Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1892-08-09
LONG DISTANCE TELEPHONE.
Tho Assistance 1t Has Proved to BE 4
Many Kinds of Business.


Many Kinds of Business.
A surprising feature of long distance
telephony is the remarkable amount Of
business that can be crowded into a very
short conversation. The fact that the COM
munication obtained is in actual converse
ton at first hand between the persons
most directly interested in the matter
under discussion is what renders the tele-
phone SO far superior to the telegraph for
very many purposes. Question and an
swer are exchanged Immediately without
the annoying delays incident to tele-
graphic dispatches. Propositions can be
made and commented on, modified or re-
jected in a manner quite impossible by
telegraph; in fact all the advantages of a
personal interview are obtained without
the expenditure of time and trouble in
volved in a journey.
Numerous instances could be given of
the number of business questions that can
be disposed of in a single talk over the wires
within the minimum time of five minutes.
Probably the best record is that where two
business men, one in New York and one in
Boston, discussed and settled four entirely
distinct affairs in one minute and half
Two of the matters dealt with involved
large sums of money, but the men were
able to lay their heads together, figur-
atively speaking, so well, although liter
ally they were so far apart, that it took
them but few seconds in each case to de-
eide on what should be done. 1t can read
lily be imagined how many kilograms would
have been required to do the same amount
of business, leaving entirely aside the
question of time, which is so often of first
Importance Every day cases occur where
the long distance telephone enables bust
ness to be done that the telegraph cannot
aid, and where the only alternative would
be a long and expensive journey.
For instance, not long ago a New York
man was notified that his draft on house
in a town far up in the interior of the state
had been allowed to go to protest, and in
order to protect his interests he was on the
point of undertaking journey that would
have kept him away from his office for
three days, when a friend advised him to
telephone to the bank that held his draft.
he did so Immediately; the bank informed
him of the state of affairs and recommend
ed IA lawyer in the town to take the job in
hand. He had an interview by telephone
with the lawyer and gave him instructions
to proceed, and the same afternoon the
lawyer reported that he had got out an at
tachment and that the draft would be fully
covered. The time spent by the New York
man over the affair might have been an
hour, and the total expense was for three
conversations one with the bank and two
with the lawyer, as against an absence
ing expenses amounting to forty or fifty
dollars.
The actual saving of time and money
is by no means the only recommendation
in favor of long distance telephone commu
nication. Often it renders possible the
transaction of business which could be
done in no other way, and many a time a
five minute conversation pays for itself a
thousand fold. To manufacturers having
their head offices in, New York, branches
in other cities and towns and factories
mewhere in the country the service has
become practically Indispensable. The
periodical daily talks between the chief of
the firm and the manager of the factory or
branch office place all their affairs so thor
oughly in touch with each other that no
manufacturing concern that has once
adopted the service to its needs would be
without it for single day We're the cost
twice what it is.
Bankers, brokers and lawyers form an
other large class of patrons, but 1t was
among the manufacturers that the long
distance telephone first caught on" and
they have steadily awaited themselves of it
from the time of its establishment as u
commercial means of communication.
Electrical Engineer.