Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 91, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 August 1901 — Page 6

TELEPHONES ON THE FARM

Telephone companies are not able to keep up with the demand for telephones by farmers. They would make desperate efforts to do so if they could get the material, but all factories are behind the orders. The companies are nursing this rural desire for telephones. They wish the farmer’s trade. vl . J It is said that the necessity of meeting this demand is mainly responsible for the recent call for another $5,000,000 on the stockholders of the Central Union Telephone Company by John I. Sabin, the new President. In his circular letter to the stockholders he said: ■“There Is no use crying over spilled milk or abusing one another for things not accomplished. The people of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and lowa want telephone service. Are you giving it with fewer than 70,000 stations? When you have 300,000 exchange stations then you will have a good start, not before. You are not satisfying the public because your system does not reach far enough. There are scores of villages and small towns that, taken as a whole, should have 500,000 telephones in which the Central Union has not a single instrument.” Pushing: Rural Business. According to figures given by S. P. Sheerin, of Indianapolis, in an address nt the recent meeting of the Independent Telephone Association of the United States, at Buffalo, the independent companies are more largely engaged in furnishing this kind of service in Indiana than the older company. He said the Central Union, according to its own figures, had 22,000 telephones in the State, while the independent companies had 54,500. It is probable that the reason the independent companies have more telephones in the rural districts is because that was a field not cultivated by the Central Union when It was alone in the telephone business in this State. The new companies were quick to get into the neglected field, and they are cultivating it well. No exact figures have been gathered

IS LAKE ERIE DRYING UP?

Startling Report Which Comes from a Government (official. Tradition has It that once upon a time, for a single day, since civilizaJJon obtained a footing on this continent, the bed of the Niagara Itiver was dry and the cliffs down which the mighty waters have since plunged without cessation stood forth naked and black and frowning and grim. The phenomenon was explained on natural grounds. The same things may happen again under similar circumstances, though such an occurrence would attract more wondering visitors probably than does the great cataract now as It roars and surges and flashes in the sunlight from century to century. It must suggest to most people a surprise of hardly less degree to be Informed that Lake Erie is In danger of becoming so shallow as to offer obstacles to

by the companies showing the relative , number of farmers now using the telephones at their homes. At the present .rate of construction it will be possible, before the end of the year, to talk by telephone to 1,000 farmers in Marion County. There are telephones in the houses of 1.200 to 1,400 Boone County farmers, and probably in those of an equal number in Hendricks County. There is farm service from nearly all the city and town exchanges in the gas belt. It is probable that there are farmhouse telephones in seventy' of the ninety-two Counties of the State. In some instances there are small systems where three or four farmers each get a $lO telephone outfit, use the wire fences for lipes of communication, and are thus restricted to conversations among themselves. Such a system is used just outside the limits of this city, where six families of one name on adjoining farms have this easy communication withonc another. There is no “exchange.” One ring calls one of them, two rings call another, and so on to six rings. In more pretentious systems the wires are strung on bean poles or fence posts from farm to farm, and an exchange is established with switching facilities. The companies are discouraging crude equipment, however, and these” home-made "lines are thus only used for strictly local purposes. The companies will not connect their lines with them. They say a chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and they will not have the general service impaired by a weak part of it. Here are some things Mr. Sheerin said in his*Buffalo address: “The telephone is a greater boon to farmers than to any other class. The great drawbacks to country life are its isolation, meager opportunities for social intercourse and fewer opportunities for protection. If the farmer is out of touch with the market the telephonje brings his ear close to it; the weather report is brought to his door to protect his crops and his cattle; the telephone saves his horses weary miles of travel to transact his every-day business. Good Lines Desirable. “The farmer should not put up cheap grounded telephone lines on native poles 300 to 400 feet apart, marring the landscape. The poorly constructed telephone is worse than no telephone. The line should be regarded as part of the road itself and equally for the purpose of facilitating messages. The telephone is a messenger—it is a troop of messengers. It should be as free from interruption on the highways of a country as the bearer of a writ of habeas corpus. There is no way by which messages can be transmitted with so little wear and tear to the roadway. “The time is not far off when telephone lines will be looked on as sacred property. In some respects the tele-

WIRE FENCE TELEPHONE—A CALL TO DINNER.

navigation. We can conceive of the Niagara being dammed at its source, but few have ever dreamed that the vast expanse of water which furnishes it its current would ever perceptibly shrink. That is the startling report, however, that the chief engineer of the Marine Department of Canada has made. He has returned to Ottawa from a tour of inspection of the upper lakes, and states that Lake Erie is lower than was ever known to be ilie case before. This condition is due, he thinks, to a series of dry seasons, to the drain made by the power of development works at Niagara Falls and to the fact that dredging the Tonawanda canal has made it easier for water to escape from the lake. He considers it imperative' that the United States government adopt remedial measures at an early date, else navigation upon its present basis will be seriously interfered with.

