TALES OF THE TELEGRAPH.

Kumara Times, Issue 1126, 8 May 1880, Page 2

TALES OF THE TELEGRAPH.

[ENGLISH MAGAZINE.]

_ Riddle-reading, so popular as a recteation with young ladies just now, is liter-* ally part and parcel of a newspaper editor’s daily work ; but In his case the puzzles are to be solved immediatly they are proposed; there is no setting them, aside Tor leisure consideration.

Correspondents of the pfeSs when they use the telegraph are in the habit; for economical reasons, of dispensing with », articles, prepositions, and conjunctions j » while punctuation is-perforce out of the question. Their communications, consequently, are not always to be read aright' at sight; and should the telegraph clerk, from haste or ignorance, or malice, complicate matters by mistakes of commission ’ or omission, the result is likely to be more exciting than pleasing to the editor, or his sub., who has, at the shortest notice, to make sense out of nonsense, knowing, if he should happen to blander, somebody will certainly let the public know it. ■ When Mr Renter, desiring make the editor of the Java Bode acquainted with the fact that Mr Brand had been nominated for the vacant Speakership, put the thing thus, “Proposed to Brand Speaker, it is hardly surprising that the journalist, in setting the latest news from England before his readers, gravely stated that is was proposed to brand the Speaker of the House of Commons, wisely leaving them to divine the object of the operation.

Our own Times once printed a despatch precisely as it was received. It ran thus : “ Washington. House passed resolution directing committee inquiry into offences president hundred eight ayes thirty eight noes first sept impeachment radicals determined press it president vetoed negro suffrage Dill.” The proper reading of which was supposed to be s *• The House has passed a resolution directing a Committee to inquire into offences committed by the President, by a hundred and eight Ayes to thirty-eight Noes. This is the first step to an impeachment. The Radicals are determined to press it. Tho President has vetoed the Negro Suffrage Bill” .

When the news came of the revolution in Turkey, and the deposition of Abdul Aziz, Queen Victoria it is said, lost no time in intervening in his behalf, by telegraphing to Constantinople and expressing her hope that the es-Sultan would not be subjected to any violence or ill-treatment. “ Soignez le bien”—Take good care of him—said Her Majesty ; but the cruel telegraph made her say, “ Saignez le bien ’’—Bleed him well; and how they bled him all the world knows.

A noble lord, as proud and fond as a man should be of his beautiful young wife, was just about rising to speak in a debate, when a telegram was put into his band. He read it, left the House, jumped into a cab, drove to Charing Cross, and took the train to Dover. Next day he returned home, rushed into his wife’s room, and finding her there, upbraidfjjl the astonished lady in no measured termar-She protested her ignorance of having done anything to offend him. “Then what did you mean by your telegram?” he asked.—“ Mean ? What I said, of course. What are you talking about ?”—“ Read it for yourself,” said he. She read: “I flee with Mr - ■— to Dover straight. Pray for me.” For the moment words

’would not come ; then, alter a merry fit ■of laughter, the suspected wife quietly remarked : “ Oh those dreadful telegraph people ! No wonder you are out of your mind, dear. I telegraphed simply : ‘ I tea with Mrs —in Dover street. Stay for me.’ ” A droll mistake .was made by an imaginative old da!me who, having permitted a telegraph pole to be placed on the top of her house, waited upon the chief of the Telegraph Company concerned to complain that she could get iio sleep of a night, being kept awake by the noise made by the messages passing over head, “ I don’t think, sir/’ said she, “ you can be aware of ail that’s said along them Wires. There’s a deal that hadn’t ought to be. 1 can assure you, sir, that very touch that’s said there, that I have to lie and listen to, is such as no decent woman Ought to hear ; and I hope you will put a stop to it.” The amused gentleman was hardly able to meet the accusation with due gravity; but he did contrive to keep his countenance while he informed the old lady that the young men who had hitherto worked the Wires were under notice Of dismissal; and that ■in fntute only young women of great respectability Would be employed, so there would be no danger of her propriety being shocked any longer.