Yet the telephone offered plenty to dislike. Swindlers abounded, as did practical jokers. (A favorite prank before any refrigerators were running: “This is the city electrician’s office. Will you please see if the arc light on the corner is burning?” “Yes,” the person would answer after going to look out the window. “All right, don’t blow it out.”) Telephones even opened the door to violence. “Lured to Her Death by a Call,” read a 1909 Cincinnati headline, one of many about people called from their homes to be robbed or killed.