The Washington times., 1937-01-09

1Cd, LIlS long QlS-
tance swi tch-
board room in- -
the City Of New Edwin o. hm
York.
AS the talk went out on wire
and air, 400 young women opera
tors, side by side at the block-long
boards, were calling Chicago, Los
Angeles, Seattle, London, Paris,
Cape Town, Sydney, Australia,
and a hundred other far-flung
communities around the curve OF
the earth.
Men and women all over Amer
lea were projecting their Christ.
mas greetings for thousands OF
miles in the space of seconds Of
time. A thrilling experience IN
work-a-day life.
And that experience moved me
to search back through fact and
legend for the inspiration Of the
telephone-so indispensable tn
our modern life. And here is the
first bit of curious legend I exca-
waited from the old books:
"AbOut the yeare Of Our Lord
1854, q wenche who came from
Gloucester, named Elizabeth
Croft, about the age Of Is yeareS,
stood upon q ScaffOlde, at
POuIe's Crosse, all the Sermon
TYNE, where she confessed, that
she, being moved by DIVERS
lewde persons thereuntO, had
upon the fourteenth Of March
last, before passed, counter
feited certain speaches in q
house without Aldersgate Of
London, through which the peO-
pie Of the whole city were won.
derfully moIeSted, for that all
men might hear the voice, but
not see her person.
UNSEEN SPEAKER
"SOme said that it was an
Angel, some said . voice from
heaven, and some the Holy
Ghost. This was called the Spir-
it in the Wall: she had lain
whiStling in q strange whistle
made for that purpose, which
was given her by one Drake;
then were dyverS companions
confederate with her, which
putting themselves among the
breasts, took upon them to in
terpret what the Spirit said ..
"The penance being ended
and the people satisfied, the Of
ficers Of the court took the
woman and shut her for q time
In the prison but after did she
return to her own country and
was no more heard Of"
Does our first hint of the tele-
phone lie in that ancient legend?
OF course, the principle of the
telephone has been known for cen
turieS and was first set forth in a
book published in 1909. It may
surprise the reader, but an eX-
perimenter named Hook began to
study the subject in 1861, and six
years later succeeded in trans
mitting sound over a wire. In
1921 Sir Charles Wheatstone, an
Englishman, conveyed the sounds
Of a musical box from the cellar
to the attic of his house.
But these early dreams, fasci-
mating as they were, came to moth.
ing, and it remained for the
father of the telephone, Alexan.
der Graham Bell, to give us the
worldwide network Of communica-
ton upon which civilization leans
so heavily. Dipping far into the
future, Prof. Bell INDUCED himself
only a little more than half q cen.
tury ago in vaccinations that
have been far more than realized
today:
at is conceivable that cables
Of telephone wires could be laid
underground or suspended over
head, communicating by branch
wires, with private dwellings,,
country houses, shops, manu-.
factories, ETC., uniting them
through the main cable with q
central office where the wire
could be connected as desired,
establishing direct cOmmunica-
tiOn between any two places in
the city.
"Such a plan as this, though
impracticable at the present
moment, will, firmly believe,
be the outcome Of the introduc-
ton Of the telephone to the pub
lie. Not only so, but believe
in the future wires will unite
the head offices Of the telephone
companies in different cities,
and a man in one part Of the
country may communicate by
word of mouth with another in