phone is the most important use of the highway. Trees should give way to the telephone, as they have to the making of roads. Where telephones run, trees should be set back 25 to 39 feet. The couhtry telephone lines should be of the best material, on well-shaped poles at least 25 feet high and six inches in diameter. As time passes, poles will probably be shortened and the wires be as near the electrical conditions will permit, except at road crossings.™—“Many small exchanges are preferable to fewer large ones. Village exchanges should have connection with town exchanges and county seat exchanges, and these with city and longdistance exchanges, so that the farmer may Ispeak to anybody anywhere. For this he ought to-have not only a good equipment, but even a better equipment than any one else. His line should not consist of worn-out or old material from town and city lines. He is much more dependent on good service than the city man.” Telephone rates to farmers as a rule are lower than the city charges. The companies say the construction cost of the country lines is much less. In this county the farmer gets Ills telephone for $lB a year and this entitles him to free service in the city and outside it within the county. Take the New Augusta exchange as illustration. Of 75 patrons, 50 are farmers, the most distant from the town living five miles out. In addition to having quick communication with 49 other farmers he may order liis groceries at five or six stores, call two or three doctors or a veterinary surgeon, ring up two butchers and consult with a justice of the peace.** These are all within easy reach at New Augusta. So are two sawmills, one grist mill and a blacksmith shop. So if he w*ants to borrow from his neighbors or to get harvest help he may know without leaving his house whether he may get them. He can call to his blacksmith or his barber: “Anything ahead of me,” and when there isn’t hitch up his Maud S. and “be there in a minute.” Or he may mount his bicycle or jump on the interurban car—when the Indianapolis & Logansport Rapid Transit Company gets down to business. Calling up the postoffice, if he hasn’t rural delivery, he may save valuable time on harvest days, by saying: “This is Gilmore; any mail for me to-day?” In an emergency the telephone connection with the doctor’s will requite him perhaps for the year’s charges (telephone charges). Thief-Catchiiia: by Telephone. The “protection” aspect of the telephone was well illustrated near New Augusta. The News, not long ago, told of a farmer near that town who woke up at night in time to see two chicken thieves drive out of the barn lot. He

He offers no suggestions as to what remedies should be applied. The seasons are not likely to remain always dry,, though when a body of water like this great inland sea is appreciably affected it is about the most startling commentary yet noted upon the policy of stripping the country of its raingatherers in the forests of the Northwest. Lake Erie at best is one of the shallowest of the great chain. There are three divisions in its floor, increasing its depth toward its outlet. The upper portion has a level floor with an average depth of about 30 feet. The middle portion, taking in the prinflpal part of the lake, has a mean depth of from CO to 70 feet. The lower portion varied from 00 to 240 feet. These measurements were taken a number of years ago and are not applicable to the reduced depth that has been reported. The area of the lake Is 9,000 square miles, or more by nearly a fourth than

guessed they were chicken thieves, and former experiences made it 100 *to 1 that he was right. He was. He stood a poor chance of catching them, so he called up his neighbor a mile down the road the wagon took, and asked him to hustle out on the highway with his two sons and three shotguns while he would call up some other neighbors, and the posse would soon be in pursuit. The thieves were- captured and punished, the chickens were recovered and the community relieved of a nuisance. A man at Valley Mills had a young horse be valued at SI,OOO. It took suddenly sick at night, and before he could come to Indianapolis for a veterinary surgeon and take him to the farm the animal died. “I would have given SSOO if I had had a telephone,” he said. He talked about his loss among his neighbors; they had a fel-low-feeling, and there is going to be a telephone exchange there, with lines to farmers’ houses roundabout. One has recently been put in at Cumberland; others are scheduled for Actqn and Clermont. In Perry and Decatur townships, in this County, and in White River Township, in Johnson County, gangs of workmen are now busy putting up country telephone lines. The manager of one of the local coihpanies was asked if it was doing anything in this line and answered: “Yes, we are now working in the north and northw'est part of the County, in the west and northwest besides the east and southeast and south and southwest sections.” It is said that this pretty generally reflects the general situation with all the companies over the Stafe. So with good roads, scientifically built, for either his pleasure or work; with the bicycle ready on the back porch, with the trolley cars whizzing past the house, the rdral mail delivery to bring him his daily newspaper and the telephone to keep him in instant touch with the markets, the farmer has to pinch himself occasionally to see if he really is a farmer and not the hustling resident of a metropolis.—lndianapolis News.

that of the State of Massachusetts. But it drains only a narrow margin of country around it and receives no rivers of importance, the Maumee being the largest on the American side. It Is more thnn 800 feet higher than Lake Ontario. It is one of the most important factors in our system of lake navigation and furnishes business for many flourishing towns and cities. The present report concerning it may be a false alarm, a passing sensation, though we do not expect representations for the sake of sensation from scientific gentlemen in government service. No harm can come from a careful investigation of the conditions, to say the least.— Boston Transcript.

The opportunities to be found In a large city, which you so often heat about, are only opportunities for pay* lng more board and more car fare. Mirth Is nature’s best remedy for ills.

