WITNESSING A MARRIAGE BY WIRE--BEATING A POOL ROOM--SPARRING AT LONG
RANGE
After my disastrous encounter with Miss Love, I went south and brought
up in St. Louis, where old "Top," the chief operator, gave me a place
working a New York quad. This was about the worst "roast" I had ever
struck, and it was work from the word go from 5 P. M. until 1 A. M. Work
on any wire from a big city leading to New York is always hot, and this
particular wire was the worst of the bunch. While working in this office
I had several little incidents come under my observation that may be of
interest.
The coy little god of love manifests itself in many ways, and the
successful culmination of two hearts' happiness is as often queer as it
is humorous.
Miss Jane Grey was an operator on the G. C. & F. Railway at Wichita,
Kansas, and Mr. Paul Dimmock worked for the Western Union in Louisville,
Kentucky. Through the agency of a matrimonial journal, Jane and Paul
became acquainted; letters and pictures were exchanged, and--it was the
old, old story--they became engaged. They wanted to be wedded and the
more sensational and notorious they could make it the better it would
suit them both. Jane only earned forty dollars per month, while Paul's
monthly stipend was the magnificent sum of sixty, with whatever extra
time he could "scoop." Neither one of them wanted to quit work just
then, they felt they could not afford it, but that marriage must come
off, or they would both die of broken hearts. Paul wrote,--Jane
wrote,--plans and compromises were made and refused; the situation was
becoming desperate, and finally Jane's brilliant mind suggested a
marriage by wire. Great head--fine scheme. _It takes a woman to
circumvent unforeseen obstacles every time._ Chief operators were
consulted in Kansas City and St. Louis and they agreed to have the wire
cut through on the evening appointed. There were to be two witnesses in
each office, and I was one of the honored two in St. Louis. The day
finally arrived, and promptly at seven-thirty in the evening Louisville
was cut through to Wichita, and after all the contracting parties and
the witnesses had assembled, the ceremony began. There was a minister at
each end, and as the various queries and responses were received by the
witnesses, they would read them to the contracting party present, and
finally Paul said,
"With this ring, I thee wed, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow:
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen."
The ring was placed on the bride's finger, _by proxy_, the benediction
pronounced by the Wichita minister, and the deed was done. In due time
the certificate was received and signed by all the witnesses, and the
matter made of record in both places.
How long did they live apart? Oh! not very long. I think it was the next
night that I saw a message going through directed to Paul saying, "Will
leave for Louisville to-night," and signed "Jane."
I wonder if old S. F. B. Morse ever had any idea when he was perfecting
the telegraph, that it would some day be used to assist in joining
together,
"Two souls with but a single thought,
Two hearts that beat as one."
Operators are as a rule as honest as the sun, yet, "where you find
wheat, there also you find chaff," and once in a while a man will be
found whose proper place is the penitentiary. One of the easiest ways
for an operator, so inclined to make money, is to cut wires, steal the
reports of races, market quotations, or C. N. D. reports, and beat them
to their destinations. Wires are watched very closely so that it is hard
for an outsider to do any monkeying. Many men understand telegraphy who
do not work at the business, and it is for this reason that all the
instruments in the bucket shops and stock exchanges are turned so low
that no one outside of the operating room can hear a sound. When it is
realized that transactions are made, and fortunes won or lost in a
fractional part of a minute, it will be seen how very careful the great
telegraph companies must be. The big horse races every year offer great
temptations.
While I was working in St. Louis, a case came under my observation that
will readily illustrate the perversity of human nature. In a large
office not so very far away, there was working a friend of mine, who did
nothing but copy race reports and C. N. D.'s all day. On the day the
great Kentucky Derby was to be run, the wire was cut through from the
track in Louisville to a big pool room in this city.
