Life — November 19, 1914 — page 39: what you’re looking at

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

Lr TRE How the Public Profits By Telephone Improvements KEEPING UP WITH THE FASHION HOW THE TROUBLE BEGAN He Had Learned One Thing HERE was once a man who de- veloped a system of resenting criticism. In order to do this it was necessary for him to become a_phi- losopher. The reason why he had to become a philosopher was because, in order to resent criticism effectively, he had to analyze it, to divide it into classes, in order that he might parry it, and discover also the best way to resent it. When, at the end of ten years, he had arrived at the conclusion that there were only two classes of criticism—namely, the direct and in- direct—he discovered that in each instance the best method of resenting them was silence. In this method he became an expert. oat’ emtie and Sriuge ia good Old Overholt Rye “Same for 100 years.”” As pure, mellow and fragrant to- day as in the days of Pres. Madison when Otp OverHoLt first became the choice of men who know. Aged in charred oak barrels and bottled in bond. A. OVERHOLT & CO. Pittsburgh, Pa. Here is a big fact in the telephone progress of this country : Hand in hand with inventions and devel- opments which have improved the service many fold have come operating economies that have greatly cut its cost. To appreciate these betterments and their resulting economies, consider a few ex- amples: Your present telephone instrument had seventy-two ancestors; it is better and cheaper than any of them. Time was when a switchboard required a room full of boys to handle the calls of a few hundred subscribers. Today, two or three girls will serve a greater number with- out confusion and very much more promptly. Athree-inch underground cable now car- ries as many as eight hundred wires, If strung in the old way, these would require four sets of poles, each with twenty cross arms—a congestion utterly prohibitive in city streets. These are some of the familiar improve- ments, They have saved tens of millions of dollars. But those which have had the most radical effect, resulting i in the largest econo- mies and putting the telephone within every- one’s reach, are too technical to describe here. And their value can no more be estimated than can the value of the invention of the automobile. This progress in economy, as well as in service, has given the United States the Bell System with about ten times as many tele- phones, proportionate to the population, as in all Europe. AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY AND ASSOCIATED COMPANIES One Policy Thus he ventured on all sorts of opinions, and when he was criticized he immediately became silent. One day a man said to him: “Your system, of course, is all very well, but you never can improve be- cause you don't care what people say about you. This makes it impossible for you to learn anything. Honest, now, what have you learned in the last ten years?” “TI have learned to be silent,” said the man. One System Universal Service Again the Tempter The sailor had been showing the lady Visitor over the ship. In thanking him she said: “T see that by the rules of your ship tips are forbidden.” “ Lor’ bless yer ‘cart, ma’am,” replied Jack, “so were the apples in the Garden of Eden."—Tit-Bits “Burt I haven't enough work to keep an able-bodied man like you busy.” “Oh, I sb’an't mind that.” —Houston Post. comicbooks.com