VERY LITERAL OBEDIENCE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2662, 3 August 1889, Page 6 (Supplement)

VERY LITERAL OBEDIENCE.

" People are always making fun of us Russians for taking things so literally," said a Russian major in whose company Mr David Ker was ascending the Dnieper ; "and not without some reason, I must admit. You remember that story you told me the other day about a man who had a china cup given to him as the model for a, complete set, and, finding that it had been cracked and mended, turned oat the whole set cracked and mended in the very same way ? Well, I could find you half a dozen men in any Russian town you like who would do just the same thing themselves." "Very likely," said his companion, "though I doubt whether they would carry their literal obedience quite so far as the American printer who was told to 'follow his copy,' and, when the copy blew out of the window, jumped after it and broke his leg." "Well, I can match even that," laughed Major K. "Did you ever hear how the telegraphline between St. Petersburg and Peterhof was left unofficered ? Well, you know, before the electric wires were laid we used to telegraph in the old fashion by signals, and all along the Peterhof road there were signal stations planted just within sight of each other, and at each station a clerk, with strict orders, to repeat exactly any signal made by his right-hand or lefthand neighbour. One day the first clerk on the line, in a fit of despair at having lost nearly all his money, hanged himself on the nearest telegraph post. His next neighbour, seeing this, took it for a signal, and instantly strung himself up in like manner, and the end of it was that all the clerks on the line hanged themselves in regular rotation." "Well," remarked his companion, " that's no worse than the story of the order sent from Pekin to the authorities of a great Chinese town, commanding that a certain na|lve merchant should be ' hung up in his counting house'; and then, after hia execution, somebody discovered the words should have boon translated 'suspended in his office.' "