Comment about Slater Lewis' insulator

LEWIS'S PATENT SELF-BINDING INSULATOR.

To the Editors of THE ELECTRICAL REVIEW.

DEAR SIRS, — I think no practical telegraph engineer will feel inclined to question your opinion on the merits of the insulator. It appears to be so very simple, and I should think, so inexpensive, that it must commend itself to every man who has had any experience of the old kind of binding.

In saying, in your article on the above invention in your last issue, that although the old system of binding is not perfect it cannot be said to be inefficient," you appear to have altogether forgotten the article you wrote on Capanema's Insulator in the Review of the 16th September last, which the disadvantages arising from the use of binding wire are forcibly pointed out. In saying that the present system of binding only costs ½ d. per insulator, I think you should have stated that it costs that sum every time the line-wire is bound to the porcelain. Therefore, as an insulator will especially near large towns, last out a dozen wires, it becomes plain that the first cost is not, as you very fairly put it, everything to be considered in placing a value upon the kind of insulator in question.

I should be glad if Mr. Lewis, or the manufacturers at his insulator, would advertise their address in your next.

Yours truly, E. T.

London, November 13th, 1882.

[Our correspondent will find Mr. Lewis's address in our present issue. — EDS. ELEC. REV.]