Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 June 1884 — TOLD BY TELEGRAPH. [ARTICLE]

TOLD BY TELEGRAPH.

The Versatility of the More* Alphabet. Such is the adaptability of the Morse alphabet used in telegraphing that it can be communicated by the sense of hearing, taste, sight, or feeling. About twenty years ago Col. J. J. S. Wilson, of ISt. Louis, then an active telegraph superintendent, was on a tour in the southern part of Missouri It was a season of floods. Large portions of the country adjacent to the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers were inundated, and the wreckage had included the washing away of many miles of poles and wire. It became necessary to communicate with a point on the Missouri bank of the Mississippi River by telegraph. The fertile invention of Col. Wilson directed that a locomotive be run to the Illinois bank. Mounting the foot-board, he grasped the valve, and soon the shrill screams of the locomotive whistle were heard by the listening operators on the other shore, whistling out Wilson’s message in the long and short sounds of the alphabet, familiar to them as that of their primers. Communication was kept up in this way for several hours. A rich citizen of San Francisco owes his life to his knowledge of telegraphy acquired many years ago. Wandering over Southern California as a prospector, he was captured by a band of Mexi can desperadoes. They carried him to an abandoned hacienda, and with mocking cruelty set him at their table to feast, before, as they told him, they killed him. The prisoner recognized among his captors an old companion, also an operator, who had gone to the bad a little time before. The recognition was mutual, but neither dared to address the other. The captive's quick wit improvised a sounder out of his knife and folk, and, while to the others he appeared playing with them, his cry for assistance was read and understood by his old-time comrade. They formed in this way a plan of escape, Avhich was successfully carried out. A train on a Western railroad several years ago met with a terrible accident miles from any station. Among tho passengers was a young telegrapher. His ready mind took in the situation, and climbing the nearest pole it was an easy task to cut the wire, and using tho two ends as a key sent a message for help. To receive the reply was a more difficult task. Here again the young man’s invention stood in good stead and spurred him on to an exhibition of nerve that is rarely met with. Admonishing the distant operator to Bend slowly, he placed the cut ends of the wire upon his tongue, and by the strength of each shock to that delicate member made out the letters until the message was complete. That young man’s sense of taste was destroyed and returned only in a weakened degree after two or throe years. There happened to be an operator on board of a small coasting schooner which was cast on a Florida reef in such a position that escape from the ship and aid from the shore were both out of the question during the night of the wreck. Throughout the long hours of suspense he kept up communication with another operator on shore by means of a lantern, and words of hope, of sympathy and encouragement passed back and forth until day dawned and made rescue possible. The United States Government in several of its lighthouses has the lanterns arranged so mi to emit long and short flashes of light, which form certain letters of the telegraph code. This is a method of distinguishing the beacon, which is easily understood by a little practice.