The open street car is in its mid-career for 1888, and the fiend of the whistler is on the vertex of successful practice. The stranglers of the Orient were an occasional incident in that sunburnt civilization as compared with the death-dealing, pestilential prevalence of the Brooklyn open street-car conductor, literally “armed to the teeth” with his offensive weapon, out of whose depths, impelled by æolic volumes from jerky and gigantic costo-diaphragmatic spasms, issue the ear-splitting and nerve-rending combination of fog-horn and prolonged rifle-crack. From stable to terminus and back, circulating along the outer step, holding on to the uprights with extended arms, facing forever the five-cent and helpless “fares,” two to four inches of potential reed or metal protruding from his embracing lips, like an ill-placed proboscis on a witless pachyderm, he summons the driver to screw up his brake and arrest his sportive team for a fare to unload, or to reverse the process for the temporary torture of more victims in hoisting in of other patrons of the line, and the shrill horror of his whistling signal, right in the faces of the passengers, is made more agonizing by the uncertainty of when and on whom it will discharge its blast, being forever ready for action, like the lance in rest of the jousting knight. It would be easy to aim this calliope at the curbstone or the empyrean, but this regard for the passengers’ tympanum disturbeth not the peaceful slumber of the tramway directory, whose shibboleth is the Vanderbilt curse of “the public be ——.” But sadder than the disregard of common-carriers for public comfort is the unearthed conspiracy of the otologists with the ill-paid conductors on the horse-cars. For some years this specialty throve on the otitis acquired at the bathing-houses at Rockaway and Coney Island, but the public discovered that a little cotton in the meatus was the needful prophylactic, and otitis, as a source of revenue, dwindled to the starvation point. Again, and for a time, the horn of plenty overflows in the otologist’s operating room, and his commissions to the car conductors promise to put them soon on a plane with the diamond-bedecked shirt-fronts of the average hotel clerk. It was said that so possessed was a certain London specialist with the operation of tonsillotomy that these amputated glands were each morning shoveled out of his office by the basketful. There are compensations all through life, and the hordes of cash boys, whose occupation vanished with the introduction of mechanical carriers into the great dry good bazaars, now find ample and continuous employment in sweeping out the heaped up fragments of shattered ear drums from the infirmaries of otological specialists. Verily, this deal among the ear men with the whistling open car conductors for the embezzlement of the community deserves the most summary and high-handed reprobation. There is but the faintest justification for such combination in the new code, but even that cannot fairly be pleaded when the integrity of the community’s ear is imperilled. A proper corps d’esprit would impel to the conservation of a professional brother’s prosperity, but even that laudable sentiment must have subordinate place when the profession at large, who are the conservators of society, see that society is likely to turn a deaf ear to the varied forms of human plaint, and all owing to the men who can neither stop or start an open car of a horse railroad without blowing out the ear drums of the community. The public is in peril and who shall be the Curtius to jump into the breach. The conductor cannot be appealed to. He is insensitive, and, besides, he is in authority. One cannot knock the beastly clarion from his lips’ embrace: there would be the claim for assault and ejection for disorder. The directors are a weak reed; they dread a strike. Municipal ordinance would be vainly sought: workingmen have a union and votes. The police, even the finest, are not open to bribery: they are at home in a brawl, and noise is their normal condition of repose. The profession must interfere. Henceforth let the cry be “boycott the whistle.” If it must exist, let the instruction be boldly posted at the starter’s office: “Conductors must aim their whistles at the curbstones and not in the ears of the passengers.”
PROMPT TELEPHONE SERVICE.
The telephone is too useful not to be treated properly. It is always an affair of two parties and each is in duty bound to be considerate of the other. The bell rings, it is answered promptly, and patience becomes well nigh exhausted before “central” succeeds in establishing the connection, and the time of the respondent is wasted. The reason for this rests on the thoughtlessness or selfishness of the one who makes the call. He rings and asks for a certain connection, and then hangs up his instrument, goes away to wait for a summons. In the meantime the respondent answers, stays by his instrument, “central” endeavors to call up the caller, perhaps through another office, the connection is often broken, and after much tribulation the connection is fully made. This is of very frequent occurrence and could be avoided, for the most part, by the caller staying by his instrument for the few seconds usually required to make the connection. There are occasional instances of bad management and some ugliness in the central office, but they are quite rare, and the service is very prompt. More delay and annoyance are caused by thoughtlessness of the users of the telephone than by any neglect of duty on the part of the operators at the central offices. One who is called up has a right to consider that he is wanted, and that promptly. It is the duty of the caller to be careful not to annoy the central office or waste the respondent’s time. Moral: When you call, stay by your instrument till the reply comes.
OFFICIAL ORTHOEPY.
The Mayor has made his appointments to the vacancies in the Board of Education. The proper assumption is that they are all good men and true, able to read, write and cipher. It would be worse than libelous to give houseroom to the rumor that any member of this responsible Board ever “made his mark.” One would be properly horrified at the audacity of the narrator of such a tale as the following: A member of a local committee entered the class-room as the teacher was conducting the recitation in spelling from the Reader. After listening for awhile, he intimated his desire “to give out a few words,” which desire was politely acceded to, and the book handed to him. A number of words were correctly and promptly spelled, and he gave out the word “Egg-pit.” One child after another was downed by the astute member until the teacher, in pity for her flock, suggested that the word was not in the lesson. Smiling disdainfully at her ignorance and presumption, he pointed his No. 11 forefinger to E-g-y-p-t. Tableau. The Directory for 1888 intimates that we live in a city of nearly 800,000 inhabitants.
PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES.
THE MEDICAL SOCIETY OF THE COUNTY OF KINGS.
A regular monthly meeting of the Medical Society of the County of Kings was held at the rooms of the Society, No. 356 Bridge Street, Brooklyn, on June 19, 1888.
The meeting was called to order at 8.30 P. M., with Dr. Wallace in the chair. There were eighty members present.
The minutes of the previous meeting were read, and on motion adopted as read.