The Feilding Star. Published Daily. WEDNESDAY, JULY 26, 1893. Our Siamese Trouble

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 22, 26 July 1893, Page 2

The Feilding Star. Published Daily. WEDNESDAY, JULY 26, 1893. Our Siamese Trouble

While -we recognise to the fullest extent the horrible possibilities of the troubles in Siam, we would like to air a little grievance of our own in this connection. We profess to hare as fair a geographical education as most men, we have a globe which we view with the same reverence, even yet, that Little Dombey did the historical globes of Dr Blimber ; we have also atlases of the most ancient dates, " revised and enlarged with index and statistical notes," sufficient to satisfy the most hungry mind, but wo find them all utterly and completely useless when Siam comes in the way. In the time of the African troubles the average pressman could stand up like the decent fellow he is, and take a licking from ioipie, and veldts, and trecks, and drifts, without feeling aßhamed, because he knew, or thought he knew, where he was and what he was getting, which amounts to the same thing. There was no malice, because he didn't know and the other fellow was as wise as him. But in this Siamese business there is a change of front. The man who starts off the telegrams doesn't Jcnow, the telegraphist who sends them doesn't know, the telegraphist who receives them doesn't know, and, what is more, he does not care the malediction of the mender of worn out pots and pans whether he knows them or not. Small blame to him. 80, between the wicked sender and the indifferent receiver, the unlucky pressman, who, equally uuluckily, has to pay for all this, finds his geographical education utterly valueless, and his oxpensivo maps, and books of reference, snares and delusions. Yet he can find some consolation in this trouble. Hitherto the sins of the setters-up of type have been made to stand as a set-off against the fearful and wonderful caligraphy of those whose lot in life it is for them to write to newspapers. Now, the telegraphifitee who is the receiver, or the equally wicked person, whether male or female, who delights in the name of the transmitter, transcends in evil the type-setter even as Jupiter transcends Astarte in lovlinesß. To put it mildly, the " printer's devil " — we use the phrase with all due reverence — is an angel of light to the average telegraphist. We have reason for this opinion. If a type* stickeY makes an error, the "metal" is there to bear witness against him. With the telegraphist there is no record, no check. The sender may intend, honestly enough, to send words meaning one thing, and the roceiver may, with equal honesty, think he is receiving words meaning another thing, and yet neither of them may have, on the one side sent, or on the other received, the message originally written by the author. Lucky it is for' the Government, and those set in authority over us, that by special Act of Parliament they have absolved themselves from all responsibility here or hereafter. We would not mind it no much if it wore not for the youngsters who ure learning geography at the Feilding State School. These little people read the names as we get thorn, and tbeo, like little moles, try to root them out iv their geographies and maps. Of course they cannot fiud thorn, any more than we can, but they don't blame the telegraph devil, nor the printer's devil, but they blame us, and say we don't know enough geography to define the difference between a Swedish turnip and Lord Nelson at Copenhagen. That is whut troubles us fur more than the French trouble in Siaw.