The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-04-15
ANECDoTE OF GENERAL sTAGER.
How the First Telegraph Message Was
Taken by Sound.


Taken by Sound.
Pittsburg Times.
s'The death of Gen. Arson Stager, who was
buried in Cleveland on Saturday, reminds me
of how he took the first telegraphic message by
sound, in this city, abo ut forty years ago."
The speaker was one OF the very oldest news
paper in Pittsburg-one whose memory
goes away back from the present to the time
when Mount Washington was but hole in the
ground and covers everything between.
There are various claimants of the honor of
being the first to take by ear" he continued;
'but do not think any of the others 60 back so
far as this. 1t was about forty years ago, when
the OReilly line was the only telegraph wire into
Pittsburg The Office was in the second story of
the Odeon Building, on Fourth avenue, over the
old mayors office David Brooks who is now
| leading the underground wire fight before the
Legislature was manager and Arson Stager,
| who has just died eX president of the Western
| Union Telegraph Company, was the operator.
Andrew Carnegie, the iron prince, Robert Pit
| cairn, of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company,
| City Attorney Moreland and George McLain, ex
superintendent of the e-alarm telegraph, were
messenger boys in roundabouts.
There was but one instrument, and when it
got out Of order business had to stop until it
repaired. There were no special dispatches to
! newspapers, and no delivery of press messages.
Each paper sent a reporter around to the tele
| graph Office, who copied what he wanted for his
paper. The amount of foreign new was limited
| to 800 words night, and other reports in pro-
| portion, the charge to each paper being SO a
week. Regular telegraphic tolls at that time
| were forty cents for ten words. and four cents
| for each additional word.
Zone night when we called to copy the report
| we found everything quiet and Stager sitting by
| the little table that held the instrument, read
| ing. He told us there would be no news that
| night, as that part of the instrument which
| printed the characters on the paper was broken.
We so reported, and the editors poured fresh oil
on the gudgeon of the scissors and made the
best arrangement they could to get along with
out any Geographic news.
Between IL o'clock and midnight Stager came
| into the Office of the Commercial Journal with
bundle of manuscript in his his hand He said
that while sitting by the instrument and listen
ing mechanically to the clicking it seemed to him
| that he could make out what it was saying by
the sound. He had written it out as it sounded
| to him. Here it was. If we would take the
risks it's accuracy we were welcome to use it.
1t seemed to read all right, and we published it,
and found upon comparison with Eastern pa
pers, which came three days later, that there
were very few mistakes in it. The scoop" the
Commercial Journal thus obtained over the
Dispatch, Post Gazette, and Union was the
talk of the town for several days
But the instrument was repaired next day,
Stager went back to the old system, and the
first message ever taken by sound soon ceased to
be talked about