By 1907 it was a wave that had spent its force. It was no longer rolling A study of twelve single-system cities and twenty-seven double-system by the rocks of actual conditions. One by one the telephone promoters improve telephonic apparatus, producing nothing new except the automatic spur to the Bell Companies. But it did not fulfil its promises of cheap their rates in sixteen cities out of the twenty-seven, and reduced them movement in the cities, and a progressive movement among the farmers. thousand independent telephones were linked by wire to the nearest Bell cities shows that there are about eleven per cent more telephones under rates, better service, and high dividends; it did little or nothing to as members of the Bell family. In 1907 four hundred and fifty-eight instead of one, an economic waste of at least ten million dollars a the double-system, and that where the second system is put in, every A fair-minded survey of the entire independent telephone movement would Company; and in 1908 these were followed by three hundred and fifty whether a city has one or two systems. Duplicating companies raised along easily on the broad ocean of hope, but broken and turned aside probably show that it was at first a stimulant, followed, as stimulants year. thousand more. After this landslide to the policy of consolidation, switchboard--a brilliant invention, which is now in its experimental fifth user is obliged to pay for two telephones. The rates are alike, in one city. Taking the United States as a whole, there are to-day fully period. In the main, perhaps, it has been a reactionary and troublesome two hundred and fifty thousand people who are paying for two telephones usually are, by a reaction. It was unquestionably for several years a learned the limitations of an isolated company, and asked to be included