The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1905-08-25
BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER

BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER.
Copyright 1905, by Joseph r. Bowles)
Undoubtedly the telephone is a great
convenience. Whoever has had it in
the house would sacrifice many lux
uries rather than so without it. Time
and strength and lettcr-writing and
kilograms, and all sorts of minor dis
comforts arc saved us by this weird
contrivance. on the wall this mysteri-
Gus tube into which we speak; this
odd receiver which brings us voices
from afar. We want to talk with a
friend to ask after her sick husband.
or about her absent son; we are con-
fronted. by an emergency and obliged
to leave home suddenly, or unexpect-
ed guests arrive, and the dinner must
be nicer, with an added course or two
in every case the telephone is our
friend. Certainly we should hate to
do without it, this link that through
the power of applied science binds us
closer to our comrades on the road
1t is great convenience. and to some
Of us an indispensable necessity.
Take for example the woman's
club. How on earth could club
president, or secretary, or the Cnair-
man of an important committee, get
on and manage her work and COM
municate with her fellow members if
there were not the telephone? Every
body knows that club, however small
finds opportunity for endless discussion
and arrangement and rearrangeIlont
at other times than when in session.
The telephone makes this conference
possible and easy; it is boon of boons
to the club woman.
Once in a personal experience, once
only, and the incident lives in men,
DRY as startling, the telephone was
found successful in reducing the
amount of an eXorbitant gas bill!
Householders know how difficult an
enterprise this is, how seldom accom-
plished. On previous occasions letters
had proved abortive, and interviews
had found officials adamant, but the
talk over the telephone. a party wire
at that, proved imm ediately reassur-
ing. The percentage asked for was
granted; the obnoxious bill was re-
duced to its rightful proportions.
If you want a do;to: IN the dead Of
night, it is not now needful for the
man Of the house to Gyess and go hastir
ly out in the cold and darkness: the
telephone will ring a signal at tn
doctors head, and lie will rise from
his bed. tell you what to do, or come
himself in half the time it used to
take to get him to t.,I: patient. When
there is sudden illness in the home,
you cry blessings on the telephone,
and they are heartfelt.
And yet. it has it's drawbacks. There
Is tyranny of the telephone that has
done something to make life less sim
pie than it used to be. There are
moods in which one wishes she had
never seen, never heard, never touched
or handled the little affair which has
done more than any other single agent
to rob life of privacy and independ-
ence
We have often heard that mans
house is his castle. 1t is, and it isn't.
1t depends on whether he has tele-
phone.
You may bolt, you may bar, you may
lock at your will.
But the telephone demon will pounce
on you still.
No shutters exclude him. no key keeps
him back,
At the sound of the bell, he is here on
your track.
To cut off the service is the on1y
way to exercise the invisible imp WHO
disLurbs you at your meals, breaks in
on your prayers, and demands an in
slant answer to his summons with a
pcremptory haste, not unlike the old
challenge of the footpad on Hounslow
Heath: your money or your life!'
For instance:
You have decided to spend a day in
quiet retirement, withdrawn from The
world and its cares. You have planned
to admit nobody: you wish to rest
to relax, to let life's flood-tide refresh
you, since too much work, too much
talk, too much distraction of business
has brought your powers to the ebb.
In vain is your planning and precau-
tor. The telephone rings and you
take down your receiver.
Aunt Frances, Uncle Jonathan and
the children are on their way to spend
the day with you. They have just de-
cided that they can come to-day. and
will be with you about noon. Now
you love your kinsfolk. and Johns
too. You like Aunt Frances better
thar any other of Johns aunts. and
Urcle Jonathan is an ''old DEAR" The
children are Objectionable when YOU
have a headache and are tired; thew
arc stirring children. always on the
| rampage; always meddling; not well
| trained. or well-bred, and you would
willingly omit them from the pro-
gramme, but Aunt Frances is devoted
mother, who never leaves her brood
at home.
| To put them Off for a day would
| give offense, be misunderstood, and