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BETTER LAMPS.. BETTER.LGH HJID DEN AWAY on the inside pages of' IJ.Chicago newspapers in the faîl of 1879- were brief announceroents of a new invention by Thomas Edison. By losing, an electric switch he-had caused a Ioop of carbonized threadto gflow* for .40 hours in à vacuum. He had:created 'the incandescent lamp! Friends predicted that his invention would make'it practical to 1Iight homes .electrically. Critics ridiculed. the idea-forecast failure. The critics were wroflg. Éarly the next year a lighting system using 115 of the new incan- ýdescent'lamps was successfully installed on a, large steamship. Soon wealthy homes began to supplement gas mantdes with electric lights. Im provements were made.The cotton-thread, filament became a bamboo carbon filament. Then the carbon- filament becarne a tungsten wire. The vacuum bulb became a gas-filled bulb. And the glass was t'frosted" inside. Each. change brought longer life, better, light. The, perfected. lamps gave four times as much Ighît as the ariginala carbon lamP. "Mazda"" became their trade- 1mark. * Rival lamps, ýof course, appeared on the m.iarkec. ,Most of them were of -the carbon type with low efficiency., Many pf themn carneý from foreign countries where cheap labor cut manufacturing costs. And while a few pennies * were saved a t the time lamps were purchased, less light was received for current consumed. made lamps even though chey were often fragile aîd burned out quickly. Somerhing had to be done. A solution was found in 1925. The Company made it easier to obtain high.-quality lamps than low-grade lamps. It introduced a policy of "loaning" 60- and 100o-watt Mazda lamps to customers. without chare-of replacing them with new lamps when they burned out. kt began to .exchange other. sizes of lamps at con.Ées- sionalprics-less tha n must be:paid .for in- ferior lamps. Lamp exchange counters were set up in aIl Public Service Stores. Lairip agencies. were established in dozens of çommunities. To assure uniform quality, a sampling of al lamps the Company purchases frorn manufac- turers is subiired to the Electrical Testing Laboratories ini New York City. This inde- pendent organization puts the lamps through careful performance tests. If they fail below prescribed standards, they are rejected. When cus tomer s make lamp seelectoi, e Company's representative asks about tbefix- tures for which they are 'intended-ýsuggests- the proper lamp to burn.,And. new lamp styles are demonstrated s0 customers May always lighttheir homes in the most up-to-date way. Thus the Public Service Comipany considers. R previ TWO DECADES. IN THE SERV ICE 0OF NORTH ERN' 1LLI NOIs