The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-01-12
THE TELEGRAPHER's EAR.
II Does Things Phat Seem Marvellous
to the Ordinary Listener.
From the Philadelphia Times.

From the Philadelphia Times.
1t is wonderful how the ear may be edu-
Gated. An old-time telegraph operator
last night related some of his experiences
with sound telegraphy. There is no rea-
son to doubt his stories and they are
worthy of being repeated in his own Ian
guage. Said he:
THE ear becomes to an experienced tel
egrapher so acute that the slightest va
Ration in time or sound is az plain to him
as a dropped note to a musician. Any
difference between the sending of oper-
.ators, and can tell by the sound of the
instrument any man with whom he has
worked for any considerable length of
time. You know l am out of the business
now, and have been for a number of years
Still l occasionally drop into telegraph Of
fees, and like nothing better than to get
on busy wire and be roasted by fast
man for an hour. 1t keeps my hand in
which needs almost constant practice in
order that 1t may not lose its nimbleness
when working the key. The ear, however
never loses its constituencies. While in
newark, n. j.. a year or two ago l was
called TO the w eStern Union office by tele-
phone When / arrived there the manager
said: There is a man in Philadelphia who
wants TO talk to you,' pointing out the
instrument which | was to use l opened
the key and called Philadelphia The on
orator answered and l made myself
known. How are thing, my boy came
attached.
1t was. INV ~
Now, mark you, 1 had not seen or
heard from my friend Gettler for three
years, and had not heard him send a word
by telegraph during that period of time
lie and l had worked on the same line
Tor a year or more, and his sending was
as Iamllar TO me as is your voice 1 rec
ognized his touch, and yet l supposed he
was at that time in a Chicago telegraph
Office Yes, there is clearly as much diff
Terence hRfWRan Of
telegraphers sending there is between
the handwriting of any two men in the
same me OF business. In fact there is
much clearer distinction between the
sound of the instrument when different
hands are working the key than there is
between the penmanship of two telegraph
ers, because there is a marked resem-
blance in all good operators COPY
1t is stated, and l have no reason to
believe the story, that during the civil
war Jim Waite, an old-timer New
YORK operator. was sent to the front
by the government to work importanr
wires. He one day got onto a wire over
Whlch very important secret messages
We're being sent by confederates, and the
result would have been funny had it nor
1een such a serious matter. 1t was in
tennessee or kentucky, 1 forget which
waite, with his pocket instrument, got in
side the confederate lines. and having
learned that messages were being SEM
over certain wire from Richmond to the
Sehefal IN command at that point, he
tapped the wire and copied several Valu-
able messages. This was nothing new,
for operators on both sides did the same
thlng time and time again. But Waite
was oyer-anXious. There was an inter-
Tupton in the middle of a dispatch, ana
JIM was anxious to get the remainder
TO urge the sender on he opened his key
and simply said: g. A Commissary' The
q. A. meant so ahead and commits
sary was the last word that had been
sent. What was Waite's surprise to hear
instead OF continuance of the message;
Jim Waite, what are you doing on this
line! Get out or there viii be trouble
Jim didn't even wait to find out who was
the man. He said afterward that the
sender had very familiar sound, but he
couldn't for the life of him tell who the
operator was.
Jim found out four or five years later.
he was still telegraphing and was en-
pIoyed IN the old Broadway Office of the
western Union Telegraph Company. New
the once and asked for Jim Waite. The