Part 13 (1/2)
CHAPTER XVI.
TELEGRAPHIC BLUNDERS.
Although the work of sending and receiving telegraphic messages may be regarded in a general way as partaking largely of a merely mechanical nature, yet it is work to which the operator who is to achieve credit in his sphere must bring much tact, good sense, intelligence, a knowledge of the world, and a considerable amount of patience. Not only are the terms in which telegrams are frequently written so far devoid of context in themselves, owing to the curt way in which they are worded, as to render the sense of little a.s.sistance in estimating the correctness of a message received, but the letters of the telegraphic alphabet, being nothing more than little groups of dots and dashes variously arranged, are extremely susceptible of mutilation, owing to any lack of exact s.p.a.cing on the part of the sending operator. Nor does the liability to error lie only in these directions. The dots and dashes frequently fail or run together, owing either to feeble signals, contact of the wires with one another, with trees, or other objects, or to the instruments not being in perfect adjustment. A grain of grit or of dust getting between the points of contact in a delicate instrument will sometimes do much mischief in the way indicated. There is liability to mistakes, too, in consequence of the handwriting of the senders, or of the operators at a transmitting point where messages have to be again taken down, not being very plain. Yet over and above these tendencies to error, there is the fallibility of human nature, which will sometimes lead a person to write ”no” where ”yes” is intended, or ”black” where ”white” is meant; and of such mistakes probably no explanation can be given. So that the work of a telegraphist is beset with pitfalls, and he requires all his wits and a fair share of intelligence to keep him right in his work. It may further be remarked that many errors in telegrams, which might be supposed by the public to be gross or inexcusable, have occurred in the most simple way, or have been shown to be due to failures of a very trifling kind.
The following are ill.u.s.trations of such mistakes:--
A pleasure-party, telegraphing to some friends, stated that they had ”arrived all right,” but the message was rendered, ”We have arrived all tight.” The words ”right” and ”tight” in the Morse code are as follows:--
r i g h t - - - - t i g h t - - - -
In another case, a poor person, desiring to state that her daughter was ill, wrote in her message, ”Mary is bad.” This was rendered, ”Mary is dead,” the sense being changed by a slight imperfection of s.p.a.cing, thus--
d e a d - - -
instead of--
b a d - - -
In a third case, owing to failing signals, possibly from so simple a cause as the intermittent contact of the wire with a wet branch of a tree, or a particle of grit or dust finding its way between the points of the instrument, the import of the message was altogether changed.
Thus, ”Alfred doing well, enjoyed egg to-day,” was received, ”Alfred dying, enjoyed GG to-day.”
A gentleman telegraphed from London to his brother in the country to send a hack to meet him at the station; but when the gentleman arrived at the station he found a _sack_ waiting for him. A firm in London telegraphed, ”_Send rails ten foot lengths_;” but the message was delivered, ”_Send rails in foot lengths_.”
A person telegraphed to a friend to ”take two stalls at the Haymarket,”
but the message conveyed directions to secure ”two stables at the Haymarket.” In another telegram, the intimation, ”mother is no worse,”
was changed to ”mother is no more.” Again, ”You will be glad to hear that your sister has accepted an engagement with your father's approval,” was rendered, ”that your sister has accepted an engagement with your father's apostle.” In another case a plain business message, thus--”Come to me as early as you can, that we may arrange Wednesday,”
was given a matrimonial turn by being delivered as, ”that we may arrange wedding.” The next case is one in which a hungry man would doubtless be made an angry man in consequence of the mistake which occurred. His message, which was written thus,--”Shall arrive by train to-morrow _morning_; provide a good _supply_ of bread, b.u.t.ter, eggs, milk, and potatoes,”--was delivered as ”provide a good _supper_ of bread,” &c. In another instance the notice that ”Mr ---- will come to-night with me at 7 to tea,” was rendered, ”Mr ---- will come to-night with me, get 7 to tea;” the only argument in favour of the mistake being ”the more the merrier.” Then, on another occasion, a telegram sent by a person in the country to ”Madame ----, Costumier,” at an address in London, conveying an order for a fancy dress, was presented to the maker of costumes as ”Madame ----, Costermonger.” In a telegram directed to ”----, M.P., House of Commons,” the address somehow got changed to ”----, M.P., House of Correction;” but the member not being found there, the clerks at the delivering office suggested that it should be tried at the ”House of Detention,”--a not unlikely place for successful delivery of such a message as things were at the time.
