332 Telephone Systems of the Continent of Europe 



XXIII. SWEDEN 



HISTORY AND PRESENT POSITION 



IN Sweden at the present day one may gain a glimpse of what 

 telephony in the future will be everywhere, and an inkling of the 

 kind of problem which awaits the coming telephone engineers. 

 In population Stockholm is about n,ooo souls behind Edinburgh 

 (Edinburgh, 1891, 263,646; Stockholm, 1892, 252,574). Both 

 are capitals. In Stockholm at the end of 1894 there were 11,534 

 exchange instruments in operation ; in Edinburgh about 1,000. 

 In Stockholm each hundred inhabitants, including women, chil- 

 dren, and babies, had 4*57 instruments between them one and a 

 fraction over to every twenty-five souls. In Edinburgh each 

 hundred inhabitants had "37 a little more than a third part of a 

 telephone between them. Taking the population of London as 

 5,600,000, and imagining that London telephonically were on a 

 par with Stockholm, what should we find? Why, that London 

 would then possess 



exchange instruments ! What is the present number ? About 

 8,000, or "14 per hundred inhabitants. 



The credit of the Swedish development is unquestionably due 

 in a large measure to Mr. H. T. Cedergren, the managing director 

 of the Allmanna Telefonaktiebolag (General Telephone Company) 

 of Stockholm. He has truly been the Hotspur of telephonic 

 warfare ever in the front with extensions and improvements ; 

 ever devising new uses and applications for the telephone ; ever 

 appealing to the public for support, and, what is a great deal 



