strictions brought to bear upon the
telephone by the Government of this country. But whatever restrictions
have been instituted by our Government upon the adoption of the telephone,
they are not to be compared with the restrictions that the poor
unfortunate telephone companies have to struggle against on the other side
of the Atlantic. There is not a town that does not mulct them in taxes for
every pole they erect, and for every wire they extend through the streets.
There is not a State that does not exact from them a tax; and I was
assured, and I know as a fact, that in one particular case there was one
company--a flourishing company--that was mulcted is 75 per cent. of its
receipts before it could possibly pay a dividend. Here we only ask the
telephone companies to pay to the poor, impoverished British Government 10
per cent.; and 10 per cent. by the side of 75 per cent. certainly cuts but
a very sorry figure. But the truth is, the reason why the telephone is
flourishing in America is that it is an absolute necessity there for the
proper transaction of business. Where you exist in a sort of Turkish bath
at from 90 deg. to 100 deg., you want to be saved every possible reason for
leaving your office to conduct your business; and the telephone comes in
as a means whereby you can do so, and can loll back in your arm chair,
with your legs up in the air, with a cigar in your mouth, with a punkah
waving over your head, and a bottle of iced water by your side. By the
telephone, under such circumstances, business transactions can be carried
on with comfort to yourself and to him with whom your business is
transacted. We have not similar conditions here. We are always glad of an
excuse to get out of our offices. In America, too, servants and messengers
are the exception, a boy is not to be had, whereas in England we get an
errand boy at half a crown a week. That which costs half a crown here
costs 12s. to 15s. in America; and, that being so, it is much better to
pay the telephone company a sum that will, at less cost, enable your
business to be transacted without the engagement of such a boy.

The Americans, again, adopt electrical contrivances for all sorts of
domestic purposes. There is not a single house in New York, Chicago, or
anywhere else that I went into, that has not in the hall a little
instrument [producing one] which, by the turn of a pointer and the
pressing of a handle, calls for a messenger, a carriage, a cab, expr