The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

The matter being investigated, it transpired that on the morning of the day on which Mr Onions called for letters, another Mr Onions, for whom the message was meant, had called and received the telegram from a clerk who shortly thereafter went off duty. The confusion had thus arisen through two persons of the same uncommon name calling at the same post-office on the same day for letters, and, as it happened, applying for their letters at hours when two different clerks were in attendance. In the following case the names are fictitious, but in their similarity they will adequately illustrate the narrative:-- The sudden expansion of telegraph business upon the transfer of the telegraphs to the State in 1870, necessitated the employment of a large number of inexperienced operators, and some awkward blunders were the consequence. In the year mentioned, a Liverpool man named Parlane went to London; but before parting with his wife, it was arranged that on a certain day he would telegraph whether she should join him in London or he would return to Liverpool. On the appointed day the promised telegram was sent asking his wife to come to London, the message being directed (we shall say) to Mrs Parlane, 24 Menzies Street, Toxteth Park, Liverpool. By some accidental failure of current, or imperfect signalling the word "Menzies"[7] reached Liverpool as "Meins,"[7] and there being no Meins Street in Liverpool, the messenger was directed to take the message for trial to Main Street, for which it was thought it might be intended. The messenger found at 24 Main Street[7] a Mrs M'Farlane, and to this person the message was presented. The names being similar, Mrs M'Farlane opened the telegram, and her husband also being in London, she had no doubt whatever that the command which it contained to repair to London, though altogether unexpected, was intended for herself. That evening she accordingly started for the metropolis.