Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 August 1890 — He Was Surprised. [ARTICLE]

He Was Surprised.

The errors of the telegraph will probably continue as long as the earth stands, since even should the dot and dash alphabet be done away with, which there seems no immediate prospect that it will be, the haste in which messages are usually despatched, must still prove a fertile source of mistakes. A gentleman who had been absent from Boston on an errand connected with the visit of some one cf the innumerable companies of folks of all sorts who have been entertained in this town within the past few years had occasion to telegraph home for a carriage to meet him on his arrival, says the Boston Courier. He accordingly sent a dispatch; which, when it left his hand, read: “Send hacks to B. A A. Station, six thirty; five persons.” But alas! for the uncertainty of all things earthly! When the dispatch was put into the hands of the stable-keeper in Boston, to whom it was sent, it read: “Send haoks to B. & A. Station, six. Thirty-five persons.” The result is easily to be foreseen. When the gentleman came out of the station and asked for his carriage, his eye was met with a long line of hacks stretching off into the dim distance of the deepenine twiligfit of the winter evening, and to his dismay he was informed that they were all at his order. It was in vain he protested that he did not wish them; it was with the utmost difficulty that he escaped having to ride home in the whole collection of carriages; while the difficulty over the bill afterward, with the stable-keeper and the telegraph company, might furnish material for a small volume.