The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1911-11-07
WHY Do PEOPLE WRITE ANONYMOUS LETTERS
Fighting in the Open VERSUS Telephone
Wonderful Scientific Invention, but FIRE.
quently Source of Annoyance

while you take note of Mrs. Blank S
and wonder where on earth she gets
the money and resolve to ask Minnie
about it when the service is over.
After the service is over you and
| Minnie walk home together discussing
! Mrs. Blanks new hats and are SO en-
crossed in your cheerful surmises as
to the sources of Mrs. Blanks various
chapeaus that you ask each other to
dinner and continue the conversation
during the afternoon, and after you get
through with Mrs. Blank and have
hung what remains OF her on the line,
you take up Sal and Marguerite and
rags and tatters.
But it never occurs to you that per
haps Sal and Marguerite are spending
! the same time socially jabbing you
full of holes.
To return. however. There is an
other form of the anonymous commu-
nication on nearly the same plane
with that of the letter. And that is
the anonymous telephone call.
Why is that even your best friends
and casual acquaintances will indulge
/ in impertinences over the telephone
! that they never dare or dream Of
when meeting you face to face as
the patent medicine advertisements
and the editors of Kings Daughters
departments in womens papers say?
The etiquette of telephoning should
be formulated and put down in black
and white and pasted in every d.
rectory.
Why should people not remember
that your telephone may be down
stairs in the cellarway and that you
may be up stairs in the third story
/ hauling over things you are putting
away for the winter, and give you time
to get downstairs before they give it
| up and hang up the receiver?
Then after you have climbed up a
| couple of flights ring the bell second
time only to leave before you can
again get down.
Everyone doesn't sit at desk with
a telephone at his elbow.
After reaching the cellarway or the
summer kitchen, or wherever it is the
telephone is kept, it is exasperating to
hear in a loud, aggressive, insulting
tone of voice
who is this?"
Does it occur to the caller to remem-
Der that he is doing the calling and
should announce himself?
Even if you recognize the voice of
the person, and it may be he or she
whom you want, couldn't you be
little decent and say you would like
to speak to Mrs. So and So, or, Patty
or William or whoever it is you want?
Did it ever occur to you that you
might time your calls to the conven-
fence of the callee? If you eat your
dinner or luncheon, or under what
ever name it goes in your particular
household, at twelve, say, or half past
eleven, and are ready to begin calling
up people about one, you might re-
member that maybe they are eating
their luncheon at one and haven't time
versation while the "vittles' cool on
the table.
Is there any reason, in short, why
people shouldn't be as polite over the
telephone as they are when talking
at first hand? That is, if they are
polite at all. Some persons aren't
But the use of the telephone for
the same reasons that animate the
writing Of the anonymous letter is as
disgusting as it is contemplate. A
liberty is taken that the person would