A CHAPTER OF BLUNDERS AND MISTAKES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 264, 8 November 1871, Page 4

A CHAPTER OF BLUNDERS AND MISTAKES.

Ad absurd little error which occurredin a telegram the other day, and which nearly gave me four hours' journey for nothing, set me to recalling various kinds of blunders and mistakes I have come across either in reading or experience; and as some of those are curious, I shall present a few to the reader. The telegraph does such magical work for, us day by- day that its errors are apt to be forgotten in our administration *of its celerity and general accuracy. Yet, when the wires are affected by storms, or its clerks by carelessness, the telegraph makes dreadful blunders. There are firms in Glasgow that could furnish any number of illustrations. la one case, the mere placing of a point was likely to have embroiled two companies in a law-suit. The message was sent : — "You can have the hundred pieces at sixteen and nine. Thousand more at same rate.'' As delivered in London it read — " You can have the hundred pieces at sixteen, and nine thousand more at same rate, ' — on which understanding, or misunderstanding, the goods were ordered.. At a meeting of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce,' Mr." Horsfalls, M.P., complaining of the irregularity and] incorrectness w-ltli which telegrams were transmitted then (matters are improved now) to and from India, instanced a message sent, to one gentlemen in Calcutta' to inform him that his wife [in England] had presented him with "five daughteus." In another case, a husband anxiously awaiting news of au interesting event at home, received per wire, the staggering announcement, — "Your wife hal a fine box this morning ! " Another gentleman who had ordered his gig to await him at the station, was understood from the telegram to require the attendance of his pig ! The following story was tola" me by a clergymau in Philadelphia. A preacher who had accepted a call to a pastoral charge in a Western State, was prevented by reason of the want of a quorum to proceed with his ordination. A telegram was accordingly despatched to the deacons : — "Presbytery lacked a quorum to ordain." Before these words reached (heir destination they bad got themselves twisted into the following extraordinary shape : — "Presbytery tacked a worm on lo Adam." The deacons, on receipt of this message, were utterly bamboozled — could make nothing of it ; but after very long consultation, came to the conclusion that their new Minister had got married, and that was his facetious way of making them aware of it. They accordingly took the supposed hint, and provided lodgings for two instead of one. Reverting to punctuation — the point with which we started — it is a moral lesson on the power of " littles," to notice how completely the alteration of the smallest . punctuating mark may change the sense of a whole passage. Recently, in an auctioneer's list, the misplacing of a little hyphen introduced, amongst the articles for sale, " 2000 camels' hair-brushes " an item that ought to have been interesting to Mr. Darwin.