JUBILANT UNCLE SAM

AWFULLY BUSY, BUT FINDS TIME TO TALK. ' Greatly Pleased at the Year** Export Trade of $1,590,000,000, the Treasury Balance of $175,000,000, and a Trade Balance of Nearly $700,000,000. I found Uncle Sam the other day deeply absorbed in a mass of fiscal reports. The old gentleman fairly beamed as he gave me a hearty hand grasp, but when I told him I had come for another interview his manner seemed to relax a little, I thought. “I’ll tell you how it is, Uncle Sam,” said I. “The people enjoyed your Fourth of July talk so much that there are requests from all over the country for a small weekly chat. Now you won’t refuse the people, will you?” 1 pleaded. “No, I won’t exactly refuse,” he replied; “but, really, I’m awfully busy all the time. I thought I was busy in 1892, (when the McKinley law was in such [perfect order, but it didn’t compare with what this Dingley law is doing. Why, I’m breaking the records all along the line. Just look at this total

of foreign bills of sale—sl,soo,ooo,ooo. There ain’t another country on earth that can show such a total.” “But,” I remarked, “there seems to be a falling off in exports of manufactures.” “Don’t you worry about that a minute,” he replied. “The falling off is ita figures, not in fact. For instance, I sold nearly $20,000,000 of goods, mostly manufactures, to Porto Rico and Hawaii in 1900. Well, I’ve sold them considerable more this year, and yet not a dollar’s worth appears in the reports. Then the war in China has cut off enough to make up the rest of the difference between this year and last. And besides all that, there has been a reduction in prices; so, really, exports of manufactures have increased. “But that ain’t the whole point, either. I’ve sold fully $2,000,000,000 worth of manufacture at home this last year; so don’t worry, my boy, about an apparent loss of a few millions in foreign sales.” “Does the surplus please you?” I asked. “It’s great, isn’t it? Kept right up'to the mark and the estimates. And now I have reduced taxation by $40,000,000 a year, and my friend John Bull is taxing his people right and left and wondering how he Is going to foot the 6111 s. I reckon he looks at my $240,000,000 of custom receipts a little enviously; but he is too stubborn to change his fiscal policy, though I expect to see him putting up the bars before long. “Then look at this treasury balance, $175,000,000, besides the $150,000,000 reserve fund. I’m buying bonds all the time, too. Quite different from what my last manager, Cleveland, did when he ran me into debt to the tune of about $202,000,000, to say nothing of the interest oq the bonds he sold. I tell

“WHEN THE WIND IS FROM THE EAST, 'TIS NEITHER GOOD FOR MAN NOR BEAST.”

IT ASTONISHES THE WORLD.

you the people did me a mighty good turn when they gave me McKinley for a manager and a Republican protection Congress to back him up.” The old gentleman rubbed his hands gleefully and seemed as. jubilant as a boy In swimming. “You have not said anything about the big balance of trade,” I remarked. “Don’t need to; it speaks for itself,” tersely responded the hippy man. “But,” he added, “I’m prouder of those figures than I can tell you. It isn’t so much the six hundred and thirty odd millions to my credit, but it shows that the people are expanding at home as well as abroad. We are buying more home-made goods and getting more and more independent of the rest of the world every year. We can afford to buy a few hundred millions’ worth of luxuries abroad, but I want my people to buy all they can at home, and I guess they aU see the point.” And the old gentleman gave me a merry wink as he went off with his pockets crammed to overflowing with coupons.—F. C., in American Economist. Ought to Keep Still. A number of Democratic editors are apparently greatly concerned over the present depression in the price of wool. They are not, however. They are sim-

ply indulging in one of their old political tricks in an endeavor to pull the wool over the eyes of the ignorant. They -dodge the fact that the wool Industry has been built up and wool growers greatly benefited since the Republican tariff relieved them of Democratic free wool times, when the carcass, pelt, wool and all w r as worth little more than a fleece of good wool to-day. These Democratic platform hunters ought to be the last people on God’s green earth to mention wool—McArthur (Ohio) Republican. No Longer Hate the Fctopus. If Bryan w'ants to know how much “more power the trusts have in the Democratic party to-day than in 1896,” he may take a run down to Texas and make a thorough inspection of the Standard Oil Company’s late acquisitions there both of statesmen and real estate. Only a year ago the Texas Legislature bucked and gagged the octopus and stored him in a barb wire cage.— Little Rock (Ark.) Republican. Fully Answered. The Republican party doesn’t need to reply to the attacks upon the policy of the McKinley administration; they are fully answered by the condition of every branch of industry and commerce in the country. Our prosperity isn’t in the, next State; It is everywhere, and everybody knows it is due to the carrying out of Republican ideas—Munising (Mich.) Republican. Hogs and the TarjfT. Hogs were quoted as high as $0.05 gross in St. Louis last Friday, but that may be some of Mr. Bryan’s “ephemeral prosperity” wdiich the Republicans have been comparing with the good times under the Wllson-Gorman tariff law—Huntsville (Ark.) Republican.