A TELEPHONE EXPERIMENT.

Temuka Leader, Issue 341, 13 January 1881, Page 2

A TELEPHONE EXPERIMENT.

The telephone has furnished capital for many a good story. The following true incident is the latest :—4 Swede, employed by the Portland Stoneware Company was working in the Company’s yards the other day, when he came across a piece of telephone wire, which took his fancy at.once. The young man picked up the wire, and with much care straightened out the kinks, after which he looked carefully around to see that no one was watching him. Being satisfied that he was unperceived, the verdant youth placed one end of the wire in his mouth and gave a loud hallo, then with quick movement dapped the other end to his ear. The expression on the youth’s face as he remained in that position beggars description. First, a look of expectancy flitted over his'visage ol lowed by one of dismay, then with a fuok of disgust he threw the wire away with a muttered curse because it could not understand a Swede. He was not unnoticed, as he supposed, and his fellow workmen made life a burden to him for the rest of the day. A clever robbery was effected in Paris lately. A young clerk had just received a sum of Ll2O in gold from a house in the Rue de Maubeuge, when a rogue, bareheaded, with a pen stuck in his ear, rushed after him, told him that a mistake had been made in the account, and pretended to offer a packet of bank notes made up to the right sum, in place of the bag of bullion. The young clerk supposed that the rascal was an employe in the house he had just left, and handed over the bag, whereon the bareheaded impostor made off. He has not since been heard of, and his address is unknown to the police.