A story is told of the late General Stager that at one time he was on a train that was wrecked at some distance from any station. He climbed a telegraph pole, cut the wire and by alternately joining and separating the ends sent a message, detailing the story of the wreck, to headquarters, and asked for assistance. He then held the two ends of the wire on each side of his tongue and tasted out the reply--that help was coming. Any one who has ever tasted a current knows that it is very pronounced. A story similar to this is told of the early days when the Bain chemical system was used between Washington City and some other point. This system made marks on chemically-prepared paper; as the current passed through it left marks on the paper from the decomposition of the chemicals. Some of the preparations emitted an odor during the time that the current passed. The occurrence to which we refer took place at presidential election time. At some station out of Washington an operator was employed who had a blind sister, and this sister knew the Morse alphabet well before she became blind. One evening a signal came to get ready for a message containing the returns from the election. In the hurry, and just as the message had started, the lamp was upset and they were in total darkness--at least, the brother was. The sister, poor girl, had been in darkness a long time. The blind sister leaned over the stylus through which the current flowed to the paper and smelled out as well as spelled out the message, and repeated it to her astonished brother. By the old semaphore system the motions were sensed through the eye as well as the early method of cable signaling. It will be seen from the above that the Morse code may be communicated through any one of the five senses. CHAPTER XI. RECEIVING MESSAGES. With but few exceptions the Morse code is the one almost universally used the world over. As it is used in Europe, it is slightly changed from our American code, but they all depend upon dots, dashes, and spaces, related in different combinations, for the different letters. Notwithstanding its universal use it is not free from serious difficulties in transmission unless it is repeated back to the sender for correction; and then in some cases it is impossible to be sure, owing to difficulties of punctuation and capitalizing, and the further difficulty of running the signals together, caused, it may be, by faulty transmission, induced currents from other wires, "swinging crosses" or atmospheric electricity. Sometimes it is a psychological difficulty in the mind of the receiving-operator. The telegraph companies have to suffer damages from all these and many other unforeseen causes.