Romances and Tragedies of the Telephone.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLII, Issue 20, 19 May 1909, Page 43

Romances and Tragedies of the Telephone.

TRAGEDY, comedy. farce., tears, laughter, love messages — every- expression of human emotion flows daily and nightly Over the telephone system of Chicago. The operator who sits at this great ear of two million people hears raanr ft range apd oftimes terrible thing'. While the rule of secrecy as to names is maintained, some queer things .ire told by the telephone officials, a few of which are related here. It was about midnight a few years ago when a general fire alarm rang through the city and the fire engines dashed wildly through the streets to the rescue of a great factory building that was blazing in the loop district. The building was doomed, for the alarm had come too late. The night watchman, the only living soul in the place, was eaged in an upper room. The Sanies roared angrily all about him. cutting off every means of escape and rendering the desperate efforts of the firemen futile to effect a rescue.