just beyond the City, is still very much in evidence. It is she who,
with a crass stupidity almost beyond belief, misreads the telegrams
handed in, and despatches the most extraordinary and extravagant
messages that bear no sort of resemblance to their original draughts,
and it is her sister at the other end of the wire who cannot interpret
the dot and dash of the Morse system aright, and so further complicates
affairs. The marvels and conveniency of telegraphy have been praised,
and not beyond their due, but the other side of the medal has to be
shown in the extraordinary and disquieting ‘blunders,’ perpetrated
chiefly by female telegraphists, which spread dismay and consternation
through such vital substitutions as ‘father is dead,’ for the original
message of ‘father is bad’; ‘all going well: a little fire at 7 o’clock
this morning,’ in which ‘fire’ is transmitted instead of ‘girl’; and
the appalling error ‘Come at once: mother much _diseased_,’ in which
the word ‘diseased’ usurps the place of ‘distressed.’
The absurd way in which people have been summoned by telegraph to meet
friends at places that not only did those friends not contemplate, but
which either do not exist at all, or, at least, not in the situations
some of these erring telegrams assign them, is within the experience
of almost every one who is in the way of frequently receiving these
pink missives at the post-office. ‘Meet me 5 o’clock Saint Mary Abbots
Church, Kensington,’ has been rendered, ‘Meet me 5 o’clock Saint Mark
Abchurch, Kennington.’ The substitution of ‘Piccadilly’ for ‘Pevensey’;
the omission of the second word in the address of ‘Manchester Square,’
and similar vagaries are common.
Of course this is not to say that they are only the women telegraph
clerks who fall into these errors, but the greater percentage
originates with them. The woman-clerk who receives a message through
the wire cannot follow the telegraphic instrument with the attention
that makes all the difference between accuracy and some dreadful
blunder. Thus it is that in the domain of the electric telegraph the
ineradicable tendency of her sex to argue from false premises, and
her capacity for jumping to erroneous conclusions are admirably well
shown; and the system by which telegrams are sent lends itself in
the most complete and remarkable way to her errors of anticipation.
The telegraphic alphabet now universally in use--known as the Morse
system--consists of a series of dots and dashes; and a message is
spelled out by a laborious ticking of the magnetic needle at the office
in receipt of the telegram. The message is read, tick by tick, from
the needle’s rapid oscillations:--‘Your sister di----’ ‘Oh,’ says the
female telegraphist to herself, disregarding the next few movements of
the needle, ‘died, of course,’ and so finishes the word. The needle
continues ticking and the next words are spelled out, ‘with us last
night, undertake----’ The telegraphist adds an ‘r’ to that word to make
it fit her first guess, and reads off the remainder of the message, ‘to
bring her up to-morrow,’ and so despatches an alarming telegram, which
should have read harmlessly enough, ‘Your sister dined with us last
night. Undertake to bring her up to-morrow.’
These things are sufficiently dreadful, and leave little room for
exaggeration; but one must scan more than doubtfully that tale of a
telegram which when handed in read, ‘I tea with Mr. Smith in Dover
Street. Stay for me,’ but which was changed into ‘I flee with Mrs.
Smith to Dover straight. Pray for me.’
As for journalism, women have invaded the newspaper offices to some
purpose, and it is owing to them that the modern newspaper is usually
an undistinguished farrago of wild and whirling words, ungrammatical
at best, and at its worst a jumble of more or less malicious gossip,
without sequence or thread of reason. The ‘lady journalist’ is no
respecter of persons or institutions, and an easy impudence is
natural to her contributions, whether her subject be peer or peasant.
Proportion is in no sense her gift or acquirement: the death of a
member of the ‘submerged tenth’ in a court off Fleet Street is more
thrilling to her senses than the fall of a statesman from office; the
cut of a dress or the shade of a ribbon wears an importance in her eyes
that the rise and progress of trades can never win; and the babble of
Social Science Congresses, or the lecturing of University Extensionists
transcends the Parliamentary debater in her mind. ‘Actuality’ is her
shibboleth and gush her output; and the heart actuates her pen rather
than the head.
The journalist of years bygone was a very different being. His--for
the old-time journalist was always masculine--his knowledge of frocks
and flounces was _nil_; his habitat was generally a pothouse, and his
speech was as often as not thick and husky with potations; but however
confused his talk, and however objectionable his personality, his
utterances in the press were apt and luminous and he took no bribes.
