TELEGRAPHIC BLUNDERS.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1141, 13 January 1874, Page 4

TELEGRAPHIC BLUNDERS.

[WESTPORT EVENING. STAB.]

The proverbial two sides to a question present themselves for consideration in the much vexed matter of blundering telegrams Scarcely a copy of any paper published in New Zealand comes to hand that does contain some reference to mistakes of omission or commission in the transit of messages, and not seldom correspondents and publishers gh'e expression to very irate feelings on tho subject. Toe department does not claim, as yet, to be perfect in its organization, nor in the nature of thinys transitory will it ever be so. A staff whereon young recruits represent a large proportion, and whereon also scanty pay is perpetually causing defections aud retirement among the more fully competent operators, is not the best adapted to attain perfection. But from the other point of view it must be allowed that the public themselves are not always blameless, and the following remarks quoted from a contemporary are pregnant with unanswerable argument.

"In a recent letter to Mr Lemon, a correspondent grumbled about the ' chaotic jumble of sentences which occasionally present themselves in telegrams.' Mr Lemon's reply is so much to the point, and oilers such a useful lesson to all persons sending telegi'ains for transmission, whether private persons or Press correspondents, that it deserves the widest publication, both for the sake of securing accuracy in the despatches and also of releasing the clerks from the worry of attempting to decipher almost indecipherable hieroglyphics. Mr Lemon says : —' If you were permitted to see the manner in which a great number of telegrams are presented for transmission, you would wonder that complaints of inaccuracy are not a great deal more numerous. I myself have seen hundreds of telegrams the caligraphy of which I would defy all the cleverest male or female operators to make out. If the outside public would only devote a little cafe when writing their telegrams, so as to make them legible, I will undertake that tbey will not undergo mutilation at the hands of my officers." There is a great deal of force in this, and webope people sending telegrams will lay it to heart, and so save not a little delay in business, and not a little labor of the recording angel, who hears with pitying looks the epithetical expressions of puzzled men of business and angry subeditors.