The instruments used in the States are no better—­in fact, in many cases they are worse—­than the instruments we use on this side of the Atlantic.  I have heard telephones in this country speak infinitely better than anything that I have heard on the other side of the Atlantic.  But they transact their business in America infinitely better than we do; and there is one great reason for this, which is, that in America the public itself falls into the mode of telephone working with the energy of the telegraph operator.  They assist the telephone people in every way they can; they take disturbances with a humility that would be simply startling to English subscribers; and they help the workers of the system in every way they can.  The result is, that all goes off with great smoothness and comfort.  But the switch apparatus used in the American central offices is infinitely superior to anything that I have ever seen over here, excepting at Liverpool.

A new system has just been brought out, called the “multiple” system, which has been very lately introduced.  I saw it at many places, especially at Indianapolis, at Boston, and at New York, where three exchanges were worked by it with a rapidity that perfectly startled me.  I took the times of a great many transactions, and found that, from the moment a subscriber called to the moment he was put through, only five seconds elapsed; and I am told at Milwaukee, where unfortunately I could not go, but where there is a friend of ours in charge, Mr. Charles Haskins, who is one of our members, and he says he has brought down the rate of working to such a pitch that they are able to arrange that subscribers shall be put through in four seconds.

You will be surprised to learn that there are 986 exchanges at work in the United States.  There are 97,423 circuits; there are nearly 90,000 miles of wire used for telephonic purposes; and the number of instruments that have been manufactured amounts to 517,749.  Just compare those figures with our little experience on this side of the Atlantic.  I have a return showing the number of subscribers in and about New York, comprising the New Jersey division, the Long Island division, Staten Island, Westchester, and New York City, and the total amounts to 10,600 subscribers who are put into communication with each other in the neighborhood of New York alone; and here in England we can only muster 11,000.  There are just as many subscribers probably at this moment in New York and its neighborhood as we have in the whole of the United Kingdom.

I am sorry to delay you so long.  I have very few more points to bring before you.  I spoke only last week so much about the electric light that I have very little to say on that point.  High-tension currents are used for electric lighting in America, and all wires are carried overhead along the streets.  A more hideous contrivance was probably never invented since the world was created than the system of carrying