The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-12-26
SOME TANGLES OF
 TIE TELEGRAPH Curious and Amusing Mistakes
 That Are Made IN NEWS SENT OVER WIRE Some of the Trials and Responsibili- ties of the Man Who Edits the News that Comes Over the
 Wires in Code.
IN NEWS SENT OVER WIRE


 vague conception of the wheels which. perfect newspaper. Of course, the ubi- ] quitous reporter is always in evidence, the city editor is we'll known and the editor in chief is a power to be reclS- oned with, but there is onc editor who is seldom known to the public eye, and his existence not even suspected by | many readers of the paper he works so hard to help produce.
 I refer to the telegraph editor. who is just as much of power in his bailiwick as the city editor is in his. He handles all of the telegraphio news which comes over the wires, be it from Podunk or Washington and it is his business to see that it Is revised and sent to the printer in a grammatical and readable shape.
 The telegraph editor is generally quiet man-that is when he isn't noisy. Some times he rips out an explosion when some correspondent has sent a column of mat ter not worth printing. and again he chuckles to himself or laughs broadly and loudly. This Is when he has struck a funny bull in a dispatch and they are many
 The obJect of this article is to print some of my experiences in this line as well as some which have been told me, and it Is remarkable how the dots and dashes of the telegraph code can dis place themselves, making combinations of letters which puzzle the telegraph editor to decipher. In the last l5 years many telegraph operators have naturally grad uated into the telegraph editors chair, and the number of bulls which get into the paper are ninimized.
 The worst tangle of letters I was ever called upon to untangle was when I was working for a San Francisco paper. A dispatch came in dated Carson City, New, saying that Charles Crocker, the millionaire, was going to Kjkheo for a few weeks camping trip.
 This ridiculous combination of letters meant less than nothing, and at intervals I studied it until it got on my nerves good and plenty. But instead of killing the article. I put man on the desk and set myself to solve the riddle. did 1t, but 1t took me two hours to do 1t. Being a telegrapher, I set down every combin- ation l could and studied them until at last I evolved the fact that MT. Crocker
 
 The Morse characters forming ''Kjkhoe." with proper spacing and spelling, making Lake Tahoe. Another time, in Denver, found that a new Y. M. c. A. building was to be erected at K. Keuka. This To- calized and turned the K Keuka into La Juntas fe
 New York newspaper men and operators will never cease talking about the ridicu- lous blunder the telegraph editor of the Herald let slip through his fingers. It was when the foe palace at Montreal burned down. The Herald came out next morn- ing with flare head about the 'fYo" pal ace burning down. and all through the article wherever the word ice occurred the operator had 1t yo, and so it went to the public The characters for ice being all dots, could make a very re- spectacle "yo to the ears of a careless operator. A dispatch announcing that an enormous shipment of Irish" n1ackerel had been made from Gloucester, Mass, quickly turned into fresh mackerel
 David R. Downer, once manager of the Western Union in New York, was heart- fly laughed at when, in a press dispatch, he had the U. s. s. Tennessee ordered to the Brooklyn nasty yard. As letter V is three dots and dash and s. T. is three dots and a dash, Downer was only accused of carelessness and the word
 nasty was changed to navy before any harm was done.
 Walter P Phillips, author of Phil lips telegraphic code and for many years manager of the United Press as- sociation, told me of a funny bull he once made when taking press in Prov idence, R. l. It seems there was a celebration of some kind in Boston in which the state militia participated. In the dispatch Phillips had the procession led by "an Irishman from New Bed ford" and thus it was printed n the paper. The "Irishman" from New Bed ford turned out to be "A. N. Cusfi- man."
 Thomas T. Eckert, late president of the Western Union company, told me the following incident and classed 1t as the funniest bull he ever saw. One day an irate society lady bounced into his office, f1ourishing a telegram, and excitedly exclaimed:
 Now, MT. Eckert, what does this mean? Here's a telegram from home and it says Unclean Gus is dead I've been after that blonde operator of yours in the Fifth Avenue hotel, and she says it's right. What have you got to say about 1t, sir?"
 MT. Eckert took the telegram, stud jed it moment, and then asked:
 Have you an Uncle Angus. madam?"
 "Yes, sir; my mothers brother. Why, what about him?"- she replied.
 "Only this: am sorry to inform you that your Uncle Angus is dead"
 "Unclean Gus" and Uncle Angus was easy to Mir. Eckert, but 8 riddle to the woman.
 Jerry Borst was well known tele- grapher during the civil war times in New York The city was full of sol dies passing through and waiting or ders, and the wires were busy. Jerry worked hot Washington wire, and one day received a message about the movement of officers equiment. It was addressed to General Gagagterry. Up to the day of his death Jerry used to tell about 1t and laugh uproariously when he would say, By ginger, 1t took them four days to find out that the message was for the Gen. Bag. Agt, Erie Ry."
 The New York Times, when Grover Cleveland was running for governor Of New York state, printed a speech of Cleveland's in which he said in the be- ginning and throughout the speech, 'Ko, ko, fellow citizens etc. The operator was evidently an Inexperienced one for the letters k. O. were meant for the punctuation mark for colon. The tele- graph editor was possibly an admrer of the Mikado which was on the board at the time for he let 1t pass unchallenged- The sending operator made two colons to make sure of it.