232 Telephone Systems of the Continent of Europe 



the true position of affairs and does not disconnect, she has the 

 useless labour of restoring the ring-off shutter every time it falls, 

 labour which is more than thrown away, since it is subtracted from 

 that which could be usefully bestowed in other directions the 

 young lady telephonist capable of doing several things properly 

 at the same moment not having yet been successfully evolved, 

 although perhaps she is on the road. A distinctive disconnection 

 signal is the only solution of the difficulty, and that will have to 

 be evolved too. These remarks do not apply to Amsterdam or 

 Holland alone ; the same difficulty exists in Sweden, in Germany, 

 and wherever the caller is made to do his own ringing. In trunk- 

 line switching the calling subscriber rings through to the operator 

 at the distant town and asks his connection from her. The 

 smaller concessionaries have nothing special to show in the way 

 of switching apparatus. The Zutphen Company has a nicely- 

 .made i6o-line board by Ericsson & Co., Stockholm. 



The Amsterdam subscribers are divided between three switch- 

 rooms in addition to the central viz. Haarlemmer-Houttuinen, 

 Rapenburg, and Kerkstraat. The central has twenty-five junction 

 wires to each of the others, and these are also directly connected 

 by from five to ten junctions. The junction wires follow different 

 routes, so that it is impossible for one fire or accident to sever 

 the whole communication between any two switch -rooms. 



HOURS OF SERVICE 



The anomaly is presented of the capital having shorter hours 

 than some of the provincial towns. Amsterdam exchange is open 

 only from 8 A.M. till 10 P.M. (6 P.M. on Sundays). These are also 

 the hours at Rotterdam and the Hague for general work, but in 

 each of these towns an operator paid by the municipality attends 

 all night to answer any calls to or from the fire and police offices. 

 Such a service is not considered necessary in Amsterdam, where 

 an extensive fire- and police-alarm system exists independently 

 of the telephone exchange. Dordrecht, Arnhem, Haarlem, and 

 Utrecht are open day and night. Others of the smaller towns are 

 closed during the day to allow the operator away for meals ; thus 

 at Zaandam the hours are 8.30 A.M. till noon, i P.M. till 5 P.M., 



