Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-10-14
TELEPHONE TALKS.
New England Telephone and Tele,
 graph Co Publishing Expositions.

Apart from the inevitable
 trouble" in the intricate and sensi. tive equipment of central offices and in the extensive system of outside lines, overhead and underground, the telephone service occasionally suffers from the disturbances of the circuits or instruments on the subscribers premises. This kind of trouble" is difficult to locate, and so is specially annoying; but almost always it is perfectly aVoidable, being caused by unconscious carelessness.
 In one case when subscriber re- ported that he was unable to talk through his telephone at all it was found that member of the family had laid a pair of spectacles on top of the bell box of the instrument so that the steel bows touched against the binding posts to which the out side wires are fastened, thus cutting out both transmitter and receiver by closing the circuit before it reached them. Another subscriber declared that people who called him had been told They don't answer" when he knew positively that the bell had not rung at all. His difficulty turned out i to be due not to any failure of Cen tral' to perform her work properly, but to the fact that his wife had muf- fled the telephone bells while the baby took his nap and had forgotten to remove the muffler
 Inside telephone wiring is insulat- hCl with tha praatas.f aara ,aratoot it against dampness and to keep the wires separated from each other. It cannot be made proof against every thing though. Every now and then subscribers station" fails to work properly because some one stands | dripping umbrella where it saturates the telephone cord and spells the in- sulation. or a careless office boy does similar damage in polishing a desk set with liquid instead of with chamoiS leather. Leaky plumbing raises havoc with interior circuits every now and then. Here and there is a nervous person who has a habit of jabbing with pen the green silk cord of his desk set while he is tele- phoning. with the result. of course. that he eventually spells the insula- tion, which brings the wires of the circuit into contact and puts them out of commission. And many sub- scribers ''fdget" with the green cord when talking, twisting and bending it between their fingers till one of these days the copper strands inside break completely of.
 Considerable unsatisfactory ser vice is caused by subscribers attach ing 10 the telephone instruments de- vices of one sort or another that in- teTfere with its proper working Nothing should be fastened to the transmitter by screwing the mouth piece through it. for instance: that disarranges the adjustment. For ob- viOus reasons nothing should he stretched over the opening of the mouthpiece that puts an obstacle be- tween the voice and the diaphragm. The mouthpiece can be kept perfectly clean by wiping it out with a dry cloth: no liquid should be used.
 Carpenters, paper hangers, paint CTS. plumbers and other workmen, who. with the best intentions in the world. move the wires temporarily that they may better do their work. frequently either break the circuit in doing so. or injure it in their at- tempts to replace things as they found them. When it is necessary to disturb telephone wiring for any pur- pose. the company should be asked to send its own expert men. and it will save the subscriber loss of time and interruption of service if he will noti- fy his manager al once of any kind of
 trouble" SO that it may be traced and remeided as quickly as possible There is no charge for calling the ex- change office for this purpose. whetn- CT the call is made from a subscribers
 station or from public pay sta- tion-