Belgium 



VYWYYW1 



FIG. 16 



5. Public telephone stations. Several of these conveniences 

 exist in every town, mostly at the post offices, railway stations, and 

 bourses. The principal ones are open all 



night. There are ten in Brussels, eight in 

 Antwerp, five in Ghent, four in Liege, &c. 

 They may be used for all classes of com- 

 munications admitted by the regulations. 

 To facilitate payments at the public stations 

 a series of adhesive stamps, similar to those 

 introduced by the author in this country in 

 1884, of the values of "25, '30, '50, '90, i'oo, 

 and 3 'oo francs, have been issued. The 

 25-centime stamp is shown in fig. 16. 



6. Call notices to non-subscribers. In 

 connection with the public stations a service 



of call notices (Avis telephoniques) is in operation, which enables 

 a person to summon to a distant public telephone station any 

 non-subscriber with whom he wishes to speak. He does this by 

 telegraph (at specially reduced rates), specifying the place and time 

 of the requested attendance. 



7. Railway station service. This provides for the switching 

 on of subscribers (or of non-subscribers at public telephone 

 stations) to any railway station in the area to enable official in- 

 formation as to the movements of goods or trains to be obtained. 

 An extra subscription is charged for this service, payment of 

 which also confers the right on a subscriber, or on his agents or 

 friends, to use the railway station telephone, even when there is 

 no public station there, for the purpose of communicating through 

 the exchange. 



TARIFFS 



i. Rates for exchange communication within an area.- 

 There is considerable divergence in the local rates. For the most 

 part the system still consists of exchanges taken over from the 

 different companies and individual concessionaries, whose prac- 

 tice was by no means uniform, and whose rates were, as a rule, 

 higher than those imposed by the State in the areas such as 

 Ostend-Bruges, Termonde-St. Nicholas-Alost, and Tournay 



