The E-Sylum:  Volume 5, Number 5, February 3, 2002, Article 12

WHAT WOULD HE MAKE OF E-MAIL?

  The R. M. Smythe company is one of the leading dealers in
  obsolete banknotes and stocks.  From the company's web
  site (http://www.smytheonline.com/)

  "In 1880, Roland M. Smythe established a unique company for
  the purpose of providing the financial community, and private
  individuals, with accurate information concerning obsolete
  securities and banknotes. Over the years, R. M. Smythe and
  Company has developed into one of the world's premier
  auction houses, specializing in Antique Stocks and Bonds,
  Banknotes, Coins, Autographs and Photographs. We also
  continue to research securities."

  Smythe's portrait is contained in his landmark 1929 book,
  "Valuable Extinct Securities".   The book is still of use
  today to collectors of stock and bond certificates in
  determining if the items have any value as financial instruments.
  Smythe used his knowledge of corporate history and
  extensive record-keeping to build a lucrative business
  in old financial certificates, which sometimes proved to be
  extremely valuable due to changes in company name and
  ownership over the years.

  His portrait carries the enigmatic description "NO TELEPHONE"
  beneath his name.   Smythe's obituary holds the answer.  I
  found it quite by accident when walking through my firm's
  library the other day.  I happened to notice a beat-up copy of
  the "Extinct Securities" book on a shelf and took a look.
  Tipped in was a yellowed newspaper clipping headlined:
  "Firm Without Telephone Forty Years Goes Modern"
  The story was filed in New York on July 15th, but the year
  or name of the newspaper was not shown on the clipping.

  "For more than 40 years the important statistical firm of R.
  Smythe, Inc., with offices at No. 2 Broadway, just off Wall
  Street, held out against that "new-fangled contraption," the
  telephone.

  But there's an inexorable march of progress, they say, and
  today the Smythe offices were equipped with a nice, new,
  shiny telephone.

  R. Smythe, founder of the company, tried the invention when
  it first came out, back in the closing days of the nineteenth
  century.  As a matter of fact, Smythe was the second person
  in Manhattan to subscribe to the service.

  But within a few weeks he reached different conclusions.
  The thing was of no earthly good.  Moreover, it was an
  infernal nuisance.  His only comment, down through the
  years, was:  I won't have my studies interrupted by people
  who want to talk about shoe laces."  Nobody has ever
  figured out just what he meant."  [Perhaps the identify
  of the FIRST person to subscribe in Manhattan would
  offer a clue...  -Editor]

  "A few years ago R. Smythe asked the telephone
  company to put his name in the directory, with the notation
  "no telephone."  He offered to pay for this service.  But
  the telephone company turned him down.  He sued the
  company, but to no avail.

  He died April 22.  And now his heirs and associates, after
  reorganizing the firm, have installed a telephone."

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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