The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-12-26
Mr.. TYLER'S TESTIMONY
IN THE HEARING IN THE TELE-
PHONE CASE.

mony.
New London, Dec 25.--As soon as the
tinued Saturday morning Superintend-
ent Baker was recalled to the stand to
continue his testimony. His testimony
related solely to telephone equipment
The details &C the working of the CEN
trail exchange in this city were given
and he stated that a. manager, night
operator, four day operators, two OPP
eralor5 from until . p. m. and two re-
| lief operators were employed, On the
outside wok two repairers and ore in
spector were constantly in service. Es-
ti'nated that it would take two men to
keep the lines of the proposed company
in orde" if they had two hundred sub
! scribers, the wages paid them being be-
tween 800 AID 5000 per year. For an
other two hundred subscribers one adj
ditional man ould be requil ed. Spe-
cial men had to be employed lor cable
work. Could not he done by plNnlber
or ordinary linema,l. Taking Ledycrd
fyom New London exchange would 'ss-
sen cost of plant about $1,000. Adding
Montvile would increase cost of plant
about same am1unt.
Under cross xamination by Mr..
Whittlesey, Mr.. Baker said that fifteen
years ago iron wiz was used altogether
and had been gradually replaced with
copper wire, first with wire weighing
104 pounds to the mile, later with wire
weighing 172 pounds to the mile. 1t
was brought out that the plant had
been rebuilt twice once because 1t had
not been properly built in the begin"
ring and later in order to make inn
provements. He said that the South
ern New England company frequently
use the electric light and electric street
railway poles for their WireG. The cross
examination was resumed at the after
noon session and dealt solely with fur
Their details Of construction and main
tenance. At 3:45 o'clock Mr.. Baker was
excused until he could produce in court
certain figures on which estimates had
been made and which he said he would
bring into court at its next session.
Morris F. Tyler, president of the
Southern New England, was then called
to the stand. Mr. Tyler testified that
he resides in New Haven and is treas
urer of Yale university as well as presi-
dent of the Southern New England Tel
ephone company Had been president
of the company since March, 1888. Pri-
or to being president had been at one
time secretary of the company and lat
er secretary and treasurer, Had been
connected with the company since its
organization, which took place in Octo-
Der, 1882 Had been since 1888 the COM
pany's chief executive officer and with
two others, controlled the policy and
finances of the organization. Had all
the knowledge necessary to one in his
position. 1t was under his directions
that the underground construction had
been commenced, copper wire introduce
ed, pay stations installed and he had
framed the rules and regulations. Was
familiar with the construction of the
plant throughout the state, how it was
built and how it was worked. Here
Mr.. Tyler was asked by Judge Stod-
dard to give a history of the telephone
history in the state of Connecticut to-
gether with history of the Southern
New England Telephone company. To
this Mr.. Lucas objected on the ground
of irrelevancy, but the objection was
overruled and Mr. Tyler proceeded
He said telephoning was first intro
duced into Connecticut in 1873 in New
Haven, in charge of small local cor
poration called the New Haven District
Telephone and Signal company Imme-
diately afterward companies We're form
ed in Bridgeport, Hartford, Meriden,
and Danbury, and four
months later in New London, Norwich,
Stamford, Norwalk and New Britain.
The New Haven company secured con-
troll of all the companies in Connecticut
in 1879 and 1880. They purchased all |
the other companies for money The |
financial condition of the company was
so bad at that time that the stock was
worthless. In 1881 they had control Of
the entire state, comprising about TWEEN
ty exchanges at different places. Then |
they commencinb connecting the differ
ent exchanges by wire. Wire was small !
and the connections bad. This was due
to the imperfect construction. At this
time all the managers turned their at
tention to lettering the construction
and the service grew worse and bust
ness fell off. This was in 1885. Up to
that time business had increased stead
lily. About this time electric lights were
extensively introduced into Connecticut
and the company turned their attention
to finding an instrument that would
hold the heavy current. The Blake long
distance transmitter was discarded and
he metallic circuit and the present long
distance transmitter were introduced.
This brought the history up to the pres