The telephone had its beginnings about 60 years ago, in the United States, and the-inventor was "Alexander Grant Bell. He was a teacher and student of acoustics, and he, in 1st, began is experimental work the were by Mr. Bell in English; they were addressed to his assistant, Mr. Thomas A, Watson, Watson, come here: The first foreign words ever spoken over the telephone were by a Japanese. student in Mr, ofice, Japanese was the second language fever used over the telephone, a statement for which T have the authority of Dr. Inada, 'There are now about $3,000,000 fete phones in the entire world. Of them, over 98 per cent. I believe, are connected together by wire and radio inks, or circuits, so that one can talk' by telephone to any other of hose 30,000,000 telephones any tim very rapidly. Shanghai has not obtained that service, but I under-ind that the work' and that, within a few will be Joined to the world's network, making it possible for one to talk to almost anywhere in the civilized world, or even to points in Central Africa. Of the 39,000,000 telephones in the world, about 17,000,000, or a Uitte over half, are in the United States, About two-thirds are oper ated by private companies, like the tone in Shanghai, the other third by Governments, including the British Government,' the Japanese Government, and, to a certain extent, the Chinese Government. I unde there is only one privately owned company in Great Britain: there none in Japan, but there are several in China.
We believe that in America, where the telephone has been in use for the longest time, and which has been the home of the telephone—where, too, the Bell system facilities have been available for research, development, financing, and the expansion of the service to a most remarkable degreé—the service has reached the best development; a statement 1 make, notwithstanding the fact that my colleagues will challenge it, An indication of the popularity of the telephone service is the number of telephones per 100 inhabitants. In the United States there are between 18 and 14 telephones per 100 inhabit-ante—a very high development, equalled by no other country in the world, Shanghai has between 3 and 4 telephones per 100 inhabitants—a somewhat low development, but high compared to the rest of China, In Japan as a whole, there are about telephones per 100 inhabitants: in China as a whole, about 300th of tone per cent,, but these comparisons really mean nothing.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.