"Two souls with but a single thought,
Two hearts that beat as one."
Operators are as a rule as honest as the sun, yet, "where you find wheat, there also you find chaff," and once in a while a man will be found whose proper place is the penitentiary. One of the easiest ways for an operator, so inclined to make money, is to cut wires, steal the reports of races, market quotations, or C. N. D. reports, and beat them to their destinations. Wires are watched very closely so that it is hard for an outsider to do any monkeying. Many men understand telegraphy who do not work at the business, and it is for this reason that all the instruments in the bucket shops and stock exchanges are turned so low that no one outside of the operating room can hear a sound. When it is realized that transactions are made, and fortunes won or lost in a fractional part of a minute, it will be seen how very careful the great telegraph companies must be. The big horse races every year offer great temptations.
While I was working in St. Louis, a case came under my observation that will readily illustrate the perversity of human nature. In a large office not so very far away, there was working a friend of mine, who did nothing but copy race reports and C. N. D.'s all day. On the day the great Kentucky Derby was to be run, the wire was cut through from the track in Louisville to a big pool room in this city.
Now the chief operator in this place was a scaly sort of a cuss—in fact, it was said that he had done time in the past for some skullduggery—and when the horses went to the post, he stood by the switchboard and deliberately cut the pool room wire, so the report didn't go through. He copied the report himself, knew what horse had won, and then sent a message to a henchman of his, who was an operator and had an instrument secreted in his room near the pool room. This chap went quickly into the pool room and made wagers right and left. A rank outsider, a twenty to one shot, won the race, and after the confederate had signified that he was ready, the chief sent the report through as if it had come from the track. The whole transaction didn't take over two minutes and the "bookies" were hit for about $30,000, which Mr. Chief and his side pardner divided between them.
A little while later the suspicions of the bookmakers became aroused, complaints were made, an investigation followed, and one fine day when matters were becoming pretty warm, the recalcitrant chief disappeared. His confederate confessed to the whole scheme and the jig was up. The chief was afterwards apprehended and sent up for seven years, but he held on to his boodle.
For the first month of my stay in St. Louis, my life was as uneventful as a May day, but at the end of that time a man came on the New York end of our quad that was enough to make a man drink. The men working together on a wire like this should always be harmonious, because the business is so heavy there is no time for any war of words. However, operators are like all other men, and scraps are not uncommon. Generally they take place at long range, and no one is hurt thereby. Some men have an unhappy faculty of incurring the hatred of every person over a wire, while personally they may be princes of good fellows. The man referred to above, signed "SY," and he had about as much judgment as a two year old kid. It didn't make any difference to him whether the weather was clear or muggy, no matter whether the wire was weak or strong, he'd pound along like a cyclone. Remonstrance availed nothing, and one night when he was cutting up some of his monkeyshines, I became very warm under the collar and told him in language more expressive than elegant, just what I thought of him, threatening to have our wire chief have him fired off the wire. He answered:
"Oh! you go to blazes, you big ham. You're too fresh anyway."
The epithet "ham" is about as mean a one as can be applied to an operator, and I came back at him with:
"Look here, you infernal idiot, I'll meet you some time and when I do I'm going to smash your face. Stop your monkeying and take these messages."
"Hold your horses, sonny, what's the difference between you and a jackass?" he said.