DEVELOPMENT OF TELEPHONE SERVICE 53 



excellent talking service would, no doubt, have resulted. For there 

 were few vagrant currents sneaking around in those days. 



Yet back to these cheaply constructed subscriber-lines and that 

 crude equipment is easily traced the origin of the marvelous system of 

 intricate switchboard mechanism, practical and standardized methods, 

 and progressive operation known as the modern telephone exchange, 

 and by the aid of which a subscriber in New Haven may now talk with 

 greater ease to a subscriber in Pittsburg, or in Chicago, than was pos- 

 sible when the two subscribers were distant only a block away on wet 

 pioneer days in Connecticut. That is, less shouting would be required. 



With the accumulation of experience in constructing telephone 

 pole lines covering a period of a quarter of a century, we might wonder 

 that Mr. Coy should have put up telephone lines of so crude a character. 

 But from whom could he gain experience concerning the construction 

 of telephone lines? He built the first commercial telephone line ever 

 constructed. Owing to the bitter competition existing between the 

 telegraph companies, the telegraphers of those days strove not to see 

 how good a telegraph line could be built, but how cheaply it could be 

 constructed and yet carry messages when ' sufficient battery ' was 

 used. Battery current cost but little, and properly-constructed pole 

 lines brought no higher price than rickety lines, when the inevitable 

 consolidation was brought about by cut rates. Then the promoter 

 pocketed his profit, and the public footed the bill in an increase of 

 rates to cover interest charges on the duplicate and non-earning in- 

 vestment. In the words of a governmental report dated January, 

 1869: 



There is no uniformity in telegraph rates. They are often less to a distant 

 (competing) station than to an intermediate one on the same line. In other 

 countries the rates are reduced with the growth of business and never raised. 

 In this country they are reduced by competition, followed by consolidation of 

 the competing companies, and subsequent increase of rates, without regard to 

 the growth of the business. 



Yet Mr. Coy followed the approved American practise of 1878, a 

 practise that prevailed for several years thereafter, as is evident from 

 the official instructions issued by the parent Bell company during the 

 years 1879-81. And these instructions certainly make interesting 

 reading, now that uniformity in methods and standardization in equip- 

 ment and stability in construction are rigidly insisted upon by all 

 legitimate telephone companies. 



It was comparatively easy to run telephone circuits in those pioneer 

 days when only telegraph or signal companies were stringing wires. 



There were no trolley wires until 1884, and no central station light- 

 ing plants prior to 1879. In 1873 William Wallace was building his 

 relatively large magneto-machines in Ansonia, which early in 1874 



VOL. LXX. — 4. 



