Life — December 7, 1928 — page 52: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The U.S.A. is only a few minutes wide An Advertisement of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company Ix THe gold rush year of '49 a stagecoach succeeded in crossing the continent in about three months. Two decades later, for the first time, an unbroken stretch of railroad lay from New York Harbor to San Francisco Bay, and America was seven days wide. Today, by tele- phone, thee entire width is only a matter of minutes. And these few minutes represent a round trip, taken in the ease of office or home. The Bell System is ever busy re- ducing the width of America and the distance between cities. For ex- ample, during 1929 it will add to its lines nearly 2,000,000 of the new rmalloy loading coils for correct- ing and maintaining the speeding voice currents. Seven thousand miles of new inter- city cable, $40,000,000 worth, will be added to the System to protect against storms and other slowing up influences. In the last five years 350 major improvements, as wel as thousands of others whose aggregate importance mounts high, have been made in telephone central office equipment. Improved operating practices have eliminated the necessity of your “hanging up” and being called back in 95 per cent of toll and long dis- tance calls, adding new speed and ease to out of town calling. You hold the wire and the operator does the rest. Since New Year's Day, 1927, the average time for completing all out of town calls has been cut 35 per cent and at the same time the per cent of error has been further ma- terially reduced. There is no standing still in the Bell System. Better and better tele- phone service at the lowest cost is the goal. Present improvements constantly going into effect are but the foundation for the future’s greater service. “Tue Tecernone Booxs are tHe Directory or THE Nation” SAY “CENTURY” and get the world’s Best Edition of the world's Best Music by the world’s Best Com rs. It's 16e (20¢ in Canada) 2600 selections for Pi- ‘tol: i Piano, Sax- ophone, Mandolin, rand Vocal. Get free catalogue at your dealers, or write us. Century Musle Publishing Co. 248 west 40th Street ANNOUNCEMENT The New Year's number—to be published December 28—will con- tain about a hundred pictures, a selection of the best things that Lire has published in 1928. This is Lire’s annual Scrapbook and, if we do say so, the most representative array of American humor that the year has produced. Be sure not to miss this number. The Stranger Within Our Gates (Continued from page 17) experiment with electricity to the ex. tent of blowing out all the fuses in the house and burning the cigarette lighter out of the sedan; he is also in. spired to call the cook a German spy who broils babies, to insult several of the neighbors’ little girls to the point of tears and reprisals, and to refuse spinach. You know that Bill didn’t think of these things himself, as he never could have had the imagination. On Christmas Day all the little presents that you got for George turn out to be things that he already has, only his are better. He incites Bill to revolt over the question of where the tracks to the electric train are to be placed (George maintain ing that in his home they run through his father’s bathroom, which is the only sensible place for tracks to run). He breaks several of little Barbara's more fragile presents and says that she broke them herself by not knowing how to work them. And the day ends with George running a high temperature and coming down with mumps, necessitating a quar- antine and enforced residence in your house for a month. This is just a brief summary of the Visiting Schoolmate problem. Granted that every child should have a home to go to at Christmas, could there not be some sort of state subsidy designed to bring their own homes on to such children as are unable to go home themselves? On such a day cach home should be a sanc- tuary, where only members of the tribe can gather and overeat and quarrel. Out- siders just complicate matters, especially when outsiders cannot be spanked. Mediterranean “The Luxury Ships” M.V. SATURNIA M.V. VULCANIA Sail Regularly to CANNES-NAPLES- TRIESTE also PRESIDENTE WILSON From Italy the Fleet of LLOYD TRIESTINO Offers a Splendid Service to comicbooks.com