The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-03-31
WHEN ID CONSIDER MANABLUNDERER Some Mistakes That Have Been Overlooked THE FIRST OFFENSES But in Some Lines of Business Even a First Mistake May
 Ruin Mans
 Reputation
THE FIRST OFFENsEs
From the Chicago Tribune.

From the Chicago Tribune.
 Some years ago a young man did
 suoh satisfactory work that he was
 worked with him in the same room
 though many of them were older than
 he was. He had started life on a farm
 and had many stories to tell of the
 hard blowing he had done from dawn
 to dusk when he was but a mere boy.
 As a clerk he was unusually accurate
 and reliable. Rarely did he ever make
 mistakes in addition or multiplication, 1 Probably his we'll known ability made
 him feel free to tell of a very bad
 blundar he once made when in the | employ of a railroad company. By
 sheer carelessenss he had sent a cargo
 of perishabe goods from Chicago to
 Portland, Ore, instead of to Portland,
 Maine. For this blunder he was neither l discharged nor fined though the loss of
 the railroad was equal to several years
 of his modest salary, When he left that
 job later it was because a better posi-
 ton was offered him.
 l How many mistakes of this kind would
 stamp a man as being a blunderer it is l impossible to say. But it Is certain that II ne nad made Ln1S lQenLlcdi DlSudke l again he would have deserved immediate discharge There are some mistakes one can make ten or twenty times month without being considered blunderer, but with another class of mistakes single one in any length of time would prove | that the door was incompetent. The architect who forgets to provide any
 stairs in a two or three story building l is assuredly in the "no good" class, even | ie do same strict standard applies to druggists
 who compound prescriptions. They are supposed to work with such care and
 slowness that no mistake can happen. | However, "a competent druggist may once 1 in a very long while make bad break ' | A druggist once correctly filled two pre- scriptons at the same time for a cus- l toner whose name was familiar to him. 1 A week or two later one of the bottles was sent back to be reiled. The drug | gist noted the number on the bottle and correctly found that number in his pre- scripton book, but, after having thus found the right page, he carelessly took for his cue the name of the customer and filled the other prescription, which was just below it. Fortunately, neither prescription was at all deadly, and the customer at once saw by the color of the liquid that the wrong prescription had been filled. That this bunder was ineX- cusable is true, but it is also true that this druggist Is a competent and careful man. Can one mistake of this kind be considered proof that a man is a blum derer?
 curious mistake once occurred be- cause an employe\ omitted street and avenue" when he reported his where abouts to his superior officer at the other end of the phone wire. He was collector for a Chicago company and reported that
 having finished special collection he l was now at Fortieth and Lake, meaning
 Forteth avenue and Lake street, five l miles west from the city's center. The man receiving the message thought he meant Fortieth street and Lake avenue and so directed him Ito make a special collection at some place about half mile from that point. This locality was about the same distance south of the center or the city as the collector was west, so ne had an extremely long ride to make in the late afternoon. and after making this second collection failed to reach the or flee in time to turn the money in that night. He was accustomed to make long trips to almost any part Of the clty, ana as neither of the words "Forteth' nor Lake was in the second address given him. he failed to perceive that the man
 in the eompany's office was thinking Of the south side of the city and not the west
 The inharmony that results when the bass drummer in an orchestra mistakes a fly on the sheet of music for note IS one of the jokes that Adam told to the Laughing EIyena, and nearly as antique is the story of the bookkeeper who could not balance his books, but finally dig covered that an eyelash or fly's leg had usurped the place of blank and turned 100 into 10oo. This error is matched by that of the surveyor who sighted his transit at a white spot on a distant rock, but finally discovered that this object was really a white spotted COW that In the meantime had moved several yards. munching the grass from spot to spot, The surveyors line was hardly as straight as he might have desired It,
 Mistakes that result from ignorance or lack of information are almost' as com mon as those due to sheer carelessness, Many A Napoleon has lost his battle of Waterloo largely because it was not known that in the center of the field there was A sunken road which would bring disaster to advancing foes. fhe danger that lies in ignorance was thrill linrlv discovered by an army officer in the Philippine Islands who was engaged in construction work and had some na- lives to assist him One of these natives, who had shown that Inc was intelligent and trustworthy. was told to go up the hill and to bring down stick of dynamite in his hand All went well until the na- tive toward the end of his descent tossed inc stick of dynamite recNlesslN ahead CT him in the direction of the offlcef, Who very lnrtilV was somewhat Of a baseball nlaver and managed to catch 1t before il struck the ground. The native received n somewhat excited lecture on the nature of dynamite and on the wrongfulness of not obeying orders exactly.