Now the chief operator in this place was a scaly sort of a cuss--in
fact, it was said that he had done time in the past for some
skullduggery--and when the horses went to the post, he stood by the
switchboard and deliberately cut the pool room wire, so the report
didn't go through. He copied the report himself, knew what horse had
won, and then sent a message to a henchman of his, who was an operator
and had an instrument secreted in his room near the pool room. This chap
went quickly into the pool room and made wagers right and left. A rank
outsider, a twenty to one shot, won the race, and after the confederate
had signified that he was ready, the chief sent the report through as if
it had come from the track. The whole transaction didn't take over two
minutes and the "bookies" were hit for about $30,000, which Mr. Chief
and his side pardner divided between them.
A little while later the suspicions of the bookmakers became aroused,
complaints were made, an investigation followed, and one fine day when
matters were becoming pretty warm, the recalcitrant chief disappeared.
His confederate confessed to the whole scheme and the jig was up. The
chief was afterwards apprehended and sent up for seven years, but he
held on to his boodle.
For the first month of my stay in St. Louis, my life was as uneventful
as a May day, but at the end of that time a man came on the New York end
of our quad that was enough to make a man drink. The men working
together on a wire like this should always be harmonious, because the
business is so heavy there is no time for any war of words. However,
operators are like all other men, and scraps are not uncommon. Generally
they take place at long range, and no one is hurt thereby. Some men have
an unhappy faculty of incurring the hatred of every person over a wire,
while personally they may be princes of good fellows. The man referred
to above, signed "SY," and he had about as much judgment as a two year
old kid. It didn't make any difference to him whether the weather was
clear or muggy, no matter whether the wire was weak or strong, he'd
pound along like a cyclone. Remonstrance availed nothing, and one night
when he was cutting up some of his monkeyshines, I became very warm
under the collar and told him in language more expressive than elegant,
just what I thought of him, threatening to have our wire chief have him
fired off the wire. He answered:
"Oh! you go to blazes, you big ham. You're too fresh anyway."
The epithet "ham" is about as mean a one as can be applied to an
operator, and I came back at him with:
"Look here, you infernal idiot, I'll meet you some time and when I do
I'm going to smash your face. Stop your monkeying and take these
messages."
"Hold your horses, sonny, what's the difference between you and a
jackass?" he said.
"Just nine hundred miles," I replied.
Further words were useless and in a few minutes he was relieved, but
just about the time he got up he said:
"Say, 'BY,' don't forget you've got a contract to smash my face some of
these days. I'll be expecting you. Ta Ta."
That was the last of him on that wire and the incident passed from my
mind. I pulled up and left St. Louis shortly after that and went to work
for the old Baltimore and Ohio Commercial Company, at the corner of
Broadway and Canal streets, in New York. I drew a prize in the shape of
the common side of the first Boston quad. Sitting right alongside of me
was a great, big, handsome Irish chap named Dick Stanley. He was as fine
a fellow as ever lived, and that night took me over to his house on
Long Island to board. We were sitting in his room about nine-thirty,
having a farewell smoke before retiring and our conversation turned to
"shop talk." We talked of the old timers we had both known, told
reminiscences, spun yarns, and all at once Dick said:
"Say, Bates, did you ever work in 'A' office in St. Louis?"
"Oh! yes," I replied, "I put in three months there under 'Old Top.' In
fact, I came from there to New York."
"That so?" he answered. "I used to work on the polar side of the No. 2
quad, from this end, over in the Western Union office on Broadway and
Dey street. What did you sign there?"
"BY," I answered. I thought he looked queer, but we continued our talk,
and finally I told him of my wordy war with a man in New York, who
signed "SY," and remarked that I was going over to 195 Broadway, and
size him up some day. He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, got up from
his chair, and, stretching his six feet two of anatomy to its full
length said:
"Well, old chap, I'm fagged. I'm going to bed. You'd better get a good
sleep and be thoroughly rested in the morning, because you'll need all
your strength. I'm the man that signed 'SY' in the New York office, and
I'm ready to take that licking."
[Illustration: "He looked at me ... then catching me by the collar...."]
Did I lick him? Not much, I couldn't have licked one side of him, and we
were the best of chums during my stay in the city.