Yet the Western Electric finished it in three weeks.

It was rushed on six freight-cars to New York, loaded on the French steamer La Provence, and deposited at Paris in thirty-six days; so that by the time the sixty days had expired, it was running full speed with a staff of ninety operators.
Russia and Austria-Hungary have now about one hundred and twenty-five thousand telephones apiece.

They are neck and neck in a race that has not at any time been a fast one.

In each country the Government has been a neglectful stepmother to the telephone.

It has starved the business with a lack of capital and used no enterprise in expanding it.
Outside of Vienna, Budapest, St.Petersburg, and Moscow there are no wire-systems of any consequence.