by Laurel | March 21st, 2013
Something New in Telephone Service — Most people would think that about all the new wrinkles in telephone service had been exhausted, but Manager Pihl of the Holyoke exchange is to try a new one that has not been introduced anywhere in this section. It is a nickel-in-the-slot household and office service, four parties on a line. The minimum price is $18.25 a year for house service and a little over $27 for office service. The way the new thing works is about as follows: When you want a connection you deposit a nickel in the slot and a light shows in the exchange-room calling the attention of the central girl, if she has nothing else on her mind at the time. She then shifts her gum to the other side, pats her back hair, exchanges a bit of gossip with her side-mate and answers. If you get your party she operates the mechanism one way and the nickel falls into the place provided by the New England Telephone Company. If you fail to get your party she pushes the mechanism the other way and the nickel falls out one side, so the one using the telephone can get it back. The minimum rates are fixed on a basis of one outward call a day and the office rates of 1½ calls a day. Inward calls to the subscribers are free.
A private telephone has been put in the mayor’s office, numbered 167.
It was a bad day for William McCarthy in the police court yesterday morning. There were no less than thee cases against him, one for taking a team unlawfully, one for carrying a concealed weapon and one for being drunk. It seems that McCarthy after imbibing much of the fluid that exalts passed down by the Hotel Hamilton and saw one of M. J. Laporte’s teams standing there. Dr. Prentiss had hired the rig, but McCarthy was not to be deterred by a little formality and drove off with it and the horse later ran away with him. When he was caught and taken to the police station a loaded revolver was found on his person. All three cases were continued to today for a hearing. Stephen O’Brien was fined and sent to jail for three months for drunkenness, and for a similar offense one was fined $11, two $6 each and one had his case continued. William Lynch’s case of vagrancy was continued to today.
The melodrama, “The House of Mystery,” opened at the Empire Theater yesterday afternoon and evening for the first half of the week. It is not a play that nervous and sensitive children will enjoy and one or two in the audience yesterday had a hasty longing for home and mother in the second act that was natural enough, in view of the Mr. Hyde character that was displayed upon the stage. Some interesting singing and dancing was introduced.
John Tilley has sold the eight-room house at 337 Locust Street to John H. Knightly for about $3,500. Mr. Knightly is having the house remodeled, and will occupy it about April 1. The sale was through George H. Allyn agency.
Adapted from The Springfield Republican.
