Category: telephone

Why Didn’t God Accept Cain’s Sacrifice? Because He Wasn’t Abel.

January 5, 1927
Albany, New York
aliveandwell
Cain is alive and well (jeepers, the life span of these antediluvians) in the land of Nod York, East of Eden, or at least Schenectady…seems that one Harry Cain was engaged in a phone call, and was having some trouble making himself understood to the person on the other end of the line.

Finally the landlady came to the rescue.  “CAIN,” she shouted into the telephone, “C-a-i-n.  You know, the man that killed his brother.”

That set off the other party on the phone all right…murder!  The police were summoned and Harry Cain was in jail in a matter of minutes.  It took hauling the landlady in some time later to explicate the whole mess.

Still, I’d keep an eye on that Lamech character.

The Bell/CHCI3 Stradivarius Colligation

December 30, 1927
Redlands

kloro-formWell-known automobile distributor Lawrence S. Ferguson, 20 San Gorgonio Drive, was called to the telephone today.  A hoarse-voiced “Mr. Morris” declared that his auto had broken down five miles outside of town and that Lawrence’d better come quick.  Apparently Lawrence always does as he’s told, because he hot-footed it out of town.

But the hoarse-voice chap wasn’t five miles outside of town; he had instead hightailed it over to Lawrence Ferguson’s home.  Hoarsey and a buddy paid a visit to the abandoned Mrs. Ferguson, where they stuffed a large wad of chloroform-soaked cotton in her mouth and nostrils, knocking her out and, according to authorities, did so nearly permanently, which would have added murder on top of robbery, and making prank phone calls.

The robbery part, incidentally, netted the robbers three diamond rings worth $1,800 ($19,854 USD 2006) plus a silver saxophone, some jeweled wristwatches, overcoats, the money hidden in the mattress (how many times do we have to tell you people?) (and not in the Bible, either) and Mr. Ferguson’s revolver.  And his Stradivarius, valued at $400 ($4,411 USD 2006).

I TOLD Bell the Electro-Dynamic Transmitter-Receiver Would Be Nothing But Trouble

June 26, 1907
Los Angeles

07phoneJohn Richie, contractor of East Fourteenth Street, has an unsavory record.  Richie used to, daily, beat his son with a rake handle, until such time as the boy became an idiot.  This finally drove Richie’s wife insane, and she died in an asylum, whereafter Richie got drunk and danced about in the room where the casket had been placed.

But now he’s gone too far.  He’s making rude phone calls.

Richie was hauled before Justice Rose to defend a complaint sworn by Mrs. Rose Mustactia, Richie’s grocer:

“He has been annoying me for some time.  At first he just said spiteful things, but at last his actions became unbearable.  Saturday afternoon he called up the store and told me his name and then he began to abuse me.  He called me names and my husband names and said we were bums and that all our groceries were stale and that most of the stuff we had in the store was second hand.  The next time he called up, my daughter answered the ‘phone.  He told her the same thing, abusing us all and saying hard things about us.  Twenty-five times during the afternoon and evening he called us up and used bad language until we refused to answer the ‘phone any more.”

Richie was convicted of a misdemeanor.