.40 Telephone Systems of the Continent of Europe 



WAY-LEAVES 



The State enjoys no absolute right of way. Local authorities 

 and proprietors are constrained from offering vexatious opposition 

 to the passage of wires by the Telegraph Acts, but on the other 

 hand the State must do nothing without previous consultation. 

 Fixtures on private buildings must be negotiated with the pro- 

 prietors. 



SWITCHING ARRANGEMENTS 



Much of the old companies' work, of course, still remains. 

 The Vienna Private Telegraph Company in 1 888, and the Tele- 

 phone Company of Austria, at Prague in 1889, fitted up multiple 

 boards, designed by Mr. Otto SchafBer, of Vienna, and manu- 

 factured in that town. At Trieste the latter company placed a 

 i,2oo-line non-multiple board manufactured by the Consolidated 

 Telephone Construction and Maintenance Company, Limited, 

 London, which firm also supplied boards of smaller capacity for 

 the other towns, worked by the Telephone Company of Austria. 

 Both the Schaffler and .Consolidated boards are highly spoken of, 

 and are all still in use. At Vienna there is only one central 

 station, and there are collected (March 1895) some 7,700 lines, 

 mostly double wires, representing subscribers, trunks, and public 

 stations. The switching arrangements are peculiar, and probably 

 even unique.- On the ground floor are installed two Schaffler 

 multiples of the respective capacity of 2,400 and 3,000 lines, and 

 on the first floor another of 3,000 lines. Each is complete in 

 itself, but connections between the respective sets of subscribers 

 have to be made by junction wires and jacks, just as non-multiple 

 boards were Worked in the old days. Roughly, two-thirds of the 

 calls have to be transferred in this way, a fact which naturally 

 militates against the attainment of the highest degree of rapidity 

 in switching (intercourse between the boards being conducted by 

 indicators, and not viva voce), although each operator looks after 

 only fifty subscribers. It must be allowed, however, that the 

 Vienna service is markedly better and quicker than that of Paris or 

 Berlin ; on this point there seems to be unanimous agreement. 



