Page:The Tourist's California by Wood, Ruth Kedzie.djvu/40

 22 THE TOURIST'S CALIFORNIA Telegraph and Telephone Lines. Aside from trans-continental companies, about thirty California corporations accept messages for transmission. Many own telephone franchises as well. " Home " Telephones are operated by local stockholders in rivalry with the Pacific Com- pany. An example of the varied sums invested in these enterprises is given in the statement that the total assets of the ambitious little Bodie and Haw- thorne Telephone and Telegraph Company ag- gregate $500 ; those of the Los Angeles Home Tel- ephone and Telegraph Company more than $11,- 500,000. There are about 120,000 subscribers on the lists of Los Angeles' two companies. The Home Companies usually employ automatic tele- phone devices. Money. It is but a few years since the one-cent piece usurped the nickel in the humbler transactions of California life. Strangers who proffered a copper for a newspaper discovered that none was sold for less than five cents. The beggar's cup, the piano- grinder's tambourine, held only the gleam of pale metal. In candy shops children bought so many sticks for five cents, never for a penny, because the latter was almost never current coin. At the same period in California's monetary history the writer once received an illuminating lesson