With Mr. E. H. Johnson, who represented Edison, there went to England
for the furtherance of this telephone enterprise, Mr. Charles Edison,
a nephew of the inventor. He died in Paris, October, 1879, not twenty
years of age. Stimulated by the example of his uncle, this brilliant
youth had already made a mark for himself as a student and inventor,
and when only eighteen he secured in open competition the contract to
install a complete fire-alarm telegraph system for Port Huron. A few
months later he was eagerly welcomed by his uncle at Menlo Park,
and after working on the telephone was sent to London to aid in its
introduction. There he made the acquaintance of Professor Tyndall,
exhibited the telephone to the late King of England; and also won the
friendship of the late King of the Belgians, with whom he took up the
project of establishing telephonic communication between Belgium and
England. At the time of his premature death he was engaged in installing
the Edison quadruplex between Brussels and Paris, being one of the very
few persons then in Europe familiar with the working of that invention.

Meantime, the telephonic art in America was undergoing very rapid
development. In March, 1878, addressing "the capitalists of the Electric
Telephone Company" on the future of his invention, Bell outlined with
prophetic foresight and remarkable clearness the coming of the modern
telephone exchange. Comparing with gas and water distribution, he said:
"In a similar manner, it is conceivable that cables of telephone wires
could be laid underground or suspended overhead communicating by branch
wires with private dwellings, country houses, shops, manufactories,
etc., uniting them through the main cable with a central office,
where the wire could be connected as desired, establishing direct
communication between any two places in the city.... Not only so, but I
believe, in the future, wires will unite the head offices of telephone
companies in different cities; and a man in one part of the country may
communicate by word of mouth with another in a distant place."

All of which has come to pass. Professor Bell also suggested how this
could be done by "the employ of a man in each central office for the
purpose of connecting the wires as directed." He also indicated the two
methods of telephonic tariff--a fixed rental and a toll; and mentioned
the practice, now in use on long-distance lines, of a time charge. As
a matter of fact, this