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. [7] The names are given from memory. Meanwhile Mrs Parlane had been suffering intense anxiety at not receiving the promised telegram, and being unable longer to endure the suspense in which she found herself, she likewise started for London the same evening. Strange as it may appear, both Mrs Parlane and Mrs M'Farlane travelled to London not only by the same train, but in the same compartment; and it was by a comparison of notes that the telegram intended for the one was discovered to have got into the hands of the other. The string of coincidences in this matter is exceedingly singular--viz., that two persons of similar names should reside at the same number in neighbouring streets; that the husbands of both should be in London at the same time; that the two wives should travel to London in the same train; and that they should find themselves companions in the same compartment. Identity in names and addresses in all particulars sometimes gives rise to trouble and inconvenience. Through the misdelivery of a savings-bank acknowledgment, it was brought to light that in a suburban district of London, where there were two terraces bearing exactly the same designation, there were residing, at the same number in each, two persons having, not only the same surname, but the same Christian name.