Publishing an advertisement of a sale in the form of an urgent telegram was an offence under the Police Act alleged against Arthur Coffey, a business man, at the Young Police Court. He was fined £2, and the newspaper which printed the advertisement was similarly penalised on a charge of having aided and abetted. It was stated that both defendants had acted in ignorance of the law.
PERTH, Sunday. Death from thirst and lack of food was narrowly averted by Thomas Hamilton, 51, who, while walking from a pastoral station to Derby, was lost for three days in grass which grows to a height of 15ft.
He came out at the telegraph line about 66 miles from Broome, dropped his swag and apparently walked one mile and a half along the line. He then shot down an insulator of the telegraph wire with his rifle and severed the line with a second bullet.
A telegraph linesman, who went out to locate the breakdown, found Hamilton lying exhausted and naked in a hole he had dug in the ground with his fingers to find water. Hamilton said that he had kept the third bullet for himself in case no help came. The linesman took him to Broome Hospital where he is recovering".
The Argus 10 April 1939.
"that if you happen to notice a person leaning against a telegraph pole, hesitate ere you draw uncharitable conclusions. Some ingenious slacker has discovered that the best way of hearing the guns in Flanders is to put your ear to the posts which support the telegraph wires".
"Some few enlightened individuals are innocent enough to believe that the days are passed when ordinary human beings should be mistaken for sorcerers and worried to death for witchcraft. It is a great mistake. We know that in many parts of England the belief in witchcraft flourishes among the ignorant people.
We now hear of an Englishman in Spain being nearly butchered for his supposed complicity with the Prince of Darkness. The event took place in a thriving commercial town, numbering 20,000 inhabitants — Lorce. The people in this neighbourhood firmly believe in the existence of certain wizards - mysterious beings - with pale faces and long white beards who hid during the day, hunt at night for children whom they devour. The fate of these children they are said to keep sacredly for two purposes — first, as a sovereign cure for smallpox; and second to grease the wires of the electric telegraph - which is in itself a Satanic invention and would not work at all were it not for the lubricating oil obtained from the bodies of innocent little children".
South Australian Chronicle 1 January 1870 p. 6.
9. Underground telegraph wires compulsory.
Removal of Telegraph Wires.
An English paper observes that a Committee of the State Senate has unanimously reported in favour of a Bill making overhead telegraph wires illegal and providing for the removal of all posts and overhead wires from the streets of New York within the next two years and six months. The Committee declare that the evidence tendered by the most competent authorities in the United States places beyond all controversy the entire feasibility of using subterranean wires for all electrical purposes and reduces the whole question to one of expense. They, therefore, recommend that if, after the expiry of two years and six months, any telegraph poles of overhead wires should still remain in the streets of New York, any individual shall be allowed to cut them down for his own profit or amusement and that, so far from being regarded as an offender against the law, he shall, on the contrary, be held to have done a valuable public service by the removal of a dangerous and intolerable nuisance".
(South Australian Register 18 July 1882).
10. What to do when the Office is closed.
The Port Augusta Dispatch of 24 October 1902 relates the following:
"A youthful journalist went into a provincial post office recently to send a telegram and purchase a stamp for a letter.
" Cant't sell stamps now" said the clerk, "it's after hours."
" But this letter is very important," urged the journalist.
" This office is open only for telegraph business now" said the clerk decidedly.
The youth took a telegram form, wrote a telegram — fourteen words — and handed the clerk 7d. The clerk gave him a sixpenny and a penny stamp to place on it. Then the journalist calmly struck out the last two words on the form, stuck the sixpenny stamp in the corner of the telegram transmission form, affixed the penny stamp to his letter and walked out of the office feeling that he had got tbe better of someone that time".
11. The Wellington (New Zealand) Post and Telegraph Office was destroyed by fire in April 28th 1887. The mails and a few telephones were saved but the telegraphic instruments were destroyed. The damage is estimated at £40,000 and the premises were not insured.
12. Hamilton Spectator 11 September 1863:
"An incident occurred on Tuesday in Ballarat which was promotive of a considerable amount of mirth in mining and stockbroking circles: A few days ago, says the Star, a sharebroking firm in this town took up the Daylesford Express and, observing an advertisement therein, to the following effect: "A wombat for sale, cheap" telegraphed that their firm would give £65 for it. On Tuesday morning a person arrived per coach from Daylesford and, having inquired for the office of Messrs ____ was directed to the place. On entering the office, the man laid a basket on the counter and exclaimed "I have brought you the wombat. Here it is - a fine large one". The sharebrokers were astounded. They had imagined that the advertisement had reference to a share for sale in the Wombat Gold Mining Company and had telegraphed for its purchase accordingly. An explanation ensued but the person who brought the live wombat insisted on the completion of the purchase and could not be chargrined at the ludicrous mistake which had been made".