Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 70.djvu/244

240 board or special section of the large board. A 1,500-line multiple switchboard was installed in New York in November, 1883. In 1883 Mr. W. D. Sargent said:

The ideal (switchboard) system would be one in which the operator would receive the orders to connect and disconnect from the subscriber orally, by means of a head telephone; to have in front of her a switchboard by which she could connect any two wires of the whole system, however large, without interfering with the other operators. The nearest approach to this perfect system at the present time is the multiple-board; but this has never been worked on the true or multiple principle, and it can never show all its merits until it is. The multiple-board is now being introduced into many of the largest cities, and we may expect much information during the coming year on its merits.

Now-a-days a new switchboard is often placed in service so quietly that the subscribers are rarely aware of any change taking place until after the work is completed. But in the pioneer days it was somewhat different, as is shown in the following interview clipped from an eastern paper in 1882:

In removing from the old to the new central exchange unforeseen difficulties were encountered, chiefly in the removal of such a mess of wires and the abrupt change from the old system to the new system (of calling), and the