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Repeating Telegrams

Repeating Telegrams image
Parent Issue
Day
27
Month
March
Year
1891
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Telegraph compames persistently print at tlie top of their message blanks u warning tl-at they are not responsable for inislakes in trausinission, a iu they also proffer, in very small type, the advice that "ti gaard against mistakes or delays tlie sender of a message should order it repeated; that is, telegraphed back to the origi nating office for comparison," a an additional charge of onehalf the resralar rate. The notice has ateadily adorned the blanks in spite of court decifrions that the companies are responsible for errors, whethfer the messages are repeated or not, and in spite uf the additional fact that it ia rarely read, or, if it is, the interest excited is only casual. Nobody ever seems to accept the advice regarding repetition. An operator, speakiiig of the old notice recently, said that in an experience of fifteen years he had never seen but one message bearing the order to repeat, and it was regarded as a great curiosity. This messa.ce feil a victim to excessive cantion. It was bound from New York to San Francisco. It contained but one word, the Lctle word "Yes." It was religiously rerieated back from every relay station between the Atlantic and Pacific, but by some misfortune, due to a second of abstraction on the part of an operator, or to a timely but unfortunate "flip" of the instrument, the word waa changed to "No." A big row ensaed, and an operator in New York nearly lost his