Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1904-01-28

talk with one of the victims of the dis
ease, who inquired after the news of
the morning and gave an order for
groceries That wife and mother was
shut in with her family, yet they were
not shut away from the world, and
could consult their physician at any
hour
The Telephone Prevents Crime
Vicious tramps, prowling thieves, and
passionate brutes, avoid localities
where telephones are numerous Such
as do break over this rule of common
prudence, are quickly apprehended
and brought to book. The farming
township of Cation, n. Y, has no
villages within its limits. Its ''four
corners" known by the descriptive
title of Cation Center, is eight miles
from the city of Corning. Until three
years ago the town was without tele-
graph or telephone connection. One
Sunday morning the Methodist pastor,
the Rev. Charles S. Shurger prefaced
his announcements with an exhorta-
tion in favor of building telephone
line from Cation Center to Corning,
and read call for public meeting to
further the project. The line was
built, and it has continued to grow un-
til its branches spread all over the
town, over thirty farm houses connect
ing into the switch at the "Center,"
and thence to Corning. A few months
ago a prominent citizen died, and
when Farmer Wood returned from at
tending the public funeral with his
family, the discovery was made that
five tubs of butter had been stolen
from his cellar. Thieves never steal
bad butter. He rang up his neighbors
in various directions, and finally locat-
ed two men with a horse and wagon
and five tubs of butter, driving towards
Corning, only few miles out from
that city. The police of Corning were
notified, the thieves were shadowed
until they began to market that
butter, when they were arrested. The
wide advertisement given to the
matter in the public press has proven
better protection to Cation cellars
and granaries thar any number of
bolts and padlocks.
If by these illustrations / succeed in
intensifying the telephone fever with
which, l am sure you have all been in
fected, you are to be congratulated.
Do not try to break the fever. There
is no cure for it. And / can promise
you IO podCO vi uulll you are
connected up'' with the rest of the
best people of this the best country
the sun has ever shone upon. But
avoid substitutions and make-shifts.
The man who is easily satisfied is al
ways imposed upon. If you live out
in the country five, ten, twenty miles
from your trading town, move your
farm right into the very center of the
village or city. That is exactly what
telephone service does for the farm err
By it his family is put into religious,
commercial, intellectual and social
touch with the best the city af7ords-if
they'll! have it so. And while the tele-
phone does not increase his tax rate,
it does give a farmer full command
and control of the markets, at home
and abroad. No longer can it be said
of such farmer: "He can not fix the
price of what he sells, and must pay
| the sellers price for what he buys"
The farmer with the telephone fixes
| prices before he starts for market
The poet Markham's pessimistic
picture of ''The Man With the Hoe,"
was only snapshot taken before he
was CONNECTED up.;' The very next
day that same man hung his hoe on
the wire fence while he went to the
house and rang up city potato buyer
and sold 750 bushels of potatoes for
ten cents more per bushel than he had
just been offered by passing buyer;
and then wisely added to the attrac-
tions of the farm by purchasing a fine
new buggy for his boy with the
seventyfivs dollars the telephone
earned.
Having decided that the telephone
is a necessity the question of how best
to get the service comes up. All
values are relative. The value of a
telephone depends, first upon the quail.
ity of the instrument, second, upon its
possible connections, that is to say,
upon the scope of its service. Ben.
jamin Franklin, having discovered
that "Time is the stuff that life is made
or" tritely advised against the waste
of life by buying "what you do not
want because it is cheap" This rule
applies to telephones and to telephone
service.
Something like five years ago built
seven miles of rural telephone line,
connecting up four country neighbor.
hoods in which I was interested. In
connection with the undertaking my
name got into the newspapers and the
Clipping bureaus" did the rest. 1 be-
came shining mark for telephone
catalogues from various parts of the
country, and as / read them,
found that each manufacturer claimed
that his telephones were better than
| the other fellows. Then it dawned
upon me that there was a difference in
telephones, and in order to get reliable
service must secure good telephones
learned that telephones selected hap
hazard would not work together
They must all be alike, not only or
each particular section of line or cir.
cult, but upon all circuits to be con-
nected together This meant that al
telephones must come from the same
factory. The way those rival tele
phone makers knitted each other was
surprising. 1t also was instructive.
thought the matter over. II did
not appear reasonable that telephone
"made to selp by such men, wo Id be
likely to measure up to one "made to
use' by the greatest telephone com
pany in the W rid. SO l concluded to