Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1906-08-13
The Telephone Used
IN Many Novel Ways
How Operate Dragon Is Managed by Wire--The
Enterprising Red Man and the Talking Machine.

ably the queerest was the interior Of
the dragon used in a performance of
Siegfried in New York The Wagner
opera calls for an animal that will
spit fire and snort in3-4 time, but the
best the stage managers have been
able to do as rule is to prevent the
living beings impersonating the dread
full beast from prancing into the midst
of the orchestra or backing into toe
blonde heroine and causing her to
stop her noise.
The night in question the opera
was put on without rehearsal, and
fearing the monster might do some
thing worthy of his reputation the
stage manager hit upon the idea of
telephoning the two boys inside how
to act. A line was carried from the
Bell switchboard in the Metropolitan
opera house to the dragon. Receivers
such as the girls at central" wear
were attached to the occupants of the
horny tenement and-the stage man
ager did the rest AS a result, the
dragon behaved so creditably that
some of the captious critics suggested
a similar method of operating singers
accustomed to act like wooden In
dams.
It's far cry from New York to
Seattle, but speaking of queer places
containing the ubiquitous instrument
which DR.. Befl invented, the station
found by tourists in the wickiup Or
wigwam Of Running Ned an old ST.
wash Indian, who lives in a village
just outside the northwestern metrop-
oils, is a close second to the Wagner
ian dragon. 1t is a case of extremes
meeting. The Indian is one of the
few survivors of a powerful tribe that
once ffShed and hunted along the
shores of Puget Sound, and mis- wig
wan in nothing more than a contrap-
ion made Of bark, gunny-sacks and
CASTOR pieces Of sail, surmounted by
lot of f1attened old tin cans that
pass for a roof, but in spite of the
primitive nature of the premises there
is telephone inside. The tourist is
on the point of turning away with the
thought that the redskin is surely
back number when, presto!the scene
! is entirely changed by the familiar
ring of the telephone bell; and bare
footed squaw drops her papoose or a
rakish buck puts down his long pipe
and enters the wigwam to converse
with one of Running Ned's salesfen
| in town. For the old warrior is
dealer in wickerware, and when it
comes to quoting prices, and taking
advantage of the ups and downs of
the market, he is as keen to appreciate
the value of the telephone as any
frenzied 1nancier in Wall Street
But, after ALL this is nothing in COM
parison with the common use of the
telephone on the Indian reservations
to the south. More than 800 Sioux
braves in South Dakota alone are
/ officially recorded as subscribing to
! telephone service at the several agen-
/ cies. A good many of the aborigines
/ still speak the language of their ances-
tors when conversing through cen
trail" which illustrates the saying that
the telephone is the companion OF
/ polyglot.
installation of the telephone system
two-thirds Of a mile underground III
the Wolverine Minis, near Calumet
| Michigan, so that nowadays it is pos
s;ble for the president of the company
owning the mine to converse directly
from his New York office with the
superintendent of the gangs digging
/ Of L. Of ,-Al,
more than a thousand miles away
In cities telephones are found in
public schools, and the latest use Oh
the public school telephone is to aid
in the instruction of children whose
hearing is poor. This is a project in
which by the way, Professor Alexander
Graham Bell has been interested
since his youth. 1t first proved success
flu in an institution Off the deaf at
Rochester, New York, and now the
board of education of Cleveland, Ohio
is giving it a trial.
The telephone in the painless woods
which keeps the lumber camp officials
in touch with the more or less distant
markets, any which incidentally is the
means of saving life and property by
transmitting messages IN time to
prevent the big jams that formerly
were the bane OF the lumberman's
| life, and the telephone on the lumber
raft going to market on the tortuous
| streams of the middle west, these
have now been increased by the tele-
phone in another wilderness-in the
arid lands which the government is
retaining in the West. The first thing
the United States reclamation service
did when It recently took up irriga-
ton work in Strawberry valley, Utah,
was to put in a telephone system. The
reason for putting the telephones in
first in that they will make the work
80 smoother and faster.
Next door TO the lumber camps. in