DEVELOPMENT OF THE TELEPHONE SYSTEM.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 5, Issue 1312, 24 February 1883, Page 2

DEVELOPMENT OF THE TELEPHONE SYSTEM.

The marvellous growth of the tele- ■ • : phone system during the six years . (nearly) that .have elapsed;-since that instrument was brought" out is well shown by statistics .recently published by the ComnugnM Internationale des Telephones, and relating to telephonic systems''throughout the world at "the beginning of October 1882. The compilation is necessarily Bomewhat incom- . plete as 'regards small and distant' ' i. places, but.the value of the main'r y* results is' not thereby mueK : impaired;. J l. It is in America, of course, where telephony -is freer than on this side that the ; development'; had been greatest, New York counis 4060 subscriber ; Chicago, 2726; Cincinnati, 1880; Boston, 10,35; San Francisco, 1300, &o, Some of these figures refer to May. There are now in the TJnited \ : States more than 700,000 r and certain small towns with pcWg| tion'less than a thousand, have : V thirty to fifty' telephonic subscri. '/j, some even .more.. As regards the absolute number of subscribers, Paris comes third, after' New Yor.k am] Chicago';' "it had on Oc'tqbei;" Ist W ■ fewer than; subscribers, whjj) London had only 1600, Amsterdam' 700, Stookholme. 672 i" Vienna M Berlin 581, rßrussels |9O, Yj Copenhagen .400, 'Mexico '3J)(), r W ' ' Petersburg 145, and Alexandria \\i. While tjie annual subscription ia 60Qf r in Paris, S : QQf, in, London, and .4QQf. in the .provincial ioYijs of frknce, jfc descends, to. 300f,'and 200f. in 135f. and 130f, in Switzerland/4 calculation ofthe ratio of the numjiep of subscribers to tljat- pf inbabitamtg fop.•-. every 20. inhabitants" for eac])' towfl . / reveals a goodly number of small towns in America where there is a telephone forevery ; 2o inhabitants; in Chicago' and in Zuricn^theproportion is about one per 210, in' New York one per 500, • in Br'ussolsoneperßoo,' in Paris one 11 per 2000, in-Lond.on one per 3000, and: yy in St. Petersburg only one por4ooo.tTri. ./| London "Times.". .: ;.;,->•