Telegraphing With a Steam Whistle

1895

While Edison, then a boy, was living in Port Huron he found one of those opportunities to distinguish himself that seem to be always falling in the way of some men. The anecdote is related in "The Life and Inventions of Edison," recently published.

It was near the end of an exceptionally severe winter, and the ice had formed in such masses as to sever the cable between Port Huron and the Canadian city of Sarnia. The river, a mile and a half wide, was impassable, and multitudes of people were greatly inconvenienced.

Edison, who had just learned to telegraph, saw a way out of the difficulty. Jumping upon a railway engine, he began to whistle in the rhythmic cadences of the Morse alphabet:

"Hullo, Sarnia! Sarnia, do you get what I say?"

No answer.

Again and again the short and the long toots shaped themselves into the dots and dashes of telegraphy, and finally some one on the other side became alive to their meaning. The answer came back, clear and cheery, and communication between the two cities was resumed.

The Telegraph In China

1895

Outing says that at first the Chinese were very bitter against the telegraph, as it was reported the foreigners cut out the tongues of children and suspended them on the insulators to transmit the message from pole to pole. Then, again, the wires disturbed the graves of the "Fingshin," the spirit of wind and water. The telegraph instruments used are mostly of London make. The system of telegraphing in Chinese is very simple. There are about 8,000 characters in the Chinese language. These are all numbered from 1 up and so printed in book form. It is therefore only necessary to telegraph the numbers. This system is used in the government dispatches.


Not a Free Fight

Dinks — The morning paper says the caucus ended in a free fight. Is that correct?
Danks — Not by a blamed sight. Every man in it had to ante up with $10 and costs. — Buffalo Courier.

Ten Long Words

1895

A correspondent wants to know if the telegraph companies would send the following ten words, which he says are the ten largest words in the language, at the regular rates for ten words: Valetudinarianism, subconstitutionalist, incomprehensibility, philoprogenitiveness, honorificibilitudinity, anthropophagenenarian, disproportionableness, velocipedestrianistical, transubstantiationableness, proantitransubstantiationist. He can easily find out by sending them. — New York Tribune.

The Man Who Dared Disobey

1900

The great soldier is the man who, as a subordinate, on all ordinary occasions obeys orders implicitly, but who, when the great emergency arrives, knows that, to save the day and his country, he must disobey. He breaks his orders on his own responsibility, knowing that the result and the future will justify him. Failure would be his ruin. Success may immortalize him. And if he is great, he knows that he shall succeed.

One of the members of the Russian imperial cabinet, Monsieur Witte, minister of finance, is one of the most powerful and important men in the empire. Highly esteemed and trusted by the emperor, he is respected and honored by the representatives of foreign powers. Yet Monsieur Witte is of humble origin — a fact which, in Russia, where every circumstance favors the man of noble blood above the plebeian, has counted for much against him.

Monsieur Witte, in his early life, after an imperfect education, was made station-master at a small and unimportant railway station in southern Russia. The war between Russia and Turkey arose, and hundreds of thousands of soldiers had to be transported into Roumania and Bulgaria. One day Monsieur Witte, in his station, received telegraphic instructions to make certain arrangements in connection with the passage of these troops along the line.

In Russia orders from a high source, connected with the affairs of the government, are terrible things, not to be disobeyed. But this young man saw that obedience in the present instance would create great confusion, if not positive disaster. His superiors had told him to do the wrong thing. He ventured to violate his instructions, and to do the right thing.

The president of the railway summoned the young man before him, and asked why he had presumed to disobey his telegraphic orders in a matter of such vast consequence. Monsieur Witte told him why, and convinced him that he, the station-master, was right, and that the orders were wrong. Instead of removing or punishing him, the chief of the road advanced him.

Afterward this railway president, Monsieur Wichnegradski, was called to St. Petersburg to assume a place in the imperial cabinet. Remembering the man who had so successfully disobeyed, he sent for him and gave him a post under him. After that Monsieur Witte's advancement was rapid, and he rose to occupy the highest "business" position in the empire — that of minister of finance. — Youth's Companion.

Telegraphers Like New Nine Hour Workday

Council Bluffs, Iowa, 1908

Like New Nine Hour Law

Local Telegraphers Say it is "Fine Dope" to Get Off so Early

When asked how they like the new nine-hour law which recently went into effect, several Council Bluffs telegraphers expressed their sentiments in the two words "fine dope." They say it feels very strange to have to work only nine hours, but all agree that the sensation is delightful.

"It doesn't seem natural to work nine hours and then quit," said one man, "because we were so used to working until we could hardly stand up and keep our eyes open that it seems almost too good to be true."

"It makes a fellow feel like he is getting a square deal, and we certainly appreciate it," said another.

—The Daily Nonpareil, Council Bluffs, Iowa, March 11, 1908, p. 1.

Crazed With Grief for Husband's Death, Woman Jumps from Train

1878

A Lady Jumping from a Train

A lady who was accompanying the remains of her husband from Florida to her home in Akron, Ohio, jumped from a rapidly moving express train on Friday night, just before she reached the end of her journey.

She was crazed with grief and a morbid apprehension that she would be blamed by his friends for having taken him away to die. When the train left Cincinnati she seemed to be calm, and the family physician, who accompanied her, thought she would sleep after so much exhaustion. Worn out with watching and anxiety he went to sleep himself in a berth opposite to her. When the train neared Akron, early in the morning, the physician arose, and, to his horror, found her berth empty and the window open.

Search was made all through the train, but she was nowhere to be found. When the train stopped the poor physician was almost speechless. How could he give to the sorrowing friends the dead body of Mr. Phillips, and tell them that his wife had committed suicide? The telegraph was used at once to get tidings of the missing woman, but it was several hours before any response came, and then it was announced that the woman was lying at a house in a little village some distance off the railroad, not far from Mansfield.

A train was chartered and friends hastened to bring her home. They found her in bed, conscious, but almost exhausted. The people said that she knocked at their door a little while before daylight, and when they opened the door they found her all covered with mud, and unable to tell her name or anything about herself. She explained that after she went to her berth she could not sleep. She finally opened the window and looked out. It was raining, and the feeling that she was rapidly approaching her home brought an indefinable dread and a powerful impulse to escape it. With this feeling she threw herself out of the window while the train was in full motion. She fortunately struck upon a sandbank, and was thus saved from immediate death, as well as from severe injury.

Instant Messaging Helps Actor Name His Price

1903

The coolness and self-control which have always been two of John Drew's most marked qualities, both off and on the stage, stood him in good stead once in the early part of his career, says Frank Leslie's Monthly.

It happened that Drew for some reason or other learned how to take and send messages on the telegraph ticker. Harry Vernon, a friend of his, and a skilled telegraph operator himself, was working that time in the office of a certain manager who was negotiating with Drew. When the talk between the actor and manager worked around to the question of terms Drew hesitated to stand out for what he wanted. Finally the manager made an offer. The actor was on the point of acceptance when the ticker began to sound. Vernon was the operator.

"Drew, Drew, Drew," it ticked. "Listen, listen. Hold off terms a minute. Ask for ten more. He said he'd give it before you came in."

With a calm and impassive expression of deliberate consideration, Drew looked thoughtfully at the manager while he rapped with a pencil on the desk the dots and dashes which were good Morse for "Vernon, are you sure?"

"Sure," came the clicks.

Then Drew spoke and got his price.

—Davenport Daily Republican, Davenport, Iowa, March 4, 1903, page 5.

Comment: So Vernon was in the same office as Drew at the time but sent the message over the ticker, yet, being present, was able to respond to Drew's taps on the desk.