The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1898-04-05
JUST ONE LITTLE DOT
IT WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR A FIERCE
BUT eLooDLESS WAR.

How the Budding Friendship of Two OPP
orators Was Nipped by Faulty Cir
cuit-Chicago's Kindly Inquiry Elected
~Rats!" From New York.
Sherwood telegraph operator, recently
told of feud which came into existence
because of the loss of such small thing as
telegraphic dot. \ good sender" can
make ten or more dots in second, so you
can imagine how infinitely small one is.
Only trained ear is able to distinguish
the difference between a dozen dots and
90 when batch is rapidly made.
Sherwood was at the Chicago end of
New York wire at the time of the adven-
ture. 1t was not a good wire even at its
best. 1t had a poor battery and some 9th
er ailments which made receiving woe.
But first class operators were expected to
do high grade business with it, and they
usually did IL they worked in harmony,
and did not get into quarrels over the re-
sponsibility for the cluttering and mixing
of the faulty circuit After two or three
men had resigned in disgust and had de-
clered that they would rather wheel gravel
to stone crusher than try TO copy from
that line Sherwood was put on at Chicago,
and some stranger to him was given the
New York end. They seemed to suit each
other immensely well and pounded away
without the least bit of friction for week.
They were sensible enough to take 1t easy,
and neither tried to rush the other. One
evening Sherwood thought business would
proceed with greater satisfaction IL ho
knew the name of the good fellow over in
New York. so in the course of a rest he
asked:
whats your name, old MANI"
Quick as a flash and to Sherwood's utter
amazement the other operator hurled back
at him the curt monosyllable:
"Ratsr'
Sherwood wes thunderstruck, and he
was also warm. GAN right" he said to
himself. Every well, you fresh sucker. II
that's your kind, I'll let you alone and
give you a little taste of hot work just to
make you do some thinking on politeness
over line.
So he turned in and fairly made his own
arm whiz in jerking streaks of lightning
at the New Yorker. He put on double
speed, and with that hazy, ragged wire to
help to make things unintelligible he con-
sidered that no was giving his associate a
very ardent chase to copy him.
The next day the worm turned, and the
New Yorker began to give Sherwood a
correct imitation of just how evilly an an
gered telegraph operator, assisted by a
bad circuit can send Morse across the
country. The matter came like the clatter
of musketry in battle, like the sjanglo of
tin roofs torn up by cyclones, like nail
mill working overtime, but with very
scant similarity to actual commercial teleg-
raphy. just once in a long time a per-
feet letter was disinguishable In the rattle
of the rubbish of sound, but Sherwood
was naughty man and refused to break"
Tor interrupt) tho sender to ask what he
was trying to do. He would catch as
much as Hoy on -ca-o," and
guessing that to be Henry Wilson,
Chicago" he would be put to the
mental stress of imagining what kind
of telegram Henry Wilson ought to
receive that day. He made an effort to
guess as nearly as sanity would suggest,
but with such broad latitude, not know
ing who Henry Wilson was or who was
his correspondents, or I'm what line of bust
ness either was, or, indeed, not being able
to swear that tho message was for man
named Henry Wilson, and not for wom-
an named Hetty Thompson, you will per
ceive that Sherwood bad a severe time of
it. But ne tried to be satisfied, despite the
mental wear and tear. He knew the fel.
low In New York was in pretty hot water
too.
A man not equipped with rubber arm
cannot keep up speed Of 40 or 90 words
minute and then turn in and translate
the sputterings of a crazy, leaky, swinging
line which is being worked by an idiot in
New York without suffering. Ten days
of this kind of worry reduced Sherwood
from l92 to 1873 pounds, and then his
friends took him i'm charge, for he was
wandering around town imprecating
against insolent donkcys in New York and
driyeling about Gxwyvzch and other COM
binations of letters. They hired doctors
and kept him in n secluded, cool place for
three weeks, by which time no was able to
move abroad again. and in a month he was
In condition to resume his telegraphio func-
tions. He went back to his old wire and,
still rather pale and shaky. started at his