82 THE HUMOROUS SIDE OF DOTS AND DASHES. 



The letters "e s," when poorly separated, form the character "&," 

 and thus become troublesome at times. Recently "Gillespie, Baker" 

 became " Gill & Pie, Baker," and it is said the Briton would have 

 forgiven the loss of the pic-nic order for loaves, but that he fancied 

 he saw in the erroneous address a slur on his wares and handicraft. 

 The lady operator at Milwaukee who some years ago received a dis- 

 patch for B. & T Brewing Co., had better fortune, for the manager 

 of that brewers' paradise office decided that her apparent innocence 

 pertaining to "Best's" lager spoke volumes for the temperance prin- 

 ciples. It was pretty generally believed that no masculine operator 

 in that office would have made such an error. The letters "ice" are 

 almost identical with the letters " yo," and last winter a leading daily 

 announced the opening of the "yo palace." Any proof reader who 

 understood the dot and dash alphabet would know by intuition what 

 was intended, and make the needed correction, but that individual is 

 not always present when required. 



The letters "me" when run together form the letter "g," and when 

 a certain man was requested to "send Hog the parcel on my desk," 

 and failed to comply until action was too late to be of service, owing 

 to the impossibility of finding Hog, the usual explanation hardly 

 smoothed his temper. Nor was the telegram of a western clergyman 

 to his son at Yale, to come "Hog" soon as convenient after com- 

 mencement, received with a better grace, as the young man associa- 

 ted the obnoxious word with a certain remittance he had asked for a 

 short time before, and felt like a black sheep for several days until 

 relieved of his suspicions. There being nothing to distinguish capi- 

 tal letters receivers put them where the} 7 suppose them to belong. 



Many years ago a joke went the rounds of country villages and 

 towns with uniform success. A collect message was sent to a Mr. L. 

 E. Pliant, at some hotel, signed Adam Goodfellow, requesting him to 

 come and get his trunk which he had forgotten. After a fruitless 

 search a better address was af course plaintively called for, when the 

 receiving office was told to examine the address and signature care- 

 fully and they would perhaps see the elephant and the joke at the 

 same time. In course of time when collect messages, when uncol- 

 lectable, were charged back upon the sending office, such jokes be- 

 came too costly to be longer popular. Upon this point a good story 

 is told of a genial western manager who started a lengthy cablegram 



