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 obtainable only through influence. In the large cities these conditions do not exist. Good operators are in tremendous demand, and the telephone companies run almost regular advertisements for learners who are paid during their training.

The girl from a village or small city can have no conception of the business done by telephone companies in great commercial centers, nor the number of operators required. A few figures may be illuminating. On January 1, 1907, when the telephone had been in commercial use exactly thirty years, eight million telephone stations, the technical term which includes receiver and transmitter, had been installed all over the world. Of this number the United States could claim 68.5 per cent., or over five million stations. Since then the number of installations has increased at a phenomenal rate, corresponding with the manifold uses to which commerce has been able to put the telephone.

As a result statisticians declare that to-day it is more than probable that the United States could claim six million stations in use. In New York City alone 30,000 girls and women are employed to operate public and private exchanges, of which about 7,000 are in the service of the. New York Telephone Company. The others handle switchboards in business houses, department stores, hotels, apartment houses, any sort