The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-04-07
STORIES OF A TELEaRAPHER
Philadelphia Press.

Hlduy tuAHSS III IcSdIO tO CLlS ulOuc Ol transmitting thought by electricity, which both interested and amused me.
 "It is wonderful," said he, Chow much imperfect knowledge and mis- conception there is in regard to this subject. One day during the time , was operator at small station in the ( northern portion of this state, a lady friend apologized to me for faults, etc., in telegram she had sent me, offer ing the excuse that it was the first time she had ever sent one I assured her, of course, that there was no occa- sion to apologize, since the original document did not, of course, come into my hands. On another occasion an old lady came into the office and pre- sented me with telegram duly ad- dressed. l immediately began to open it. What are you about?' she ex- claimed in surprise. l explained to her as politely as knew how that it would be impossible to send the mes- sage without first seeing it. Them she replied, giving me a fierce look, hand it back to me. Do you suppose Pm going to let you read my private affairs? l sooner not send it at all.' And she left the office in high dud- geon.
 "While there are comparatively few people so ignorant of the workings of the telegraph as the two ladies l told you about, yet occasionally quite amusing ignorance is displayed by people one would think should know better. Serious blunders take place occasionally, also, from the imperfect writing of the receiving operators. You have, of course, heard the story of the famous doctor who was sent on fruitless journey by receiving a tele- gram worded: Don't come too late.' As originally handed into the tele- graph office the message read: Don't come, too late; but in the transmits sion the signal denoting the comma was omitted, and hence the great in- convenience the recipient was put to.
 "I made quite bad mistake myself once, which impressed upon my mind very forcibly the importance of being very careful. In the office in which 1 was then working there was still one of the old Morse instruments. A liar risburg firm sent to one of their coun- try agents: Send rails ten feet lengths.' Now, the letters 't' and e are in the Morse code represented by dash @ and dot Q respectively but in transmitting the message the instrument in recording the word ten signaled two dots instead of "a dash and dot, and the word was thereby con- verted into 'in,' the message reading: Send rails in foot lengths.'
 "l once saw a book in which an operator had gone to the trouble of making list of some of the mistakes made in the transmission of messages, but l have forgotten most of them now. l will recall as many as can.
 "An old gentleman who had left his wig in the train and desired it searched for, had his message so unmercifully changed by either the sending or re- ceiving operator that the word 'wiy' became wife when the telegram was received at it's destination. Diligent inquiry and search was of course made for the missing lady, but without avail. Another story tells of exactly the reverse happening. A gentleman being detained out on business tele- graphed for his wife, but was strangely surprised and mortified to receive by the next train his wig instead.
 "A strange mutilation of tele- gram, hardly to be accounted for, hap pened where an operator of a small station was surprised to take from his instrument telegram addressed to the "Master of Miseries.' He was, of course, very much puzzled how to effect it's delivery until 1t suddenly dawned upon his mind that it was in- tended for the Master or Mistress of a school in the vicinity.
 "A large number of the erroneous messages which pass over the telegraph can be attributed directly to the bad penmanship of the sender. For in- stance, the person who telegraphed to the broker with reference to cer- tain stocks which he desired to have transferred was alone responsible for the mutilation which occurred in his message, in which, with graphic brevity, he described the transferee as of Largo, Fife, widow The broker received it as large, fine widow In this connection am reminded of be- ing in Benjamin Harris Brewster's office on one occasion when & messen- ger boy came in and handed him a message which he had written and sent to the telegraph office but few minutes before, and as he did 90, said sMr. Brewster, the operator wants you to read this.' The ex-attorney gen eral looked hastily up from law pa- per in which he had been absorbed, and, seizing the bit of paper, scanned It for 2 moment and then said in a loud and angry tone of voice sWho