A Valiant Fight

Rochester, N. Y., is Üie only city in the United States which does not gener- ally use the Bell telephone ! On the 20th of November, 1S86, about seven hundred subscribers hung up their 'phones, and they have been hung up since! ' It is the most noteworthy fight with a Corporation ever known. The cause of it was the attempt of the local Bell company (whose officers all lived in anolher city) to exact a rate per message from the subscribers, instead of a " Hat rate." The people resixted it, the courts sustained the position that the I Ícense was revokable at will, the Cotnmon Council revoked it. The company ignored this action, and, without permissian, erected poles in the streets and strung additional wires; but the courts held that this was imluw ful. According to the message rate, a house like II. H. Waruer & Co., proprietors of Warner's safe cure, who were among the heaviest patrons, would have to pay something like $1,000 a year for the same telephone service as before. For a city of 125,000 people, Rochester has made a good niany sensations. Saín Tatch and bis deadly leap, the Fox sisters' spiritual rappings, Seward's " Irrepressible conflict" speech, Susan B. Anthony's attempt tovote.thecometary discoveries of Dr. Swift, of Warner observatory, have each made the city the "talk of the world ;" she leads in the manufacture of proprietary nieaicine, and her immense nursery, shoe and elothing interests puts her in the front rank. The origin of one of her gre:itest industries is intesesting: Abont ten years ajjo one of her foremost citizens was strieken down in the very height of a successful business career, with what his doctors said was au incurable dispuse. They gave him up to die. He then used what is now known as Warner's safe cure, and since then has developed as the world'a great champion of the people against the assuuied monopoly of physicians over the treatment of disease ! His fight, too, has been a determined one, and as successful as determined. Today he is the head of the largest proprietary medicine business in the world, having branch houees and laboratories in London, England; Toronto, Canada; Melbourne, Victoria ; Sydney, New South Wales ; Frankfort, Germany; Prague, Austra ; lïangoon, Burmah. Many foreign governments will not permit the manufacture and sale of proprietary medicines of any name or nature until their formulae, value and harmlessness are by them established, after the mo?t searching scientific inquiries. In every case Warner's safe cure has passed examination with the highest satisfaction to the governtnent chemists and analysts, and the soughtfor permission has been granted, which no other American has ever before secured. Tbis confirms the magnihcent reputation given it by leading physicians, ministers, senators, congressmen, lawyers and ladies of the world. "lts secret of success,1' says the leading physician at Clifton Spring?, N. Y , sanitariuni, " is the simplicity of its compounds and the proportions in which they are compounded." " How do the people get on ? " ïtie universal verdict is : "We don't miss the 'phone, except to our profil ! " There has been practically no break in the united opposition begun last November. The American is getting to be quite as tenacious of his personal rights aa against conspiring monopolies as is the typical Englishman, and this Rochester telephone episode is a noteworthy illustration of the fact.