The daily Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1878-1???, 1884-04-19
4 pOGTS MESSAGE.

BOGUS MkSNATE
The regularly employed operator re-
iec,ed his proposal to write one and
ordered him out of the office. He Sc
cured an instrument and a few miles
from town climbed a pole and cut his
relay into the line. Then calling up
tie town operator he sent him in the
regular way a message addressed TO
the town bank directing that his tramp
ship be paid q hundred dollars. There
was nothing strange in this to the re-
ceivinr operator. The tramp used the
signed letter of distant office and Oh
served all the forms However, he was
nabbcd before he got the money.
"WireS in cities and near them are
more difficult to tap for the reason that
many of them are duplex and quadru-
pick circuits. The presence of a for
eign instrument on one of these is in
stantly apparent. Wires running into
pool-rooms carry burden Of precious
information to gamblers on races if
they can only get it in advance, They
have often tried. Last summer Sc
lect coterie of them in New York coax
ed a pair of needy and disreputable
operators into an elaborate scheme for
beating the pools. They were to tap
the wires at a lonely point take off the
dispatches, and act upon the advance
information;
A BONANZA SCHEME,
if the precautions of the company had
not unkindly interfered. The COM
pany's operator suspected something
was wrong for peculiar reasons COM
prehensble only to an operator, and
putting his suspicious into action, had
the sharpers arrested at the very
threshold of their glittering plan, They
said if they could have worked the
scheme week it would have made
them all rich. Now, | believe, pool
room wires, which are among the most
important in the country, are patrolled
by armed watchers. A very clever
piece of overlapping that has never
been in print was accomplished in this
city. During the war waged on the
bucket-shops by the board of trade and
telegraph companies all their tickers
We're taken out. One of them got quo
tations from the market. How it did
so was mystery, and would have re-
manned so but Tor its accidental dis
coverv. 1t was done thus: A commits
sion firm not under the ban had n
branch Office in hotel, telegraph
wire. and an operator who called off
quotations as he received them. Near
him was a telephone. 10 the casual
glance ii was not in circuit the lever
was downs Really the lever was held
by peg, and thus the phone repeated
the unconscious operators voice (and
quite unconscious he was of the part
he played in the game) to a listener
three blocks away, and he to an opera
tor who teiegraphed it over secret wire
to the bucket-shop. One morning the
peg was brushed out of the telephone,
and that ruined the dodge that detect
ives had vainly sought to uncover. 1t
was too clever n piece of sharp practice
to do anything with but hush up.
"Wire-tapping was perfectly fair and
extensively practiced by the military
telcgraphers on both sides during the
war. Quite number of prosperous
merchants and citizens in this city par
ticipatcd as army operators in the nu-
merous exciting attempts to steal the
enemy's dispatches. While destroying
rs much as possible of the rebels prop
erty it was often rule with the union
commanders to
LEAVE THEIR TELEGRAPH LINES
alone Tor this very purpose. The OPP
orators of both armies ware on the