The age-herald., 1902-05-18
SOME ODDH HAPPENINGS
 IN TELECRAPHY

From the Chicago 1nter-Ocean.
 During the recent tournament of Amer lean telegraphers at Atlanta, many old time operators were in attendance from all parts of the country, and most of them had stories of wise experience to tell. Among them was F. W. MeClin- tic of Dallas, Texas, who contributes the following in his ''clean-up" at the tournaments:
 Errors on telegraph wires, says Me Clintic, are sometimes expensive, and frequently ludierous. One young fellow who was receiving his baptism on press wire was so badly 'rattled'' that he spelled in full "Western Union Ting Fang" for Wu Ting Fang. w. U." is the usual code for 'western Union," but when a telegraph editor insisted that the Chinese minister's name had been un- duly puffed the young recruit innocently remarked that that was the way he sent it." referring to the way the send ing operator had transmitted 1t to him. The same youngster received an item which contained another staggerer for the telegraph editor 'Distaty Gardner will push the case" was the way the sentence appeared at first. The editor read it forward, then backward, and then turned it upside down without solv- Ing the mystery. When repeated the line was plain District Attorney Gard ner will push the case" In transmission the code had come Dist for district and "Aty" for attorney, but not suffi- cient space had been placed between I them to insure interpretation as two Y l Id for tn pla called mechanical receivers, who use l their fingers much better than their l brains.
 An American woman in Paris tele- graphed her husband at home for per- mission to buy an expensive gown. She was delighted on receiving a reply: No price too high" and circulating that Henry always dear, generous fellow" handed over Henry's good American money for the Parfsian dainty. But the wires had .fost a period and the cable should have read No. Price too high" When Henrys wife reached home there were explanations-and perhaps it is needless to say, storm
 An operator with a reputation as a "star" telegrapher, while receiving news for Southern paper several years ago, astonished the editor by producing line which suggested bath for prom inent citizen of the town. It read: "John Allen arrived dirty tonight" At a glance the star perceived his error and made a correction, after which the line read: John Allen arrived in the city tonight" The letter "d' is used as the code for 'in the'' and the letters "c'' and 'i," when perfectly spaced, sound like the letter 'r." It was easy to convert fin the city" into dirty" while the operators mind wandered for the slightest part of a second.
 {aIa sponsible for the following startling tel egram: 'Unclean Gus will arrive tonight. Get them." When the angry addressee rushed into the office and demanded the | meaning of the message, a repetition from the original point disclosed the cor rect reading: Uncle and Gus will ar rive tonight. Meet them"
 | An operator who is rated as a "crack" sender, employed by a leading press | company, once copied from the wire a line like this: 'In the vicinity 40 ship was sighted It was plainly in error, but the repetition came precisely as the first. A fellow operator happened to mo- tice the correct meaning instantly and had good laugh. The figure A is used for the word where in the telegraph code, while a long dash denotes a cipher. The letter 't' Is made by a shorter dash, and Is easily confused with the cipher. As corrected the sentence appeared: Tn the vicinity where the ship was sighted" An amusing error recently passed through the hands of several bright oper- , ators and editors before 1t was finally captured. Mud" is the code for "mur- dered." The item In question read: "The mud man was a well known citizen" The operator who copied the item first explained as the country where 1t had originated was badly inundated at the l time, he thought mud was a good
 
 Photographers learn to know the send ing of their acquaintances on the wire at distant points as accurately as they would recognize the voice of a friend. Almost every telegrapher has a style or swing" peculiar to himself, but there are cases where the resemblance of style in two persons is so nearly alike that it Is impossible to distinguish one from the other. In an idle moment-which, by the way, Is very infrequent on a press cir cuit-it is not uncommon to hear some thing like this: Say Dick" with no signature, or sign to indicate who it Is wishing to converse with Dick or l Harry" or whoever else 1t may be. Yet 'Dick'' will usually resond at once: Hello, Tom, what Is it?" Two or three words are generally sufficient to make a recognition complete.
 Ten years ago two operators who had been associated for some time on press circuit became separated. and in the in- terim heard nothing of each other. Re- gently they found themselves working to- gether on the same circuit again. but in an entirely different field. One was em- ployed as a sender, and the other as a receiver. When the sender had started his work he had only proceeded a few words when he was greeted with: well, well, Tom Smith, I thought you were dead or emancipated (out of the tele- graph business) long ago" These words were sufficient for Tom Smith to re- cogniEe his old friend and that night they spent their luncheon time in ex- changing "reminiscences.
 It has been asserted that telegraphers are able to form accurate conclusions as to the appearance, size, age and pecu- liarities of their fellow telegraphers. at distant points by observing their meth ods on the wire and their manner of working. This may Ne true in isolated cases, but old telegraphers aver that such conclusions are rarely correct. In this connection, 1t may be said that women, as a rule, are easily distinguish i ed from men because of a peculiar light ness Of dots and dashes although many of them send as firmly and evenly as the best of their male compatriots Women are, of course, more steady in their hab- It's than men, and therefore more accur-