United States or Andorra ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Before checking off more elaborately his mental inventory, Lanyard turned attention to the protective device, a simple but exhaustive system of burglar-alarm wiring so contrived that any attempt to enter the apartment save by means of a key which fitted both doors and of which no duplicate existed would alarm both the concierge and the burglar protective society.
"'For Heaven's sake, Williams, what have you got in that box? demanded Mr. Holmes. "'Oh, this is what that fellow out there by Watson's bench, Mr. Bell, calls a telephone, replied Mr. Williams. "'So that's the thing I have seen squibs in the paper about! observed the burglar-alarm man with curiosity. "'Yes, he and Watson have been working at it for some time. "Now Mr.
Additional locks were put on the doors of the shed, and more burglar-alarm wires were strung, so that it was almost a physical impossibility to get into the Humming-Bird's "nest" without arousing some one in the Swift household. "And if they do, I guess we'll be ready for them," said Tom grimly.
When the first infant exchange for telephone service was born in Boston, in 1877, it was the tiny offspring of a burglar-alarm business operated by E. T. Holmes, a young man whose father had originated the idea of protecting property by electric wires in 1858. Holmes was the first practical man who dared to offer telephone service for sale.
He felt old enough, God knew, but he had always thought of it as an age of the spirit. How old did this child think he was? "I have promised to stay on, in the capacity of watch-dog, burglar-alarm, and occasional recipient of an apostle spoon in a dish of custard. Lightning-conductor, too your mother says she isn't afraid of storms if there is a man in the house. I'll stay, of course."
And so when the burglar-alarm made a fierce clamor at midnight a fortnight ago, the butler, who is French and knows no German, tried in vain to interest the dog in the supposed burglar. Jean wrote me, to Bermuda, about the incident. It was the last letter I was ever to receive from her bright head and her competent hand. The dog will not be neglected. There was never a kinder heart than Jean's.
Even their own little boys had returned from school, and were showing the firemen the way to the well. Again Mrs. Peterkin rushed to the knobs, and a fearful sound arose. She had touched the burglar-alarm! The former owner of the house, who had a great fear of burglars, had invented a machine of his own, which he had connected with a knob.
As a matter of fact, this "centralizing" was attempted in May, 1877, in Boston, with the circuits of the Holmes burglar-alarm system, four banking-houses being thus interconnected; while in January of 1878 the Bell telephone central-office system at New Haven, Connecticut, was opened for business, "the first fully equipped commercial telephone exchange ever established for public or general service."
The other five telephones could be connected by a switch in Holmes's office, and thus was born the first tiny and crude Telephone Exchange. Here it ran for several weeks as a telephone system by day and a burglar-alarm by night. No money was paid by the bankers. The service was given to them as an exhibition and an advertisement.
Parks met me in the hall, carrying a cot, which he placed close across the doorway. "There," he said; "nobody will get into that room without my knowing it." "No," I agreed; and then a sudden thought occurred to me. "Parks," I said, "is it true that there is a burglar-alarm on all the windows?" "Yes, sir. It rings a bell in Mr.
Word Of The Day