American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1876-01-15
A Union By Lightning.

| THERE Is said to be nothing new undel
the sun, but if old Sol was alive to-day
he would be compelled to admit that two
of the skillful operators in the employ OIL
the Western Union Telegraph Company
have conceived and carried into execution
something decidedly new in the method
of forming matrimonial alliance. We
have enjoyed the sensation of marriages
at sea, marriages on steamboats,, mar
riages by proxy, balloon weddings, and
| exposition marriages, but it has been re-
served until this afternoon for us to enjoy
the sensation of bona tide matrimonial
alliance by lightning, through the me-
Telegraph Company. We do not propose
now, even if time would permit, to ex-
plain how Mr.. G. Scott Jeffreys, an op-
orator of the Western Union, and located
at Waynesburg, Pa, became acquainted
with and learned to love Miss Ida Cutler,
also an operator, and stationed at Browns
vile, nor to tell how currents of their
thou ghts coursed on the wings of the
lightning as they two were seated in their
respective offices. 1t is enough to say
that they met and they loved; that their
love grew stronger and stronger, and that
finally they agreed to take each other "for
better or for worse" as long as they both
might live. This very essential part of
the preliminaries having been satisfac-
torily arranged, the next question to be
settled was, how shall the ceremony be
performed Both being manipulators of
the lightning, they conceived the novel
idea of having the ceremony performed
by telegraph, and at once enlisted the
kind offices of Col. C. o. Rowe, the Su-
perintendent of this division. He entered
heartily into the arrangement, and through
his fundamentally the necessary prepare
tons were perfected.
1t was arranged that the high contract
ing parties should take a position in the
operating room at Brownsville, where
there would also be present some three or
four witnesses, including the operator
In the Office at Waynesburg Mr.. G. A.
Story, operator, and family, the mother
and sister of the groom, with four or five
other friends were to be stationed, to-
gether with Mr.. Scott, the Off ciating cler-
gyman, also of Waynesburg. 1t was also
arranged that the ceremony should be
commenced promptly at two O'Clock,
Pittsburgh time, and in order that there
should be no interruption Col. Rowe is
sued the following order to all the offices
in his division: "Ali business must be
suspended on this circuit five minutes be-
fore two O'Clock p. m. to-day, and kept
closed until after the marriage ceremony
by telegraph, which takes place at two
Accepting kind invitation extended
by Col. Rowe and Mr.. Gibson, manager
of the Pittsburgh office, representative
of the Chronicle repaired to the Western
Union office to listen to the ceremony as
it was being licked over the wire. 1t was
evident that something unusual was in
although it is not often that
telegraph operators allow their facial ex-
preston to give any index to the news
they are receiving. But this was some
thing out of the ordinary or even ex-
kind, and each operator
seemed to bend toward the particular in
strument through which the momentous
questions and answers were to be trans
mitted. AS the minutes passed the interest
increased and then suddenly, but at the
very moment appointed, the tick, tick,
tick, tick, tick, etc, announced that the |
interesting ceremony had been com
menced. Then the operators gathered |
about, and, while wondering how the |
bride was dressed, how the groom looked,
what the witnesses at Brownsville were |
thinking, and how those relatives at |
Waynesburg were looking, they heard the |
tick, tick, tick Of the instrument, which |