The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1894-04-20
A cITY,;s BUSINESS PULSE.
How It's Rise and Fall Are Recorded In the
%elepho Exchanges.

How It's Rise and Fall Are Recorded In the
Telephone Exchanges.
Where is the pulse of the city's bust
ness to be felt and watched? On the
streets. in the Stock Exchange, the
board of trade, the hotels, the street cars
or on the docks? Not at all. Where
then? Why, in the telephone exchanges.
There you will see the pulse of city
/ life beating more or less feverishly all
through the "a hours of the day.
If you are interested in the subject
and get the right side of the general
manager, he will show you the Line of
life" of the city for a single day laid
out on a beautiful chart. 1t looks like
the profile of a mountain range cut cleTl
through the middle. The line shows
the number of telephone communica-
tions for each hour of the pa in the
same manner that the daily variations
of thermometer and barometer are
shown in the newspapers.
During the early morning hours it is
a gently undulating slope, almost a ia,
bleland. At about 6 a. m. it begins to
ascend, at 2 the ascent grows sharper
and by 8 the slope is steep, at 9 it is
precipitous, and between II and 10 it
reaches the summit of a lofty peak.
The general manager tells you what
the line means. In the middle of the
night and during the wee sma' hours
there is little telephone talking. Still
every hour there is always some. The
newspapers, belated clubmen and other
night owls provide it. Then, as the day
freaks, the market opens fire, and the
traffic creeps upward. A little later the
early birds of business begin to pipe
up. and the traffic steadily grows. Then
the rush down town begins in earnest,
in a short time every business Office is
in full swing, the pulse of the city beats
at fever heat, and a thousand telephone
bells are tinkling every minute.
The line jumps up the slope by leaps
and bounds, the operators rush in and
pull out plugs. turn down levers and
press buttons as if their very life depend
ed on doing Is separate things in FIVE
seconds, and each one could find work for
three pairs of hands and an equal num-
Der of mouths and ears.
Then, at about noon, the top notch of
high pressure is reached, and the line
drops down the other side of the peak.
Men 60 out to luncheon, and for a cou
pie of hours there is a valley in the
mountain range.
Everybody does not go out together,
though, and even between 12 and 2
there is not a very deep valley. Calls
is not the tremendous demand ON the
telephone that there was an hour OF two
ago.
By 2 O'Clock the line begins to soar
upward again, as if trying to Guido its
performance of the forenoon. People
are back in their Offices, and the pulse
of the city again approaches fever heat,
another peak begins to form, and the
summit is reached some time between 3
and 4.
Sometimes it oyertops the morning
peak, sometimes it is not quite so high,
but it always makes another rush
hour" for the operators. BY 4 O'Clock
peopio DeSIu 10 ~ uOHo, tuo ilue IL Oh
its downward course again, and this
time it drops down like the slope of a
church steeple.
Between 5 and 6 the telephone CON-
munications have subsidized from several
thousands per hour to a few hundred,
and the descent is still rapid. The great
or part of the operators are relieved
from duty, and in the course Of an hour
or two the great switchboard. from be-
ing a nervous p%alpitating thing of life,
necessarily receiving signals and max
ing signs, lazily winks n of its many
eyes every few minutes for the rest of
the evening and night.
1t never sleeps entirely. In the dead
est hour of the night, week day and
Sunday, high day and holiday, some
body has occasion to use the telephone,
and the pulse Of the switchboard, the
heart of the city's life, responds at all
times to the touch of a communicative
public.-Boston Globe.