The San Francisco call., 1898-08-14
SUPERVISORS
 ENGINEERING
 ANOTHER JOB Alleged Fraud in the Police Alarm. BUT ONE BID CONSIDERED NEW SYSTEM WILL BE THE SAME AS AT PRESENT. The $35, ,ooo Appropriated Is to Be Expended Simply for New Alarm
 Boxes and Elaborate
 Switch boards.
BUT ONE BID CONSIDERED
NEW SYSTEM WILL BE THE
 SAME AS AT PRESENT.

Is the Gamewell Police Alarm system, which has met with favor before the Board of Supervisors, the most efficient that can be procured for the various needs of the Police Department in communtcat- ing from the officers on the streets to those in charge of the various prisons?
 This is a question that seems to involve a division of opinion between the Super visors, the Gamewell Company and the City Electrician on the one side and the Hughes Company on the other, the lat ter maintaining that there are various de- fleets in the Gamewell system which it has overcome in many ways. In addition to this improvement the rival company claims to possess a number of additional inventions for decreasing the amount of time and the trouble with which the police officer on duty in the streets has now to contend. With the use of the ven trilophone, lately invented by A. c. Rob- bins, the well-known electrician of the Automatic Fire Alarm Company, it would be unnecessary for the officer on duty to take the telephone receiver from the hook in the alarm box In signaling to the sta tion for assistance. His only duty would be to turn the key in the box and the door, which works upon a spring, the moving of which sounds the alarm in the station. the answer being sent back from the officer on duty in the prison through the ventrilophone, thereby rendering 1t ab- solutely unnecessary for the officer in the street to attend to anything but his duty in holding his prisoner until the neces- sary aid arrives.
 By this system which has been proven a feasible one, it would undoubtedly be to the advantage of the city and to the Police Department to adopt it. But this the Supervisors have refused to do, and have absolutely ignored the request that the machine be investigated to it's merits demerits The Hughes Com pany claims that it has not received a chance to bid owing to the trickery of the Supervisors in prohibiting its machine being submitted in it's entirety for com plete examination before the board.
 The new GameweH system, after the $35 900 appropriation has been expended by the city in the expectation of getting something new will be identical with the old with the difference that the city will have deliberately constructed and nicely painted boxes for it's citizens to look upon, with no improvement as to interior elec- trical mechanism for facilitating the send ing and receiving of signals The general impression of the public is that if the city is going to eXpend S35, 900 to make an improvement in the present system it should endeavor to get something in re- turn for the money in the way of better facility and not merely an improvement in the shape and design of the alarm box and various switchboards
 The Hughes Company declares that 1t has been deprived from bidding for the reason that in the original resolution adopted by the Board of Supervisors a clause was inserted demanding that in the sample machines presented the. tele phone must be omitted. Under this re- Striction 1t was impossible for the com pany to contend with the Gamewell, as 1t would be absurd to attempt to give vention without explaining 1t in detail. and which the omission of the telephone