A NEW DANGER.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2465, 28 April 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

A NEW DANGER.

A years ago, one had, indeed, a patent very rarely effective, source of danger in the overheard telegraph wires of our large cities. Now there arp in some tqu-ns n,qt Qnly this but two other kindred powers at work in the telephone and the electric lighting communications. The fact that these arc not always for the public mere matters of convenience has been repeatedly clninonstrated by such accidents as that which was lately reported from New York. In this instance a broken telophque wire, coming in contact with one charged with electricity for lighting purposes, became itself a conducting medium, and was wound in its fall round the forequarters of a passing horse with, of course, fatal consequences. It is also said that the driver, in his ignorant endeavour to free tlio aniiflil, was barely prevented from handling tlio fatal wire. This and similar accidents which have occurred from time to time, while they counsel, on the one hand, the most perfect insulation of the conducting wires, must also give weight to an argument iu favour of the partly adopted "ami most rational practice of c-irrying the wires underground instead of over the house tojis, as is now too much the rule.— Lancet.