Telephone: Very ingenious device to test one of the cardinal virtues: patience. Some try to use it for distance conversation; but it is advisable not to make such a serious mistake.
This was the most accepted definition of the telephone, and thanks to a Yankee lawyer we have another: a device that can make a man’s fortune in countries where there are judges.
The Yankee lawyer demanded heavy compensation for the time lost without being able to speak with his clients and the New York telephone company was ordered to pay.
Of course, I do not cite this case with the purpose of establishing jurisprudence in Spain, but only with the desire to rectify the part of the encyclopedias reserved for the telephone. In practice, we Spaniards must stick to the first definition, otherwise the companies that exploit the telephone would go bankrupt.
No, we cannot allow ruin so that the telephone does not disappear. The telephone and the carriage service guards are necessary in the civilized population for their ornament. We are all convinced that they serve no useful purpose; but if they disappeared, the population would not be able to aspire to the title of great capital. Isn’t it true that those skeins of threads that cross space give cities an appearance of intense and hectic life? Those who are not in the secret stand at the ends of those threads, which are made of hemp, and spend the day shouting:
-Listen; Miss, listen: 4, 2, 6, 8 Major.
The innocent don’t know that there is no such lady!
No; The example of the Yankee lawyer cannot be imitated here. This is also demonstrated by the fact that he was paid not to speak, while in our country they only pay, and pay well, the talkative. That silence is golden will be true in New York; but in Spain silence is worthless. Here, whoever talks the most, earns the most, not only in the legal profession, but in politics, in literature, in art… Therefore, since the telephone is not useful for talking, we have it to give us the impression of being civilized, just like those families whose prestige is living in liveried porter’s houses.
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