AN OVERDOSE OF HASHEESH. 509 



$60 to $150 per mile for each circuit, according to the kind of cable 

 used. 



In round numbers we may estimate the total cost for one thousand 

 wires at $150,000 per mile, or $150 per mile per circuit. The cost of 

 piping and chambers would be nearly as great for one hundred cir- 

 cuits as for one thousand, as the cost of chambers and the labor of 

 excavating and filling would be the same ; so that the cost for one 

 hundred wires may be estimated at $50,000 per mile, or $500 per mile 

 per conductor. The cost per conductor thus increases enormously as 

 the number of conductors diminishes, so that it would be clearly im- 

 possible to follow out the wires of an exchange system in all of their 

 bifurcations. 



It may be argued that cheaper methods of laying wires may be 

 devised ; but the experience of forty years has led continually to 

 more and more expensive systems. If, then, the present method of 

 running wires overhead is objectionable, and the expense of running 

 them under-ground is so great as to put the cost of telephones, electric 

 lights, and other electrical appliances out of the reach of would-be 

 users, how are the wires to be run ? 



It seems to the writer that much of the inconvenience may be 

 obviated, and without greatly increasing the expense, by adopting the 

 following plan : From each telephone exchange, electric-lighting sta- 

 tion, or other center of electric wires, run overhead cables out to a 

 considerable number of points about the city, some one of which would 

 be quite near to each subscriber. From each of these points to the 

 various subscribers run short stretches of ordinary house-top wire. In 

 this way hundreds of single wires would be gathered into small and 

 inoffensive cables, and the enormous wooden structures would be re- 

 placed by small cable supports of brick or iron. In no place would 

 there be the offensive multiplicity of wires. Such a system would be 

 more durable, needing fewer repairs, than the present, and would not 

 be much more expensive. For any other apparatus than telephones, 

 retardation and induction would not be felt on so short cables. With 

 telephone cables of moderate length these troubles would not be seri- 

 ous, and, if longer cables were necessary, metallic circuits could be 

 used. 



AN OYERDOSE OF HASHEESH. 



By MARY C. HUNGEKFORD, 



BEING one of the grand army of sufferers from headache, I took, 

 last summer, by order of my physician, three small daily doses 

 of Indian hemp (hasheesh), in the hope of holding my intimate enemy 

 in check. Not discovering any of the stimulative effects of the drug, 

 even after continual increase of the dose, I grew to regard it as a 



