The Stock Exchange and Threadneedle Street branch offices, which for all practical purposes are one and the same office, do a very considerable amount of business direct from the floor of “the House,” and during times of exceptional activity of the Stock markets between 3000 and 5000 telegrams are handed in from the Stock Exchange between 11 A.M. and noon for onward delivery. The Threadneedle Street office is the busiest branch in the City.
In dealing with the vast number of telegrams which pass between the different offices in the United Kingdom it would, of course, not be humanly possible for all to reach their destination without error. Everything possible is done to reduce the risk of telegraphic errors and failures, but where the condition of a wire is to some extent affected by climatic conditions, it is obvious that errors and failures may arise. On the whole, however, the percentage of errors to the number of telegrams dealt with is extremely small. Bad writing is often a source of error, and for this the senders are often to blame. To this cause might be attributed such an error as “Reserve me two stalls,” being rendered to the addressee as “Reserve me two stables.” But such an error as “Send three dog pies” instead of “Send three doz. pies” might have been caused either by bad writing, or by the failure of a dot in the signals for the last letter of the word.
While such errors have their humorous side, there are some which are distinctly tragic. For instance, the rendering of a message “Child dead” for “Child bad” is due to the signals for “de” being run together or inaccurately spaced.
Other sources of error are the incorrect transcribing of telegrams. For instance, in Cornwall there is a parish named Helland. The vicar was going to town, and hoped that his archdeacon could be induced to take the duty. The negotiations were entrusted to a brother clergyman and all went well. The latter despatched this telegram: “The Archdeacon of Cornwall is going to Helland. You need not return.” The vicar received with astonishment this message: “The Archdeacon of Cornwall is going to Hell, and you need not return.”
There is probably still a vast amount of ignorance prevailing as to the modus operandi of the telegraph. The use of the poles was once described as to hold up the wires and of the wires to hold up the poles. A simple maiden once said to her mother, “How do the messages get past the poles without being torn?” And the knowing mother replied, “They are sent in a fluid state, my dear.”
An old woman presented herself at the telegraph office at Waterloo Station and asked the clerk to write down a message to her son at Portsmouth. When this was done, she said, pointing to an advertisement in large type hanging in the office, “Would you mind sending it in print like that, as my son cannot read very well.” I suppose many of us have as children watched the telegraph wires to see if we could detect any movement. The nursemaid of a telegraph official said to her mistress one day, “I do not think they are very busy where master is employed, because I have been standing on the railway bridge a long time without seeing one message go by.” A young woman who was about to despatch a telegram was heard to remark to her companion, “I must write this out afresh, as I don't want Mrs. M—— to receive this untidy telegram.”
When telegraph business was recently introduced into a village in Northamptonshire, most of the inhabitants spent a good portion of their time in watching the newly-erected wires. At length one old lady who had been especially diligent in her vigilance, was overheard remarking: “Wal, that's a rum un. I can hear them eer wires a hummin, but I ain't seen one of them eer yaller envelopes come up yet.”
The limitation of twelve words for sixpence is often a severe lesson in brevity and compression. A happy lover was once cast into the deepest despair on receiving this telegram: “Come as soon as you can; I am dying—Kate.” He went, found Kate alive and well, and she explained she had wanted to say she was dying to see him, but her twelve words had been exhausted: she thought he would understand.
To give another instance of a telegraphic error, a pleasure party telegraphed to some friends that they had arrived “all right,” but the message was delivered as “all tight.” And yet another story. A merchant away from home, learning of the illness of his wife, telegraphed to his family doctor for particulars. He received the following reply: “No danger; your wife has had a child. If we can keep her from having another to-night she will do well.” Of course the letter “d” in child had been substituted for “l.” The lady was suffering from a chill.
Many of the questions asked of the Secretary of the General Post Office in respect to the telegraph are not from bona-fide seekers after postal information, but are sometimes evidently from those who are engaged in newspaper competitions. For instance, the Secretary was thought the right and proper person to answer this question: “How long was the cable news being transmitted from England to America with the news of Iroquois winning the English Derby 1881?” But the Department provides special telegraphic facilities at race meetings, and the man may have thought that the Secretary was ex officio a racing man.