Omaha daily bee., 1908-11-29

operated through a mutual management
among the persons deriving benefit from
1t. This system is primarily for tile bene-
fit Of the owners. revenue being an incl
dental factor. The other is the indepen-
dent farmer or rural line, 1t embraces all
lines having no regular exchange or CEN
trail office. The rural telephone line usu-
ALLY consists Of one or more circuits strung
through a sparsely settled rural district
and connected with the various farmhouses.
These rural lines frequently are operated
in a simple and inexpensive way on a
grounded circuit for which barbed wire
fences are sometimes used. There is no
elaborate apparatus Of any kind, but the
means used are amply sufficient for all
purposes of COMMUNICATION. Often these
rural systems are connected in some man
ner with a mutual, or a commercial city
system, and the farmer is thus enabled to
make extended telephone communication
At present there are fully 1000 of these
mutual systems in the United states, with
about $4,000 miles of wire. The extent in
which they are used may be judged from
the fact that the annual number OF mes
sages or talks on the mutual lines alone Is
now approximately 2OO,0OO,ooo, at least 49,
900 OF which are long-distance calls.
Motors and Mail.
Especially in the west and southwest
has the automobile come to the rescue or
the farmer. 1t is indeed a poor country
town that cannot muster half-a-dozen or
more Of these machines. often they are OF
a type not seen in the cities. high wheeled
and buggy-built, but they get over the
ground Just the same and answer the pur-
pose. Automobiles are nowadays a com
mon sight aboard flat cars on the railroads
and they seem to trundle out to the middle
western and southwestern states by the
trainload. with the annually decreasing
cost Of reliable runabouts of many makes
the automobile is destined to be a very i'm
portant factor in the civilization of both
the deserted and desert spots of the earth.
The fourth agency which is giving the
death blow to, isolation is the rural free
mail delivery. 1t is no longer necessary
to wait for days or weeks to receive ones
letters or newspapers or send the mail
until a visit has been made to the post
office. That wayiis archaic in many rural
sections now, ard will be gone In all, or
nearly all, of them soon. Bad weather or
good weather. over level roads or mountain
roads, the mail is brought right to the door
daily.
So 1t is that these four factors are over
coming that dreadful isolation which has
long brooded over many a rural district,
causing many a depressing trouble, and
often many a fatality. People by nature
are social beings; they long for companion
ship; they ache for society. The pleasures
OF solitude may be pleasures as a change,
for the time being. from the turmoil Of
crowds, but too much Of a dose OF 1t is a
melancholy thing. The mind gets be-
numbed, sad. and ~stagnant. Human nature
rebels against an excess OF solitude. This
is one Of the reasons why so many OF our
rural population ave been flocking to the
already ov~ercrowded cities. But 1t is likely,
row that the isolation Of rural depths is
being vanquished, that the tide will set in
the other way. to the resulting health, COM
fort and happiness OF our people.-New
York Post.