St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1891-04-25
TELEGRAPHIC ERRORS
They Have Caused Fun. son,o~
ana Loso of Money!.


Thousands Of erTors have 49,,
IN telegraphic messagea. savs the NJ
.orx iimeA In fact. . day rarely
Pesses without good many Of them
occurring. Some Of them have Caused
nocn amusement, some have cauaed
eears and some have caused seriou.
onancaal loss They are not .lwav.
oue TO inexpert operators It IN \ re-
asrkaole tact that during the urevn-
1cnce OF bad weather, or what .rs
known rs ''electrical storms." which
are thorns in the side Of every chief op-
erator-for while they continue wires
become - unreliable a. q ficlxlc woman
dots and dashes have been % shifted
= 70 cause . receiver to put down .
word totally different from the one
transmitted by the sender. That, how
ever. does not occur often.
Tho faulty penmanship of hurried
business men and others who use the
telegraph IL also responsible for manv
OF tho errors. Operators are compelled
70 rigtdly follow copy" and II a word
u indistinct they send whatever it seems
TO them to look like, NO matter how
blind their reading may make the con-
text Besides. some message pasa
through . number Of hands.
The telegraph companies persistently
print 1t the top Of their message blanks
warning that they are not responsi.
bic for mistakes in transmission, and
they also profer, in very small type,
the advice that ito guard against mis-
takes or delays the sender of . message
should order it repeated: that Il. tele-
graphed back to the originating Office
for comparison" " It IN additional charge
OF one-half the regular rate. The mo-
tice has steadily adorned the blanks in
spite Of court decisions that the COM
penies are responsible for errors.
whether the messages are repeated or
not, and in spite of the additional fact
that it is rarely read, or. il It Is. the in
terest excited Is only casual Nobody
ever seems to accept the advice regard
ing repetition. An operator, speaking
OF the old notice recently, said that in
IN experience Of fifteen years he had
never seen but one message, bearing the
order to repeat, and It was regarded as
. great curiosity. This message fell .
victim to excessive caution. II was
bound from New York to San Francis
co. II contained but one word, the lit
tie word "Yes-" It was religiously re-
peated back from every relay station
between the Atlantic and Pacific, but
by some misfortune, due to . second Of
abstraction on the part of an operator
or to timely but unfortunate Zip" of
the instrument, the word was changed
TO ''No." A big row ensued and IN op-
orator in New York nearly lost his po-
sition.
The financial losses that have been
caused BY telegraph blunders have been
due mostly to the changing around Of
amounts There have been instances
where an order to buy has been changed
In transmission into IN order to sell.
But generally, II there is = mistake. It
is in the figures To make tho Nkeli- |
hood Of error "A slight Is possible,
amounts expressed in figures BY the
original writer Of message are usually |
spelled out and expressed in words by |
the operators Even this precaution |
does not always avail, however. It is |
comparatively easy for poor handwrit- |
ing and careless Transmission to change |
fifteen to fifty, or twenty to thirty, or
fifty toSixty. There was . mistake Of |
this character perpetrated In Washing
ton some time ago. Il caused no loss,
but that was because Of good luck. A
grocery firm in the capital city sent m
order to . wholesale house In Baltimore |
for fifteen barrels Of "A" sugar. The
next morning the grocery firm received
Q shipping bill which contained the in
formation that fifty barrels Of "a"
sugar had been shipped 70 them ''as per
order"
As tho sugar was BY that time In
the firm, having investi-
gated and discovered that the mistake
was not theirs, notified the manager Of
The telegraph Office that the company
must take tho extra thirty 1--we barrels
Oh their hands. Tho manager told tho
operator who sent the message about
The notice. While the responsibility
Tor the blunder, q between the sender
|n Washington and the receiver IN Bal
was undoubtedly the fault Of
The lattcr-had not been settled, the
operator, who was Of .
speculative disposition, requested the
to delay his answer. Then he
ran around to find . friend who was In
The sugar business, and inquired q TO
The future Of sugar prices. He learned
hat there was . strong probability Of
IN immediate and material advance.
He informed the manager that he re-
:alled that the mistake was his, and
Ehst he was prepared to pay the penalty
Tor It BY taking the sugar. Tho firm
turned over the thirty-five barrels to
he operator. Two hours later they,
TOO. heard that sugar was going up. |
They sent the operator word that they
would relieve him Of his load II he I,
wished He replied that he was very
much obliged to them, but they needn't
:rou6le themselves The next morn
ng he sold his sugar at good profit.
'ook the money to the races and lost it.
The wifely reproaches which . gay
voung New York lawyer encountered |
N reaching his home late one night
we're undoubtedly due In the main 70 !
Ills own poor handwriting. but care 4
ess operator was also responsible for
hem. He related the experience The Z
lext day.
ut was two O'Clock when reached 8
lame. he said my wife met me q =
he door. I saw ut once that she was (
'eTy angry. She handed me . tele-
Iram and asked freexingly: What 4 q
he meaning Of thisr I said: Why, d
~ dear. what's wrong? That's prob- q
bly, the message ] sent you in tho af- q
1t is she answered. Please I
cad It and explain read it. To