Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 256, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 October 1910 — “LINE’S BUSY” CAUSES STIR [ARTICLE]

“LINE’S BUSY” CAUSES STIR

Bridge Whist Player Pummels "Central" for Neglect of Duty—- " Got Hers” Also. * Pittsburg.—lncensed over the continual repetition’of the phrase “Line’s busy" while she and her guests were delayed at bridge whist because of an absent friend, Miss Hazel Gillen, daughter of John Gillen, prominent horseman and ice manufacturer of Fayette City, Pa., left her home and her guests to investigate the local Bell telephone exchange and learn the reason why she could not get telephone connections with a young woman she wanted to “fill in.” Trouble was found and plenty of it when Miss Gillen reached the head of the first flight of stairs at the exchange. A whirlwind in the form of the much abused •‘Central,” Miss Lillian Usher, enveloped her and a second later both young women were rolling down the stairs and on td the sidewalk in each other’s arms. With their skirts wrapped about their shoulders the young women took a “death grip” on the sidewalk when they stopped rolling, and to the amusement of a number of men and boys proceded to pull hair, and attempt to choke each other, until one man stepped forward, righted their skirts and separated the fighters. Hair “rats,” side combs and barrettes and one switch, the ownership of which neither of the young women will acknowledge, littered the sidewalk. In the meantime the father of Miss Gillen was entertaining the guests at the Gillen borne, but within a few minutes the bridge party was broken up, when the hostess, with her hair hanging down her back, a deep „ scratch on one cheek, a black and blue eye and her evening costume In tatters, was assisted to the porch and Into the hall, where a maid and her father took charge and carried the young woman to her room. She has not left the house since. Miss Usher was asked resign.’ She escaped with only a few bruises and one slight scratch. The technical charge made against Miss Usher by the telephone company is leaving her switchboard while on duty.