The Argus (47)
full text
The required connexion is at once made-we shall explain in what manner presently-and then the two interlocutors can converse as easily as if they were sitting, opposite to each other in the same room. And so far as secrecy is concerned their conversation is even more secure from listeners than if they were closeted together in the same office. There are not a few houses of business that have traditions of important trade secrets having been betrayed by clerks who had contrived - by means of a carelessly closed door or a convenient keyhole-to learn secrets which could be sold for solid sums of money.
But to a telephonic exchange subscriber no such mishap can occur, for as we have said, once the connexion between the two speakers is made, the central operator knows absolutely nothing of what is being spoken through the joined wires. And it is equally impossible for anyone else than the person to whom it is desired to speak making use of the telephone at the other end for, as every one who has over used a telephone knows the most delicate inflexions of the voice can be distinguished by its aid, and it is as easy to recognise the voice of the person who is speaking to you telephonically as it is to do so when conversing face to face in the ordinary way. And, indeed nothing would-apart from the vocal safeguard we have just mentioned-be easier than to make use of a password, so as to effectually prevent any possibility of an unauthorized person using the office telephone, or again, it would be simplest and best of all to keep the instrument under lock and key.
It is almost superfluous to dilate on the enormous advantages and the great saving of time and cab hire which so easy, safe, and simple a means of intercommunication offers to business men, for as a Frenchman would say the advantages of a telephonic exchange, the system once explained, are fairly sautent aux yeux. Any one in business has only to reflect on how often when he has wanted to speak to his lawyer or his banker or some other firm he has jumped into a cab and driven a mile, only to be told that 'Mr So and so went out not two minutes ago.' and how he has had to hunt for Mr So and so for an hour or more. Of course had a telephone been available he would have asked his question and received an answer in less time than it took him to drive to the office he arrived at a few seconds too late.
Let us now see how the necessary work of connecting the two subscribers who wish to converse at the central office-or as it is generally called in England and the United States the exchange - is carried out. All along one side of the exchange room are a number of small frames, each frame containing five or six rows of small metallic discs about the size of a half crown. Before every frame sits an operating clerk with a 'switching' apparatus on a table in front of him. When a subscriber-say No 23-deaires to be put in communication with another subscriber he acts in the way we have already described and this causes the little disc corresponding to his official number to fall down on a hinge, thus notifying, the operating clerk who it is that desires to be 'connected.' On learning the number the first speaker wishes to be put in communication with the operator instantly works his 'switchboard' and joins the two wires so that the respective subscribers are at once in telephonic communication with each other at the same time ringing a bell in the office of the subscriber called for.
This switchboard is a somewhat complicated, although highly ingenious, machine and it is not very easy to describe it without a diagram. It may best be com- pared to the points at a large railway junction. Just as trains are switched by the movement of the points from one line of rails to another so is the electrical current switched from one line of wire to another.
The history of telephonic exchanges in the country where the telephone was first invented-the United States-is somewhat curious. When the idea of establishing telephone exchanges first cropped up in the States, two rival companies - the Graham Bell Telephone Company and The Western Union Telegraph Company, who use Edison's telephone-both set to work to establish telephone ex-changes in every town of importance from Chicago to New Orleans, from Philadelphia to San Francisco. A subscription of £15 to £20 per annum was charged by each company but although the commercial public of America eagerly took advantage of the new exchanges the companies did not make money, because they-to use an Americanism-mutually cut each others throats. There was plenty of room in the majority of American towns for one telephone exchange but in very few was there room enough for two. However about a year ago the two rival companies saw the error of their ways and very wisely coalesced. Since then they have been doing well.
A telephone exchange was established in London rather less than a year ago, and it once proved so great a success, that a London journal, the Pall Mall Gazette, expressed some considerable anxiety as to the danger during storms to passers by, which might arise from the number of new telegraph wires which were being stretched across the streets for the accommodation of subscribers to the new exchange. We understand that, as far an can be settled at present the price to be charged to subscribers to the new Telephone Exchange will be £4 a quarter. The price, how- ever depends on the arrangements as to the erection and maintenance of wires and posts which are definitely agreed upon-as they will be very shortly-between the promoters of the new enterprise and the Postmaster General.
It may interest our up country readers to know that a telephonic exchange can be worked more cheaply in a small town than in a large one. This at first sight seems like a paradox-it being well known that most businesses can be more economically worked on a large than a small scale. The explanation is that in a small town a merchant has not occasion to send one fourth of the messages that one in a large city will require to forward, and therefore, in a large town, where a great number of connexions have to be made daily a comparatively much more numerous and consequently more expensive, staff must be employed than is requisite in a small town.
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