Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 196, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1916 — Queer Things Found in Gotham’s Slot Telephones [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Queer Things Found in Gotham’s Slot Telephones

NEW YORK.—“You would be surprised,” said the telephone man, “to see the amount and variety of junk sorted from the nlckel-in-the-slot machine telephones in New York city every month. “Last month we had two small barrels

of assorted coins, slugs and other things. There are various foreign coins, such as German 2% pfennig pieces. They may be about the size of a nickel, but they are of considerably less value. On the other hand, an occasional gold coin glistens forth from the dingy pile of iron and copper. When one of these comes along it helps to make up the deficiency, but in the long run of course we lose. “Probably you know,” continued the telephone man, “that some rural

are equipped with what are known as farmer lines, that is a local service. Farmers are not noted for the great amount of ready cash they carry about with them; furthermore, it is Inconvenient for persons in Isolated districts to be always supplied with change. So arrangement is made with some local merchant who acts as a banker. He sells the farmer slugs which are the size and shape of a five-cent piece. Now it must be that a lot of men are drifting in from the hick towns every day and fetching along pocketfuls of these Iron slugsTfor we are constantly finding them. “There Is another Interesting phase about this petty form of dishonesty. Of course you know that New York is a gum-chewing town and probably the habit has its mental effect, especially on the young. It Isn’t at all likely that a boy could chew gum all the way from the Bronx to the Cattery every day and even up to lunch time without thinking after a while of something else to do with the gum. We sometimes find two pennies stuck together with chewing gum and sometimes a wad of gum sandwiched between two pieces of tin. Then, of course, all the nickels in New York that have holes In them and those that have been chipped eventually find their way into pay-station phones.”