The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-12-02
COSTLY JOKE.
Telegraph Operator Sends Message to
Napoleon and Gets Bill for $187.50.
IRON the kansas city star.

From the Kansas City Star.
THE story of Billy ELotham's costly
Joke illustrates that the laugh is not al
ways on the side of the JOKER said W. b.
Bassett. an old-tfme telegraph operator.
THE incident occurred a short time
after the civil war, when Holtham was
assistant operator in Denver, Colo In
those days two operators did all the work
of the Denver office. Holtham opened the
office one morning, took the daily paper
and began reading about the war be-
tween Germany and France. All at once
the desire to perpetrate a practical joke
seized upon him. Taking the pencil from
his pocket he indited the following cable
gram upon one of the office blanks:
g TO the Emperor Napoleon, Garden of
The Tuileries Paris, France: Colorado
will not accede to the cesson of Germany
TO France. Please let Bohemia alone.
Gov Gilpin or any other man.
"Holtham called up Omaha and sent the
cablegram to the man on duty there, just
as he would have sent a bona fide cable
gram.
"Omaha was the repeating office for all
eastern business. Hotham then tore up
his copy and threw the remains in the
waist basket. Then he sat down and
laughed. He supposed that the man on
duty in Omaha would of course, see the
joke and after laughing himself over ii,
would throw his copy into the waste bas
ket. But the Omaha operator was a man
who took everything seriously, and. hang
ing the cablegram on the New York hook,
thought nothing more about it,
This happened about the middle of the
month, and nothing more was heard of
the fateful cablegrafn until about the
middle of the following month, when Mr..
Woodward, the Denver manager of the
Western Union office, received the fol-
lowing message from the secretary of the
cable company in New York:
"'Please come down with the dust
woodward scratched his head, but
could not solve the enigma, and replied:
Don't understand your message about
dust Please explain
'In due time AN answer was received
saying:
Your cablegram to Emperor Napoleon,
Garden of the Tuileries. Paris. France,
signed Governor Gilpin any other man,
S1S7.50 in gold. Please remit
"At this juncture Billy Holtham stepped
in. and pushing the message toward him,
Woodward remarked:
" What do you suppose that New York
idiot means by that"
'Holtham read it, and, turning pale
blurted out: why, | sent that thing to
Omaha as a joke, supposing the man re-
ceving it there would see the point and
throw his copy into the waste basket, as
l did with mine
" 'Joker replied Woodward, angrily Do
you understand that gold is now worth
just two to one. and the cost of your lit
tie joke is s375?'
Manager Woodward wrote a letter to
the cable authorities explaining the mat
ter to them and asking that the cable
gram be Cancelled, but they were ineXora =
BILE and demanded payment in, full Az
that time cablegrams were enormously
high, and payable in gold at that. The
result was that poor Holtham had to
make the amount good, and the telegraph
company permitted him to pay $50 d
month until the whole sum was paid. For
tunately operators We're then paid $125 a
month salary, and it was not as hard
upon Holtham to lquidate the obligation
as it would be upon telegrapher at the
present day, with salaries greatly re-
duced.
THE late Edward Rosewater, who was
manager of the Western Union office at
Omaha when the incident took place, Sc
cured copies of the cablegram and of all
the correspondence relating thereto and
put the whole thing in frame, and it is
no doubt somewhere among his collection
of telegraphic curiosities."