This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1882 edition. Excerpt: ... And this is the case in every street in this part of New York. The sky is really obscured by the countless threads of wire, and the housetops are made free use of to conduct them to their destination. Altogether there are about 5000 miles of telegraph and telephone wires in the Empire City. The telegraph wires are conducted along the streets by means of some 9000 or 10,000 poles. Out of a window of the Western Union Telegraph Company's building in the lower part of the Broadway, from a single shoot, one hundred and thirty-six wires issue forth, and, joined immediately by others, are stretched overhead in the direction of the Battery till they branch off from the street to all parts of the country, one hundred and forty on one side the street and sixty-two on the other. There were, in February last, 20,000 people in direct telephonic communication in New Vork, through the exchange offices of the Bell Telephone Company, the Law Telephone Company (licensed by the Bell Company for legal purposes only), and the Gold and Stock Western Union Telephone Company. It would take exactly three minutes for the Bell Company at 923, Broadway (corner of Twenty-first street), to connect, say, John Smith, of 27, Bowling Green, two and a half miles distant, with Richard Doe, of Paterson, New Jersey, seventeen miles distant from the same office; and a like time would be required to connect any two persons in the metropolis or its suburbs similarly provided with telephones. Each subscriber to any one of these companies--the subscription is ten dollars per month--has, of course, a list of all other subscribers to the same company, so that he may know whom he can talk to at any time. At present the furthest places communicated With by telephone in New York are...