In this last respect the name and trade of a ‘lady journalist’ are
somewhat stale and blown upon of late, and she has been revealed as the
debaucher of newspaper morality, who, in league with the advertisement
department, praises the shoddy goods of the advertising tradesman,
while he who relies not upon _réclame_ but on excellence of workmanship
is dismissed with faint praise, or mentioned not at all. Worse than
this unscrupulous fending for her employer--editor or advertising
manager--she stoops to gifts in coin and kind from eager shopkeepers,
panting to gain the ear and open the purse of the public, and when
she has a fancy for any ‘particular’ article, she begs it with an
assurance born of the knowledge that her wishes will not be refused by
the tradesman who has that article in his gift. He dare not do so, for
his puff would be missing from the ‘organ’ that would otherwise have
proclaimed the excellence of his wares to a gulled and gullible world.
Certainly, in all the man’s employments she has invaded, in no other is
woman so powerful for ill as in journalism.
_FINIS._
_LONDON:_
_Printed by Strangeways & Sons, Tower Street, Cambridge Circus, W.C._
[Illustration]
_WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
ENGLISH PEN ARTISTS OF TO-DAY: Examples of their Work, with some
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LONDON: ELKIN MATHEWS, VIGO STREET.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] ‘She kept no notes or records. She desired to forget what she had
done.
‘Many ladies try to benefit these women in different ways; not many
receive them into their houses.
‘A sufficient number of private persons doing this work would obviate
the necessity for Government machinery.
‘Witness would wish to keep clear of Government aid, because Government
would then assume a right to control. The work was too delicate for the
State to meddle with.
‘She knew nothing of the garrison towns: knew most of the north:
declined to give an opinion as to the operation of the Acts: had no
interest in them.
‘Reminded that she had given her opinion pretty freely at meetings
and in publications, the witness stated that that was merely in
illustration of her views on the constitutional and moral part of the
subject.
‘No alteration in the Acts could reconcile her to them. She would be
satisfied with nothing but entire repeal.
‘Witness remembered addressing the Secretary at War with reference to a
girl named Hagar. She thought her letter to Mr. Cardwell was a private
one. She had apologised to Mr. Cardwell for having written in warmth of
feeling.
‘She was aware that therein she made a charge of gross misconduct
against a policeman: was not satisfied that she had been entirely
mistaken. She reported the case on the authority of Mr. and Mrs.
Heritage and of the mother and girl.
‘She was aware that the Secretary of State ordered an inquiry, and that
the inspector of hospitals came to the conclusion that there was not a
word of truth in what the woman and girl said. She believed the woman
and girl in preference to Dr. Sloggett. She did not know the nature of
the evidence on which Dr. Sloggett reported to the Secretary of State,
and was still disposed to believe the woman and girl.
‘Her speeches had often been incorrectly reported. She did say at
Nottingham that the promoters of the Acts did not dare to ask the Queen
to sign such a measure during the life of Prince Albert; but did not
say, as reported, that Her Majesty signed the Act believing it to be a
Cattle Bill.
‘She considered any reformations under the Acts accidental, and doubted
whether, as brought about by the Acts, reformation was a benefit.
‘She would take no legal measures for prevention of the infection of
infants by diseased parents; only moral means.’
[2] ‘Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head
of the Church ... therefore, as the Church is subject unto Christ,
so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything’ (Ephes. v.
22-24). ‘Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit
in the Lord’ (Col. iii. 18). ‘Let the woman learn in silence, with all
subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority
over the man, but to be in silence’ (1 Tim. ii. 11, 12). ‘But I would
have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of
the woman is the man.’ ‘Every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with
her head uncovered dishonoureth her head.’ ‘For a man, indeed, ought
not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God;
but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman;
but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman;
but the woman for the man’ (1 Cor. xi. 3, 5, 7-9). ‘Let your women keep
silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak:
but they are commanded to be under obedience’ (1 Cor. xiv. 34).
[3] Lady Jeune.
[4] An amusing tale was told (which may or may not have been true)
shortly after the introduction of women into the Postal Service, by
which it would seem that a noble Postmaster-General, calling casually
into a post-office, was refused information by two of his _employées_.
[Transcriber’s Note:
Obvious printer errors corrected silently.
Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.]