FARMERS' TELEPHONES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 382, 29 July 1911, Page 3

FARMERS' TELEPHONES.

Our Dominion settlers will be pleased to know that the British Post Office is trying an experiment in the telephone department which may set an example to our own officials and hasten the day of cheap country telephones. This is the introduction of farmers' telephones, at a charge of £3 per instrument per year, where not less than five are on the same line. For this sum it is intended to give an unlimited numbe- of calls on the "parent" exchange. All calls on the trunk lines, or through other exchanges, will be charged at the usual rates. The proposal is being tried ; t Bransley. The idea is to get up to 15 to 16 instruments o;i the one line, splitting the circuit, putting eight on each. When one of an eight is rung up, all eight bells will ring. But each of the eight farmers would have a distinctive call. A sort of Morse code could be arranged. For instance, the first three or four could be called up with one, two, three and four rings respectively, No. 5 with a long and a short ring, No. G with a short and a long ring. No 7. with along, short and a long ring, and No. 8 with a short, long and a short ring. These farmer's telephones have been in operation for some time in America, and have proved of enormous value for many reasons. There are as many as 20 on one line divided into two circuits, and a perfect system of Morse code calls has been devised. The farmers are allowed to ring up the station and get the latest weather report. Another advantage is that not only are te'egrams submitted over tne telephones from the pust offices, which are often many miles distant from the farm houses, but under a special law a postmastre may, on being requested to do 30 by the addresses, open letters and read their contents over the wire. But these advantaged are not wholly unmixed. All subscribers on one circuit can overhear each other's messages. A good story is told by a telephone operator. He was going his rounds, and, arriving at a farmhouse, discovered that the "good wife" who was busy over her wasbtub, had strapped the earpiece to her head, so that she could listen to all the messages sent or received by her nine neighbours on the same circuit. At present no means has been devised to prevent this eavesdropping.