Morning journal and courier., 1891-09-15

and the operator sent the word ''Stauford," ," jumping at the more unusual name because of it being a cipher. The. mistake caused considerable trouble and the sending of several telegrams, the cipher key evidently containing the name of Stanford as well as Stanford The writer could have made it plain by simply putting small straight mark over the character to fix its identity as an "n, :" or under it to establish it as a "u." The operator would then have been relieved of the necessity of guessing. The reform is one which would save the busi- ness public, as we'll as the operator, & great deal of worry, lesssening the number of losses made through mistakes in telegraph ing and decreasing litigation as to the re- sponsibility of the telegraph companies for damages for mistakes.
 The business man who scrawls his own message, however, is not the only one to ploys typewriter is also an occasional victim. A case of this kind came up about a week ago. A red, or night, message was received very nicely typewritten and signed carefully. When the operator got hold of it to put it on the wire, he found an error. It read: "One-forty." The question at once came up, 'Is that one-forty or one fifty! Is tAst an 'o' for an 'i' or an fl for an tr'a" It was a question the operator could not answer. On the difference in the two. amounts named might depend great deal of money, as the telegram was from very large manufacturing establishment and was to large eastern firm. There was nothing to do but to hang the message up until morning, as the sender could not be reached at that hour of the night. Inquiry could not be made early in the morning, either, so the transmission and delivery of the message was delayed almost twelve hours, all because of the carelessness of the typewriter and the hurried manner in which the sender read over the message before signing it. Such mistakes are not ot as frequent occurrence as in written messages, but they occur often enough to cause great deal of trouble and a consid- erable waste of time which could be easily avoided.
 The more frequent cause of trouble is the illegibility of signatures. The average business man signs telegram as he would a check, though the latter goes to one man whose business it is to know the signature, while the former may go to any one of & hundred operators who have never seen it, and who can do nothing but guess tel egram was received the other day written very plainly, but with signature which might be anything one wanted to make it. It fell to the lot of one of the best senders Tn the city, but one who had been out of the service for some time and who thus could not be expected to be acquainted with names. All he could make out of it was "Br." wave line and ''dn at the end. The message was on railroad business and evidently from a railroad man, but that gave no key to the solution of the puzzle. The operator referred to man working next to him, but he could not say what it was. It looked familiar to him, he said, and he ought to know what it was. but the more he thought the more puzzled he became. The message was then sent back to the receiving counter, and the young lady who had taken it in made A try at it. She wrote out what she thought it was, and the message was sent in that way. The next day, when inquiry was made, it was found that she had made & very feeble stagger indeed. She had letters in which should not be in, and left others out which should have been in. She could not be blamed, though, as all she had to go by was the wave line between the ''Br" and the "d," and she did the best she could to fill in the space as she thought it should ba