150 Telephone Systems of the Continent of Europe 



at public stations must be made in telephone tickets. These 

 tickets are perforated, and on presentation one half is retained by 

 the attendant, and the other is stamped and given to the user as a 

 receipt. Subscribers use the public stations free on producing 

 a photographic card of identity. Long-distance telegrams are not 

 accepted. 



8. Charges levied at municipal telephone stations. These 

 are used also as telegraph stations. All transactions under both 

 the telephone and telegraph tariffs are subject to a surcharge of 

 2 -4^. until the cost of installing the station and its connecting 

 line has been wiped out. 



9. Rates for special exchanges or connection of groups of 

 subscribers to an existing trunk line. Each subscriber pays the 

 cost of his line, in addition to finding his transmitter and receiver, 

 and 2/. annually. Local conversations originated by him are 

 charged 4-8^. per five minutes, and trunk conversations according 

 to the tariff. 



WAY-LEAVES 



Subscribers are bound by their agreements to obtain the 

 consent of their landlords to the fixing of their wires and instru- 

 ments, and to bear the cost of all dilapidations caused by the 

 installing or eventual removal. Although this is made part of 

 the contract with each subscriber, the State claims the right to- 

 erect standards without charge on any building that lies on a 

 route of wires, provided it is not surrounded by a boundary wall ;. 

 similarly, to erect poles on any unenclosed ground, private or 

 otherwise. A fence or hedge does not constitute an enclosure 

 a regular wall is alone competent to turn aside State telegraph or 

 telephone wires. In executing work on private property the State 

 is only responsible for dilapidations brought about. This is the 

 only instance which the author has been able to find in Europe of 

 compulsory way-leave powers being vested in the State, and it is 

 at least singular that it should occur in the Republic of France,, 

 where private rights are theoretically more inviolable than in 

 other and more autocratic countries. The influence on rates, 

 which partisans in the United Kingdom so freely ascribe to- 

 compulsory way-leave powers, is shown by this example to be 



