The Wire Age

Whencver, in walking or riding through the streets of our great cities and towns, the eye is directed upward, a perfect network of wire is seen stretching from building to building and from chimney to gable. The appearance is as if some huge spider had been at work silently and covered in the compact city, holding it a prisoner in the mesbes of its net. The view is bewildering, and it seeins iiiipossible that any practical or important use can be made of these iron wires, so numerous as almost to shut out the sunlight. It is butlittle more than thirty years since only a single one eould be seen connecting some important building with another in a distant city, by wliich telegraphic communication was maintained ; and forty yeari ago uot even one was visible anywhere. We live in the wire age of the world's history, and a most interesting and wonderful epoch it is. We know that the iron filaaients subserve the pui pose ofnervesof thought and sensation, and over them, or through them, the world's commerce is carried on. In the human organizatio wc know that if any accident or event happens to the extremi ties, the fleshly nerves transmit instantly the news to the scat of sensation, the brain ; and so it is with the iron nerves in the external world, which scienoe bas arranged ; not an event of importance can transpire in any part of the globe which is not iustantly " ir i rat" to the great cities, and the news spreads everywhere with the rapidity of thnught. Until within the past four years, the wires were capable only of transmitting siünals of a complex nature, but easily understood and internreted by experts; now, human beingstalk with each other over the iron, and it seeuis to make, as it were, a unit of the great family of man. Words, actual words, produced by the organs of speech, are ever wingingtheirway with the speed of lightning, over cities, aorossrivers and mountains and woods, and voices are recognized scores of miles away. The wires needed in cities for tranmitting fire and burglar alann-, fornolicc calis, time signáis, and other municipal purposes are many in number ; and when to these are added the wires for for tolegraphic and telephonic purpot-es, the question of space or room for them bocouion an important one. These wiies must all be independent of each other ; there must be no contact anywhere ; else serious errors aod complications ocour. In this city the firealarm systeru has been so olten iuttricred with that the ohief engineer has called the attention of the city govornoient to tho matter. The time iw not far distant wheu additional wires will becomc necesHary lor the purpoNCH ui' i'leotric lightiog, and perhapw, warming. In the years to come the whole country will be covered witb them unless some plan is devised by which eléctrica] currents can be conveyed in the earth by wires protected in tubes of clay or metal. It is certain that some method of this nature must be adopted, and that quite specdily. - Boston Journal of Ohemistry. The husband gazed indignantly at the dress makers' bill, and said to his wife : "Madam, this is beyond endurance; my first wife could wear a calicó dress longer than you can wear a silk one." Second wife: "Yes, but, my dear, your first wife could not stand such imposition long, and soon wore herself out. I atu going to last longer by shiftinir the woar and t'ar on the dresses. "