Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1906-08-13

stretching from the Alaska gold
mines to the budding cities of the
frigid zone; and, on the other nand,
the Bell company on the Pacific coast
slope is gradually extending its serYlc
North through British Columbia.
The telephone serves the numblest
missionary as well as the Pope of
Rome. Plus X is the first of Roman,
pontiffs since the Italians took Rome
who has had any direct personal reIa-
tons with people outside the papal
domain, and these relations he has
maintained through the telephone.
The telephone in American churches
has long since passed the point of
bringing the preachers words to the
deaf and of being the means of dis
seminating general information. Now
adays it has its part in the philan-
thropic work done by church guilds
Besides, several preachers make a
speciality of having their sermons
transmitted by long distance wires to
distant cities, serving two or more
congregations at the sametime.
From church to church-yard is only
a step, and the same ubiquitous IN
strument that plays its part in calling
the minister to bless the marriage
VOWS also calls him the nearby
chapel to pray over the dead. Nearly
all the large cemeteriesin metropoli-
tian districts have telephones.
A Philadelphia doctor, who, evident
leads the strenuous life, has a tele-
phone not only by his chair when he
is eating and by his bed when he is
sleeping, but by his bath tub when ne
is refreshing himself in the morning
His explanation of this curious piece
of enterprise is that re used to be
bothered so often by calls while ne
was engaged in allowing his fancy to
transform the enameled tub into a
pebbly beach, and he found it so trou-
blesOme to dash out and put on his
bathrobe and answer the telephone
and plunge back again, that he de-
cided to have his telephone always
with him when ne was in the house. =.
The man who orders lamb chops
and telephone as he seats himself
at the restaurant table, and calls up
his friend as soon as the connection
is made with line in the wall nearby
is likely to be the same man who calls
his barber and his bootblack by teIe-
phone. In these up-to-date days the
bOotblack stands and barbersnops
conducted by progressive managers
are equipped with telephones. The
telephone has even entered that off
shooty of a fra-off land Familiarity
known as Chinatown. In San Francis
co, previous to the disaster, there was
a flourishing Chinese exchange, and
in New York, which has the biggest
Chinatown in the East, practically all
the large oriental merchant houses
are subscribers to the Bell service.
In some modern buildings the tele-
! phone goes up to dizzy heights in the
| elevator. thus furnishing a ready
means connection in case of acci
| dent, with the engineers working
three or four stories below the surface
| of the street and the telephone and
the builders flag go up IN company
with the steel skeleton of a skyscrap-
er. AS fast as the framework ascends,
the telephone line is heightened IN
order to maintain communication be.
tween the worlzmen and the super
intendent in his Office below.
A telephone in a stand-pipe was a
novelty that attracted considerable
attention in a southern city not long
ago. 1t was necessary to paint the in
| side of the stand-pipe, which was about
| 200feet high, and the workmen de-
cided to use a raft, which as the
water was let if or out was lowered
or lifted. The question arose as to
how the engineers in the power house
we're to know when to admit or with
draw the water, and finally it was de-
cided to install a special telephone
service which would enable the paint
ers to signal for more water or less.
The scheme worked capitally.
Putting telephone into a wireless
| telegraph station is something like
carrying coal to Pennsylvania, but
| that is what the government has done
| in some cases for the purpose of keep
| ing the wireless experts in sure touch
with the various army posts and navy
| yards Wireless messages VIGOROUSLY
go astray, but the telephone is more
secret in its work. If it were not, the
government officials at Washington
from the president down, would not
be numbered among the Bell subscrib-
ers.
The use of the. telephone in ways
and places which seem strange to the
ordinary subscriber is an evidence of
how essential the invention has be-
| come to all sorts and conditions Of
men. To keep up with the increasing
demand for service, it is necessary to
supply to the Bell companies alone,
new instruments at the rate of $500
sets a days In the first six months of
tbic voor +ho +O-aT -1t1nhnr of inStrn.