Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1884-03-14
Telephones Said to Improve the
Hearing.
New Haven Register. ]

It appears that many people who
have telephones in their houses or places
of business. and Use them frequently,
find their hearing hettered. The best
testimony. however, comes from the
central office At each switchboard sits
an operator, generally girl, who from
morning till night haggles with I'M
reasonable subscribers and patiently
goes through the everlasting formula
till her head fairly rings with hello"
and "all right and go ahead" She
gets small pay for her trying work.
surely not sufficient compensation for
loss of hearing.
But her testimony is that her hear
ing is constantly improving When she
began this work she Numbered sadly;
now the ear is drilled to catch the
faintest sound, and her sense of hear
ing is remarkably acute 1t must he
noticed that the regularity of
this schooling of the ear is
largely responsible for the good
result If an operator were to take n
switchboard only one day in the week
and do all the work required on that
] VIC tI't NOl't tt'uptltSS Dt
/ detrimental, because it would be ex-
haustivc to both the muscular and nerv-
GUS makeup of the ear. The system
attic use of the telephone seems to de-
velope the hearing above its normal
acutcness, but does not made it techni-
cally abnormal.
One benefit from using the telephone
is evident to 10th subscribers and CEN
tral-oiiice operators. that of cultivating
the attention. a process which is reck
oned as tho third or intellectual method
of developing the sense of hearing. A
good share of tho difficulty which pco-
PIE find in working the telephone, comes
not from any defect ia the machine,
nor from any deficient hearing, but
from in:bility to fix tho attention on
what is heard This trouble readily
disappears by practice in listening
closely to what is said over the wire.
Indeed, the attention may be trained to
an abnormal development, as in the
case Of the head operator at the cen
trail Office, who has been in tho tele-
phon;ng busineS, for four years; she
has so accustomed herself to fix her at
tcvtion on tho machine before her and
to abstract her attention from her SIR
roundings, that when she is in her home
she often fails to hear when she is al
dressed by members of the family.
New York Dramatic Criticism.
Marie Prescott said to Detroit Times
man: II am convinced that had
brought out Vera in New York, with
out Oscar Wilde being there, it would
have been a pronounced success, and
aprlauded throughout tho entire coun-
try. But l starred Mr.. Wilde as much
Is J. starred myself, and conse luently
tho press attacked him and lett me
alone. Dramatic circles in New York are
rather apt to follows leader, and in this
case when The Herald and some of the
other leading papers printed adverse crit
icisms, the others fell into line. On the
night that Vera was produced at the
Union Square, Joe Howard, of The
Herald, was in tie box Office. Mr..
Howard is, am told do not know
him myself PERSONAL -a man of Justice
and good nature On that night he did
only what diplomat could do. and it was
done evidently with tho object that
should hear of it. He told Mr.. Shook
and Mr.. Collier, the managers Of the
Union Square theatre; Mr. Leo Lynch,
the treasurer, and Mr.. Cauzauran, the
stage manager, that he had received a
cablegram from James Gordon Bennett
directing him to slate Vera no matter
what its merits were. This was before
the curtain had risen on the first act "
what 10 you suppose was BENEFITS
reason for that?'
"Some gilt edged, high-tonetl sarcasm
which passed between him and Mr..
J Wilde in Europe. believe. At any
rate this conversation was repeated to
me by those gentlemen whose names |
have mentioned. and whose verasity l
would not question"