has helped to facilitate business, and that it has brought the country people nearer to each other and nearer to the town. When I was a boy and wanted to ask a girl to go out with me to singing school I had to saddle a horse and ride three or four miles to see her; now all that is necessary for a young fellow is to call her up over the telephone and ask if she has a "date" for Friday night. Whatever the telephone has done to encourage matrimony and to "put the punch" into business, it has not had an improving influence upon our manners. We employ language and tones when using the telephone which we should never dare to use if speaking face to face with a person. We insult helpless telephone girls and gro—cer boys and engage in altercations with officials in a way that would not have been possible before the days of the telephone. We ask the most unnecessary, inane, and personal questions at times most in opportune. We babble and patter and retail gos-
