itive switchboard and so establish
"connections." When not knocking down and fighting each other, these
boys were swearing into transmitters at the customers; and it is said
that the incurable profanity of these early "telephone boys" had much to
do with their supersession by girls. In the early days of the telephone,
each instrument had to carry its own battery, usually installed in a
little box under the transmitter. The early telephone wires, even in
the largest cities, were strung on poles, as they are in country and
suburban districts today. In places like New York and Chicago, these
thousands of overhanging wires not only destroyed the attractiveness of
the thoroughfare, but constantly interfered with the fire department and
proved to be public nuisances in other ways. A telephone wire, however,
loses much of its transmitting power when placed under ground, and it
took many years of experimenting before the engineers perfected these
subways. In these early days, of course, the telephone was purely a
local matter. Certain visionary enthusiasts had foreseen the possibility
of a national, long distance system, but a large amount of labor, both
in the laboratory and out, was to be expended before these aspirations
could become realities.

The transformation of this rudimentary means of communication into the
beautiful mechanism which we have today forms a splendid chapter in the
history of American invention. Of all the details in Bell's apparatus
the receiver is almost the only one that remains now what it was forty
years ago. The story of the transmitter in itself would fill a volume.
Edison's success in devising a transmitter which permitted talk in
ordinary conversational tones--an invention that became the property
of the Western Union Telegraph Company, which early embarked in the
telephone business--at one time seemed likely to force the Bell Company
out of business. But Emile Berliner and Francis Blake finally came
to the rescue with an excellent instrument, and the suggestion of an
English clergyman, the Reverend Henry Hummings, that carbon granules be
used on the diaphragm, made possible the present perfect instrument. The
magneto call bell--still used in certain backward districts--for many
years gave fair results for calling purposes, but the automatic switch,
which enables us to get central by merely picking up the receiver, has
made possible our great urban service. It was several years before the
teleph