"HOW TO USE A TELEPHONE."

Hutt News, Volume 2, Issue 49, 15 May 1930, Page 2

"HOW TO USE A TELEPHONE."

There.. is but little- doubt that tihe telephone is one of the greatest blessings of modern time* No home is complete without it. I am not saving this because I -happen to have a personal friend who is general . manager of a telephone company and who might reduce my rate at any moment if he eared to. I say it rbeeause I think it.;

One can hardly realise what a difference it wxxuld have made in earlier Jlges if there:-had'been" tclephpnesv For ex--ample; Columbus, instead of spending eighteen years in circling round Europe (Hence the so-called Columbus- Circle in -New York), to find a royal patron for his voyage, .would just -have called,- ---/' BEullo,, Queen Isabeila^Ghristopher ;Ooiumbas^V.rsEetfckiiig/Vp->-;"and-.the thing would-Be done;: ' ■ - :

But what I. want to talk, about here is the use of the telephone in our ordinary life, to-day.

The telephone is-\an altogether modern instnmient, and yet -there^are some

things appertaining to its use that belong to all ages.-

For. example, there is nothing which, brings out more clearly' the difference between a man and a woman than the way in which eveTy man, and every woman talks at the telephone. The man always finds it hard to go on. T»he Woman finds it impossible to stop. The man goes to answer the telephone," and you hear him say, "All right, George, I'll be--there.". And the conversation

is over.

But a woman goes to the 'phone and she says, "Why, Mm, I'll just be delighted to come . . No, indeed, I wasn 't too busy to come to the 'phone, and I'll surely be delig(h>ted to come over this ■aflternoon ... I haven't had a game of bridge for two weeks. Well, goadbye, 111 see you at four o'clock and wiho do yov: think I saw on the caT yesterday?" ...

, . . Then there follows five minuitea of sustained talk followed by .

"Well, good-bye Mm, I must skip back to the kitchen, and what did you (think of the wedding yesterday!"

. Five minutes more talk ending in exclamations, struggles, protests, good-r byes,'horraus, regrets, and at last each, woman leaves tie telephone and says:-r--

" My goodness! I thought that woman would. nov«r stop talking."

But in shutting off the telephone it may he remarked, one of the hardest mechanical feats to pexfoi-m is to stop an up-to-date telephone from ringing •when it wants to. Of course, as everybody knoiws, it is possible to stop it tfroim. ringing by leaving the received oflf the hook. Biirt, then, as everybody knows, this, means that the "girl at Central" can overhear all that happens, in your Ihouse. This won't do. I know of no home so irrepx'oachable, no family so correct, that they are willing to let tlie "girl at Central" hear a]i that they say. . ■'.'"..• ,-.' : v\ -.. .- To stop the telephone, t-heref ore, some mechanical device must be adopted. One method is to plug up the Strike "with chunks of paper (blotting, paper preferred) (. so.itigJL'tly that it. can't hit the j iboll. But even then it will succeed in making a melanchoiy gurgle.

The sound ; of this~ gets oh^ne's ebnscien<ie. is.-j^u bear It, y9u ncy. that some. friend Jii dire distress is gurgling to you for help. Mr^t tiling yo!ii knp.w you tear the wßlppMg but—only to find tihat it is<: an invitation to &f teraobn tea, and ybu^ are lost

The foregoing is very evident from a man's, point of view—and'that man —Stephen Leacock. .