It has been left to America to produce a mistake in telegraphing which, while it is very amusing, could not result in hurt or disappointment to any one. Here it is, just as received from the other side of the ”ferry”:--
A St Louis merchant, while in New York, received a telegram notifying that his wife was ill. He sent a message to his family doctor asking the nature of the sickness, and if there was any danger, and promptly received the answer ”_No danger; your wife has had a child; if we can keep her from having another to-night she will do well._” The mystification of the agitated husband was not removed until a second inquiry revealed the fact that his indisposed lady had had a _chill_.
CHAPTER XVII.
HOW LETTERS ARE LOST.
In dealing with the vast numbers of letters and other post articles which daily flow through the capacious veins of the British Post-office, the officials of the department come to learn many strange things connected with the wanderings of letters from their proper courses; they learn much in regard to the blunders made by the senders of letters in writing their addresses, and of the supreme folly frequently shown by individuals in transmitting valuables in carelessly-made-up packets; and this experience not only has the effect of causing complaints made by the public to be sometimes met by doubts and misgivings on the part of the Post-office, but is of great use in tracing home the blame to the right quarter, which is found to be, not infrequently, where the complainer had least reason to suspect it. The following facts will probably establish what is here advanced, besides proving of interest to the reader.
It is quite a common occurrence for letters--especially letters of a small size--which are dropped into a letter-box, to slip inside newspapers or book-packets, and to be carried, not only out of their proper course, but to places abroad, thus getting into the hands of the wrong persons. Such letters are returned from time to time from every quarter of the globe, but what proportion of those which go astray are duly returned it is impossible to say; for there are persons who, on receiving letters in this way not intended for them, proceed to open the envelopes through sheer curiosity, and having thus violated the letters, do not hesitate to destroy them. Others again, through dishonest motives, open letters of this cla.s.s in the hope of gain. But there are others who, through no such interest, but merely from the want of a neighbourly spirit, refuse to take any trouble to put an errant letter in its proper course. This spirit was displayed in the case of a letter which had been misdelivered by the postman at a given address on the first floor of a tenement (it being intended for a person occupying the ground floor), the person who had received it stating, when questioned, that he had torn up the letter because he would not be troubled to send it downstairs! Letters are sometimes, too, carried away to wrong addresses by sticking to the backs of other letters.
Again, through a great want of sense, or perhaps a redundancy of stupidity, letters are deposited occasionally in the most extraordinary places, in the idea that they are being posted. A servant-girl being sent out to post a letter, drops it into the letter-box of an empty shop, where it is found when an intending tenant goes to look at the premises. In a town in the north of Scotland a person was observed to deposit a letter in a disused street hydrant, and on the cover of the box being removed, three other letters were found, the senders of which had similarly mistaken the water-pillar for a letter-box. The letters had been pa.s.sed into the box through the s.p.a.ce formerly occupied by the tap-lever. A somewhat similarly absurd thing happened some time ago in Liverpool, where two letters were observed to have been forced behind the plate indicating the hours of collection on a pillar letter-box--the person who had placed them there no doubt thinking he was doing the correct thing.
It must be that many individuals entertain the greatest confidence in the servants of the Post-office, or they would not send money and valuables as they do. They also, perhaps, regard the Department as a fit subject on which to perpetrate petty frauds, by sending things of intrinsic value enclosed in books and newspapers. Instances of this kind are frequent.
Within the folds of a newspaper addressed to a person in Ireland were found two sovereigns, yet there was no writing to show who the sender was.