Life — January 14, 1909 — page 23: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

our readers: Lire will pay one dollar fo ach contribution printed he above ti ts should not be over 400 words in length, d the source should be invariably given. The tire field of literature can be drawn upon. But contributors should bear in mind, as far as pos- sible, that the extract should contain an tdea wore or less complete in itself. Familiar quota- tions and epigrams are not desired. The Spelling Lesson UCH of my unassisted self, and more by M the help of Biddy than of Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt, I struggled through the al- phabet as if it had been a bramble-bush ; get- ting considerably worried and scratched by every letter. After that, I fell among those thieves, the nine figures, who seemed every evening to do something new to disguise themselves and baffle recognition, But, at last I began, in a purblind groping way, to read, write, and cipher, on the very smallest scale. One night, I was sitting in the chimney-cor- ner with my slate, expending great efforts on the production of a letter to Joe. I think it must have been a full year after our hunt upon the marshes, for it was a long time after, and it was winter and a hard frost. With an alphabet on the hearth at my feet for reference, I contrived in an hour or two to print and smear this epistle: “mi peEr JO i opPE U rk xrWrtE wE. i i sHAt soN B waBeLL 4 2 teeDce U wE_ suOr. p sO crOop aN pNotD_ 2 vu JO woT 1arX Ax NF xn PrP.” here was no indispensable necessity. for my communicating with Joe by letter, inas- much as he sat beside me and we were alone. But I delivered this written communication (slate and all) with my own hand, and Joe received it as a miracle of erudition. I say, Pip, old chap!” cried Joe, opening his blue eyes wide, “what a scholar you are! A’n't you?” “I should like to be,” said I, glancing at the slate as he held it: with a misgiving that the writing was rather hilly, “Why, here’s a J,” said Joe, “and a O equal to anythink! Here's a Janda O, Pip, and a J-O, Joe.” I had never heard Joe read aloud to any greater extent than this monosyllable, and I had observed at church last Sunday when I accidentally held our Prayer-Book upside down, that it seemed to suit his convenience quite as well as if it had been all right. Wish- ing to embrace the present occasion of finding out whether in teaching Joe I should have to ROUND THE $1425 WORLD Remarkable Four Months? Magnificent The Boston Travel Soctety Old World Journeys Boylston and Berkeley Sts., Boston, Mass. BERMUDA | 4g {THE IDEAL WINTER RESORT.” Only 45 hours from New York by frequent steamers of detec 8.8. Co, (29 Bway, N.Y.) Outdoor life, Yachting. bnving, Golf, Sea Bathing. Climate delightful throughout the Winter. "The well-known PRINCESS HOTEL NOW OPEN HOWE & TWOROGER, Mgrs, Hamilton, Bermuda, On November 3 the universal usefulness of the Bell System was shown as never before. mate, integral part of the election machinery. It was an inti- And by the time old Trinity Steeple chimed midnight the Bell Service had reliably informed farmers and house- holders throughout the nation that Mr. Taft was elected. HE returns telephoned by seven o'clock from election district to election district in I Erie County, New York, indicated by a rule the politicians follow that Taft had carried the State of New York. By eight o'clock the crowds in front of the news- paper offices knew it. By eleven the approximate size of the majority in Ohio was known. In the newspaper offices of the single city of Philadelphia, between 200 and 300 Bell telephone operators were announcing the bulletins to every | subscriber who “trang up."’ In thousands of newspaper offices over the coun- try, tens of thousands of operators were doing the same thing. In what other country could it have happened ? Comparison is futile. Yet asa telephone achieve- ment it only marks the passing point of progress | reached by a service which set out in the beginning to occupy the avhole feld of telephony. ‘The apparatus, the operators, the lines—the | whole equipment of the service simply measured up to the busiest hour capacity of the Bell Companies. | But it is an object lesson to those who are really interested in the development of the telephone to its point of greatest public utility. It emphasizes the value of federation in national telephone work—the necessity of co-operation, of | a common investment which provides an equipment, on a business basis, capable of carrying the country's telephone traffic at the busiest hour of the busiest day. ‘This cardinal principle which guided the original Bell Telephone Company remains the guiding in- fluence in the affairs of the associated Bell Com- panies, American Telephone There is an investment in the equipment of these companies to-day of about $60,000,000. The wonderful development which has resulted from this unexampled investment, which is being in- creased at the rate of over $50,000,000 a year, has given America the leadership of the world. ‘The press of other countries hold up the Bell Telephone System as an example of what the telephone systems in their own countries might become under proper management. The press of Paris has been agitated for some months over a “telephone crisis,"” brought about by the ‘extreme inefficiency" of the service, which is conducted by the Post Office Department. After much debate a programme has been an- nounced, calling for fve new telephone exchanges in Paris tocost $6,000,000, and cable work estimated at another $6,000,000, a period of four years being allowed for the execution of this work. An English telephone expert examined the work- ing of the Bell Telephone System during the present year, as compared with the system of England. “T venture to say," he wrote in The London ‘Times of August 12, 1908, “that ninety-nine out of one hundred business men in Great Britain would gladly pay fzwice the rates they now pay for trunk telephone calls if they could be assured of a service approaching the efficiency of the American service. Every subscriber to the Bell service becomes a member of a great, national telephone federation whose watchword is promptness; a brotherhood of quick communication which i3 the life of American civilization, Telegraph Company begin quite at the beginning, I said, “ Ah! But read the rest, Joe.” _ “The rest, ch, Pip?” said Joe, looking at it with a slowly searching eye, “One, two, three. W here’s three J’s, and three O's, and three J-O, Joes in it, Pip!” I leaned over Joe, and, with the aid of my forefinger, read him the whole letter. “Astonishing!” said Joe, when I had fin- ished, “ You are a scholar.” “How do you spell Gargery, Joe?” I asked him, with a modest patronage. “YT don’t spell it at all,” said Joe. “But supposing you did?” “It can’t be supposed,” said Joe. I'm oncommon fond of reading, too.” “Are you, Joe?” “Tho’ “On-common, Give me,” said Joe, “a good book, or a good newspaper, and sit me do afore a good fire, and | ask no better. Lord he continued, after rubbing his knees a lit- tle, “when you do come to a J and O, and says you, ‘Here, at last, is a J-O, Joc,” how interesting reading is!” . I derived from this, that Joe's education, like steam, was yet in its infancy Dickens—Great Expectations, About Money T! world is divided into two kinds of human things—those that have money and those that have none. But the latter are not human beings at all—they are either (Continues page 84) comicbooks.com