Many, and varied, and strange, are the duties which woman has to perform
in this life--especially in that wonderful and gigantic phase of this
life which is comprehended in the word London.
One chill December afternoon there sat in front of a strange-looking
instrument a woman--at least she was as nearly a woman as is compatible
with the age of seventeen. She was also pretty--not beautiful, observe,
but pretty--sparklingly pretty; dark, dimpled, demure and delightful in
every way; with a turn-up nose, a laughing eye, and a kindly look.
Her chief duty, from morning to night, consisted in playing with her
pretty little fingers on three white pianoforte keys. There were no
other keys--black or white--in connection with these three. They stood
alone and had no music whatever in them--nothing but a click.
Nevertheless this young woman, whose name was May Maylands, played on
them with a constancy and a deft rapidity worthy of a great, if not a
musical, cause. From dawn to dusk, and day by day, did she keep those
three keys clicking and clittering, as if her life depended on the
result; and so in truth it did, to some extent, for her bread and butter
depended on her performances on that very meagre piano.
Although an artless and innocent young girl, fresh from the western
shores of Erin, May had a peculiar, and, in one of her age and sex,
almost pert way of putting questions, to which she often received quaint
and curious replies.
For instance one afternoon she addressed to a learned doctor the
following query:--
"Can you send copy last prescription? Lost it. Face red as a carrot.
In agonies! What shall I do? Help!"
To which the learned doctor gave the matter-of-fact but inelegant
reply:--
"Stick your feet in hot water. Go to bed at once. Prescription sent by
post. Take it every hour."
But May Maylands did not stick her feet in hot water; neither did she go
to bed, or take any physic. Indeed there was no occasion to do so, for
a clear complexion and pink cheeks told of robust health.
On another occasion she asked an Irish farmer if he could send her
twenty casks of finest butter to cost not more than 6 pence per pound.
To which the farmer was rude enough to answer--"Not by no manner of
means."
In short May's conduct was such that we must hasten to free her from
premature condemnation by explaining that she was a female telegraphist
in what we may call the literary lungs of London--the General
Post-Office at St. Martin's-le-Grand.
On that chill December afternoon, during a brief lull in her portion of
the telegraphic communication of the kingdom, May leaned her little head
on her hand, and sent her mind to the little cottage by the sea, already
described as lying on the west coast of Ireland, with greater speed than
ever she flashed those electric sparks which it was her business to
scatter broadcast over the land. The hamlet, near which the cottage
stood, nestled under the shelter of a cliff as if in expectation and
dread of being riven from its foundations by the howling winds, or
whelmed in the surging waves. The cottage itself was on the outskirts
of the hamlet, farther to the south. The mind of May entered through
its closed door,--for mind, like electricity, laughs at bolts and bars.
There was a buzz of subdued sound from more than twelve hundred
telegraphists, male and female, in that mighty telegraph-hall of Saint
Martin's-le-Grand, but May heard it not. Dozens upon dozens of tables,
each with its busy occupants--tables to right of her, tables to left of
her, tables in rear of her, tables in front of her,--swept away from her
in bewildering perspective, but May saw them not. The clicking of six
or seven hundred instruments broke upon her ear as they flashed the news
of the world over the length and breadth of the land, pulsating joy and
sorrow, surprise, fear, hope, despair, and gladness to thousands of
anxious hearts, but May regarded it not. She heard only the booming of
the great sea, and saw her mother seated by the fire darning socks, with
Madge engaged in household work, and Phil tumbling with baby-brother on
the floor, making new holes and rents for fresh darns and patches.
Mrs Maylands was a student and lover of the Bible. Her children,
though a good deal wilder, were sweet-tempered like herself. It is
needless to add that in spite of adverse circumstances they were all
moderately happy. The fair telegraphist smiled, almost laughed, as her
mind hovered over the home circle.
From the contemplation of this pleasant and romantic picture she was
roused by a familiar rustle at her elbow. Recalling her mind from the
west of Ireland, she fixed it on a mass of telegrams which had just
arrived from various parts of the city.
They had been sucked through several pneumatic tubes--varying from a few
yards to two miles in length--had been checked, assorted, registered,
and distributed by boys to the various telegraphists to whose lot they
fell. May Maylands chanced, by a strange coincidence, to command the
instrument in direct connection with Cork. The telegrams just laid
beside her were those destined for that city, and the regions to which
it was a centre of redistribution. Among others her own village was in
connection with it, and many a time had she yearned to touch her keys
with a message of love to her mother, but the rules of the office
sternly forbade this. The communicative touch which she dispensed so
freely to others was forbidden to herself. If she, or any other
telegraphist in St. Martin's-le-Grand, wished to send a private message,
it became necessary to step out of the office, go to the appointed
place, pay her shilling, and become one of the public for the occasion.
Every one can see the necessity for such a rule in the circumstances.
May's three-keyed machine, by the way, did not actually send forth the
electricity. It only punched holes in a long tape of white paper, which
holes, according to their relative arrangement, represented the
alphabet. Having punched a message by playing on the keys, she
transferred her tape to the electric machine at her elbow and passed it
through. This transmitting machine was automatic or self acting. It
required only to be fed with perforated tapes. In Ireland the
receiving-machine presented its messages in the form of dots and dashes,
which, according to arrangement, became alphabetic. You don't
understand this, reader, eh? It would be surprising if you did! A
treatise on electric telegraphy would be required to make it clear--
supposing you to have a mechanical turn of mind. Suffice it to say that
the Wheatstone telegraph instrument tapes off its messages at the rate
of 100 words a minute.