Best Telephone Service in the World.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 8358, 4 November 1898, Page 4

Best Telephone Service in the World.

I This is not a' description of a service in New Zealand, but it ought to be. We j, have to go to Stockholm to get what is described as the " most complete and cheapest service of telephonic commuuication in the whole world. 1 ' The system differs from that in use in England and in thebe'colonies in one very important respect —(here isadouhlo metallic line to every ruhscribcr, thus forming a complete circuit, and preventing induction and waste of current. By this means a message can he heard from the most distant place with distinctness, and there is not the faintest sound of other voices. This splendid service has another thing to commend it. A householder can secure ample communication for £2 a year, and the most expensive of the five tariffs is only £ 5 10s per annum. For the latter payment the subscriber is entitled to the free use of the wires in Stockholm, and throughout a radius of nearly fifty miles. There arc in force two distinct classes of service, and these agaiu arc divided into three grades. Thu managers nf this service, which, it may be stated, is in the hands of a private company, say that the system of graded tariffs has proved a great success, the lower charges having secured as customers thousands of persons to whom a telephone is a luxury which they could dispense with if it were at all costly. Another capital arrangement is what is called the " num. ber bureau." When it is desired to speak with a person whose name is not on the list, and whose number is not known, all one has to do is to be asked to be placed connected with the number bureau. In this department several operators are specially engaged to find out information of this kind, and they promptly make the necessary connection. This is not by any means a small service. There are over 16,000 subscribers, and duriug last year's exhibition 200,000 calks were received at the central exchange in one day. The staff consists of about 350 womeu.

Advertising is to business what steam power is to commerce.— Macaulay. On Sunday week over SOO Chinamen were prcscul at a church service in Greyiuoutii. •

I It is wonderful to think that the whole ' Soudan campaign — that is, all the military operations since 1896 — has only costi £2,600,000. This includes a yearly increase of £50,000 on the Egyptian War II Budget and £1,000,000 spent on Soudan ■ railways. For this million there are SUO 0 miles of railway to show. I think (says r the Timcs's correspondent) one may say it '■ is tho cheapest and best-done campaign on c record. ' The Cliristchurch butchers at a meeting t this week resolved to ask the auctioneers to make it a condition of the sales at Addington, that all fat stock shall be sold '. subject to a guarantee that each animal is 1 Jit. for human consumption. A butcher who had bought for human consumption j for £S a beast the flesh of which was condemned by the Inspector, was advised not 1 to pay for it, and the meeting resolved to J assist in defending any action by the seller ' to recover the amount. ' Litigation has taken place at Rotorua I over the celebrated stone " atua" or deified i image known as Matua-n-Tonga, which is : very ancient and is carefully preserved by the Maoris on Mokoia Island, in Lake > Rotorua. VVi Kepa, tho custodian of the r " utua " for the Ngatincnukukopako tribe, r on his death last year bequeathed the J image to Mcrenia Rapaira, a female ; relative, who claimed it as her sole proI perty. The other Natives of Mokoia « brought a case before the Stipendiary j Magistrate's Court at Rotorua, and . Lieutenant-Colonel Roberts has given judgment in .then' favor, it being under- [ stood that the affairs of " Matua-a-Tonga" . will he in future administered by a comj mittee, and that the revenue derived from exhibiting the stone to tourists shall be r divided amongst the residents of Mokoia J Island. l The present session of the New Zealand i Parliament(writes the New Zealand Times) r has been disgraced by a number of cases of . violent language, misconduct and abuse of - Parliamentary privilege ; but not until 1 this week has it been found necessary to , suspend a member of the House of Reprel sentatives for defiance of the chair. In j fact, the suspension of the member for ■ Motueka — surely the culminating incident • of a series that can only be recalled with a ■ sense of shame— is the first assertion of the : Speaker's authority in that form since the : rule applying to it was introduced six 3 years ago.. The one gratifying feature f about the deplorable incident at Thursday i night's sitting was the promptitude shown r by Mr Roderick McKenzie in tendering r his resignation to the Speaker. What does , the Times think about the manner in which ■ the resignation was withheld and tho susl pension withdrawn ?