In "The Wild, Wild Internet" (February 20), Ethan M. Tucker explains that "restrictions on telephone speech date back almost as far as the invention of the telephone itself," referring to an 1883 New York District Court decision that upheld a telephone company's prohibition on the use of "improper or vulgar" language.

Unfortunately, the secondary source relied on by Tucker is in error. The case, Pugh v. City and Suburban Telephone Association (9 WL Bull 104) was decided by an Ohio District Court. Further, although Tucker's description of the case in factually correct, none of the quotations he cites appear in the actual text of the case. --Jol Silversmith '94