urnt and broken at any point in its circuit, an electric
message will be at once sent along the nearest wire to the
fire-brigade station and a bell set ringing both inside and outside
the premises.

Somewhat similar systems will be used for checking the enterprises of
the burglar. The best protected safes of the future will be enmeshed
in networks of wires encased in some material which will render it
impossible to determine their positions from the outside. These wires
will be so related to an electric circuit that the breaking of any
one of them, at any part of its course, will have the effect of
ringing a bell and giving warning at the police station, as well as at
other places where potential thief-catchers may be on hand. For doors
and windows very simple contact devices have already been brought out,
but the principal objection to their general adoption arises from the
fact that so very many houses remain unconnected with any telephone
system which may be made available for calling the police. Even were
all houses connected it is true that in some instances attempts might
be made to cut the wires when a raid was in contemplation, but the
risk of discovery in any such operation would prove a very powerful
deterrent. In fact the telephone wire, more than any other mechanical
device, is destined to aid in "improving" the burglar out of
existence.

With the indefinite multiplication of telephone subscribers at very
cheap rates, there will come a powerful inducement towards the
invention of new appliances for rendering the subscriber independent
of the attention of officers at any central exchange. The duty of
connecting an individual subscriber with any other with whom he may
desire to converse is, after all, a purely mechanical one, and
eminently of a kind which, by a combination of engineering and
electrical skill, may be quite successfully accomplished. In the
apparatus which will probably be in use during the twentieth century,
each subscriber will have a dial carrying on its face the names and
numbers of all those with whom he is in the habit of holding
communication. This will be his "smaller dial," and beside it will be
another, intended for only occasional use, through which, by
exercising a little more patience, he may connect himself with any
other subscriber whatever. Corresponding dials will be fixed in the
central office.

Under this system, when the subscriber desires to secure a connection,
he move