The old Unifier saw instantly its value in holding a nation together, and ordered a line between his palace in Berlin and his farm at Varzin, which lay two hundred and thirty miles apart.

This was as early as the Fall of 1877, and was thus the first long-distance line in Europe.
In France, as in England, the Government seized upon the telephone business as soon as the pioneer work had been done by private citizens.
In 1889 it practically confiscated the Paris system, and after nine years of litigation paid five million francs to its owners.

With this reckless beginning, it floundered from bad to worse.

It assembled the most complete assortment of other nations' mistakes, and invented several of its own.

Almost every known evil of bureaucracy was developed.