Morning journal and courier., 1880-03-19

him. One day he appeared at the telegraph
 office of small station. The clerk apprised
 his colleague at the next station of the unwel- come visit, and before an acknowledgement
 of the warning came was called upon to en- tighten the inquiring monarch respecting the
 business of his office. Presently a message
 came along the wires, and His Majesty desired
 to be acquainted with it's support. He was told it was unimportant but was not to be
 put of, and insisted upon the message being repeated to him so the stammering clerk had no choice but to regale the royal ears with the German equivalent for: tsThe King pokes his
 nose into everything" If King John was an- noyed by the impertinence, he had to thank himself for it.
 Such was hardly the case with the late Earl Russell. One evening, when he was the Min ister in attendance at Balmoral, little old man. buried in greateoat, handed tele- gram, addressed to one of the Ministers in | London, to the telegraph clerk in one of the
 stations on the Desside railway. The clerk, after elancing at the message, threw it con-
 temptuously back with, ''Put your name to it. It's pity your master does not know how to send telegram The name was added. ''Why, you can't writei" exclaimed the clerk, after vainly trying to make something of the signature. 'sWhat's your name p
 "My name ?" said the messenger-my name is John Russell"
 That clerk was transferred to another Of
 flee before many days passed.
 Writing of the difficulty English engineers experisncedin making educated Persians un- derstand the working of the electric telegraph,
 Mr. Mounsey says: ''Much of the time of one of our officers was occupied during several weeks in attempting to enlighten the mind of a provincial governor, who had got 1t into his head that the wires were hollow tubes, and that messages were transmitted through them, as in the pneumatic post. In vain was the whole apparatus shown to His Highness; ; in vain even all it's parts explained and re-ex- plained-he stuck to his idea and it was only by the suggestion of the following simile that he was at last induced to relinqush it, and de- clare himself satisfied. Imagine said the officer, a dog whose tail is here at Teheran, and his muZzle in London tread on his tail here, and he will bark there.
 droll mistake was made by an imaglna- tive old dame who, having permitted tele- graph pole to be placed on the top of her house, waited upon the chief of the tele- graphic company to complain that she should get no sleep of night, being kept awake by the noise made by the messages passing over her head 'I don't think, sir," said she, you can ba aware of all that's said along them wires. There's deal that hadn't ought to be. I can assure you, sir, that very much that's said there, that have to lie and listen to, is such as no dacent woman ought to hear; and hope you will put stop to it." The amused gentleman was hardly able to meet the accusation with due gravity but he did contrive to keep his countenance while he in- formed the old lady that the young men who had hitherto worked the wires were under otice of dismissal; and that in future only young women of great responsibility would be employed, so there would be no danger of he r propriety being shocked any longer.