414 Telephone Systems of the Continent of Europe 



usual continental practice, the English pole-roof is used. The arms 

 are of T iron made into a frame and bolted to the pole together. 

 In districts subject to thunderstorms, every fifth of a line of ground 

 poles is usually provided with an earth wire. 



PAYMENT OF WORKMEN 



Foremen get $s. 7^. per day in Berne, and from 41. 6d. to 

 $s. zd. in the other principal towns ; experienced workmen from 

 35. yd. to 45., and labourers 25. y\d. Sleeping allowance when 

 away from home, is. jd. per night. Hours of work, exclusive of 

 meals, nine per day. 



PAYMENT OF OPERATORS 



Lady superintendents, 6/. per month ; operators, when fully com- 

 petent, 3/. 45. Girls are taken on from sixteen to twenty-one years of 

 age. They have to pass examinations in composition and dictation 

 in their maternal language, geography and arithmetic. Those who 

 receive and transmit telegrams or telephonograms by telephone 

 must have a knowledge of German, French, and Italian. Hours of 

 duty, eight per day. At those exchanges which are open all night 

 the girls take their turn at night duty, but as the switch-rooms in 

 such cases are always located in the telegraph stations where male 

 clerks are on duty the two rooms being connected by a message 

 tube or shoot the nervousness attendant on isolation in a large 

 building is not experienced. 



STATISTICS 



At December 31, 1893, the date of the last complete official 

 report, there were 155 telephone exchanges in Switzerland, with 

 14,675 subscribers, 16,929 instruments, and 33,266 kilometers of 

 wire. Since then there has been a very considerable increase, 

 the number of subscribers at October 31, 1894, being 19,300, an 

 increase of 2,371 in ten months on a population of just over three 

 millions. At the same date the nine principal exchanges were : 



