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Lively Boys On
the “Go” Always
Messengers of telegraph
services in Toronto and how they behave and do their work
Toronto Star, August 2, 1902
“Hi there, Bill the boss told us to give you a call for Massey-Harris
if we saw you on the road,” said a Canadian Pacific telegraph messenger
boy slowing up to a speed somewhat less than a mile a minute and acting
as spokesman for those of them who were racing up Yonge street.
Bill heard the call as he sedately made his way down Yonge street in
the direction of the office and nodding his assent to the passing boys,
turned and went West to Massey-Harris’. He was obviously new at the
business else he would have known that call are never given out to boys
that way and there is also a branch out west that would take in the
Massey works. His speed on the bicycle also declared his newness for it
was slower than the general breakneck pace.
Bill went out to Massey-Harris’ works, however, and when he learned
that there was no message for him, it dawned upon him that he was “it.”
He laughed at the joke but vowed he’d get back at the fellows who had
their heads in it. A week or two later, when had become better known
and acquainted with the routine work, he rushed into the message room,
where there happened to be a good number of the boys waiting for calls
and between the puffs which gave the impression that he had returned in
a hurry with the news, he got out the information that there was a big
fire at the City Hall. Some of the boys last in, among whom were Bill’s
practical jokers, got away with characteristic dispatch not waiting for
details of the scene of the big conflagration. There was no fire and
the boys came back hot.
“What were you giving us?” one of the boys demanded angrily.
“There was no fire and you knew it.”
“Oh wasn’t there?” asked Bill and he added “If I remember correctly
there was no call ordered for Massey-Harris’ either.”
Bill was revenged.
There is probably no business where a boy may get a better general
training than as a messenger boy. If there is anything in him it is
bound to develop. As a result the messenger boys in Toronto are a
bright and exceptionally reliable class.
Mr. H. Shambrook, who has been in charge of the boys of the C.P.R.
office for years, says that although handling $40 and $50 a day in
collections, not a boy ever tried to do him out of a cent.
There are some 45 boys at the C.P.R. office and three men messengers. A
boy gets three cents for a message brought in, or in other words a call
message and two cents for one delivered. In delivering, there are
always three or four messages to be delivered in a place not far
distance from each other. A boy can make anywhere from $25 to $50 a
month. The more the better, for when the management find a boy making a
good turnover, they are assured that the boy is a hustler.
Almost all the boys have their own bicycle. They wear a blue uniform
and have a badge under the lapel of their coats. The bicycle has
revolutionized messenger work and the boys of today have what is known
colloquially as a cinch compared to those of 20 years ago. Then a boy
had to hoof it wherever he went unless he paid his own car fare. Today
a boy doesn’t think twice about taking a message out to Strachan Avenue
or up to the head of Spadina Road but in those days when a shanks’ mare
was the only available means of transportation a boy did not welcome a
message for such a distance. Years ago these messengers were called
“pasters and twisters.”
A Star reporter went into the C.P.R. and Mr. Shambrook who is the
messenger dispatcher, showed him the perfected system.
“And you say the boys are a well-behaved and thoroughly reliable set?”
“Yes, indeed and …..”
Burrrrr
“Twenty-Two”
“Yes sir.”
“Toronto Type Foundry.”
That was all that was said and a boy was on his way to the call box for
a message.
“We get so used to hearing this register whur off the numbers that we
are almost part of the mechanism,” said Mr. Shambrook. The machine that
registers the calls has a tape on which the number of the call box is
registered by a series of spaces and dashes and a ticker sounds the
number as well. There are 2500 such boxes in the city and the
dispatches at the G.N.W. and C.P.R. get to know nearly every one of
their respective boxes. Sometimes however it is necessary to turn up a
number when a man who only calls up once a month rings for a boy.
“Do you ever have any kicks?”
“Oh yes occasionally, but they are infrequent.”
“Last Saturday, for instance during the rainstorm, one of the circuits
became disconnected and a man in a city office sat ringing the call
bell, but got no response. By the time he awakened to the fact that he
would do better by telephoning the office, he was pretty hot and they
were hummed with his kick.
“It is the habit to complain that the boys do not deliver the messages
quickly enough, but that is absurd since it is in the boys’ own
interest that the message be delivered promptly.”
The boys work in rotation. They have cards with their numbers, and when
they come in they deposit the cards in a box and then sit down to wait
their turn.
The work is not easy, but it is healthy. Out all day and with the
exercise of wheeling, a boy is bound to keep in good trim.
“Put a consumptive in here as a messenger,” said Mr. Shambrook, “where
he will have to go out in all kinds of weather, and always on the
hustle, and I’ll warrant that he’ll do better towards recovery than in
a sanitarium.”
The boys are alert and active. When the Duke of York and his suite were
here, a message came over the C.P.R. wires for the Duke’s private
secretary. It was therefore impossible for anyone to get through the
cordon of policemen who surrounded the Royal train, and when a
messenger boy was told that he positively had to get through, it meant
he had to be clever to accomplish the task set him. How he got through
is a question, but the fact remains that he did get through the pickets
and when he was coming back to the telegraph office with an answer to
his telegram the police caught him and wanted to know how he got in. He
didn’t tell them for it would have been a reflection on their vigilance.
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