up a new sphere for the energies of the British Post OflSce. At the end of 1911 the telephone will be fully established by the side of the letter-boy and the tele-

/raph desk as an indispensable means of public communication, carried on by Government agency. Sir William Preece has been making another visit to America — his fourth, and a flying one. In a chat which the New York correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette snatched before he left on the Carmania the general intercommunication of ideas in electrical matters was the first topic to arise. " Engineers on both sides of the Atlantic," said Sir William, " are more like

brothers than rivals. I find here on all hands nothing but kindness in our common 1 profession. If the pace in Ameiica is rapid, the strides made at Home in the last few years are marvellous. The fact ' is that both countiies are keeping step. There is the same advance in invention ! and assimilation of methods, the same means of operation, the same apparatus. 1 If there is not the same general use of the ' telephone, perhaps that* is due to our national habit., and the backwardness may

in a few years pass away when tho first What chance was there, the pressman instinct of objection is overcome. I can j asked, of the automatic switchboard suptell you the whole difference in a nutshell, j planting men and women operators? — Here the two subscribers who are using ', "It has not come up to expectations, and the telephone make themselves part and j has been found impraeticab'e for large cirparcel of the system, and consider them- j cuits outside the central exchange, though selves as operators. If there is any diffi- |it might serve for a few party wires in culty they don't hastily discard the" whole j one and the same building. But so far no thing, but apply at once at the proper i mechanical device Ins been found capabk quarters for the defect to be remedied, and jof superseding the human agency where generally they find their wishes met. But i intelligence is required in transferring comwith us the subscriber, when he finds a munication." The stress on the telephone

delay, gives up in di.sgust. He ;ind the telephone girl regaid each other as natural enemies. "But ab iut t lie gpneial agreement m the methods of using the telephone there is no difference. In both England and America, for instance, it b.is become an accepted rule that the switchboard for 10,000 subscribers is the ultimate practic able unit of operation, and be\ond that the business of tiansmitting imssaircs cannot be biiccessfully conducted."'

i operator in times of crisis like a Stock hxchange panic, when the aveiage number of calls in an hour is largely exceeded, Sir William admitted, was severe ; but sucli occasions were exceptional, and the telephone's human medium could not be dit? pen&ed with. The rapid development of the telephoneservice in the rural districts of America in the last few years presented a new feature to S"r William Preece. The inter-urban electric tramways and the postal fiee de-

CWe purpose reproducing from time to time some of the pictures in the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, and we would remind our readers that the Gallery, -which forms a pleasant place of resort for country \i=itors as well as "townsfolk, has been established and is maintained by subscription, and deserves the support of ill. As there is still a considerable debt, we sha'l be glad to receive subscriptions in aid, either large or small. Admission to the gallery is free, and it is open every week day from rioon to 4 o'clock, and every Sunday from 2.30 to 5 p.m.]

livery in the Western States have obtained a new ally in the telephone, which i© connecting country towns and linking fari»house to farmhouse, and is in almost universal use. The rural voter, owing: to this instantaneous communication of news, is as well informed of political €vents and discuawoib as is the town dweller. The necet«ity for the politician to stump the country kh a protracted campaign is consequently much lessened. The Nebraska farmer ifr

.is well informed on the Roosevelt-Harrf-man controversy as the Washington orI Sew Yoik politician. In the rapid formation and expression of public opinion in> America on any question of the hour th» telephone has become an auxiliary (if thetirst importance. "Well, that** quite a new development,"*" Sir William agreed. "The telephone as »> political factor has another field before it*. but I hardly think the idea has taken any ' similar leal sation in England yet."