Atom Smashing and Pigeon Feeding

Dr. Tesla took time out from his many inventions to remember the birds around New York’s public library and turned the task of preparing and serving two meals a day to the feathered community over to Western Union.

Written for The Christian Science Monitor

NEW YORK — While Dr. Nikola Tesla was reporting at a New York hotel to a group of guests at his 80th anniversary luncheon, July 10, on the perfection of the principle of a new tube with which to smash the atom, and a system of interplanetary communication, Johnny Luncon, 18, a Western Union messenger boy, was busy at his office, a mile or so away, checking up on his supply of crackers and peanuts to make sure he had ample for his 4 o’clock feeding of the pigeons in front of the New York Public Library.

The two facts may seem to have little or no connection, but they have. If it were not for Dr. Tesla, Johnny Luncon wouldn’t have this job, feeding the library pigeons twice a day. And if it weren’t for Johnny, Dr. Tesla might not have had such an air of leisure as he had, during and after the luncheon, because Dr. Tesla thinks the pigeons should be fed twice a day, and he might have to do it himself, if it weren’t that he has been able to leave the responsibility of it entirely with Johnny.

The People’s Pigeons

Incidentally there may be a suggestion in this story for Guy C. Haseltine, a printer, who has lately discovered that his business is going to take him out West. It has been Mr. Haseltine’s pleasure to feed the pigeons peanuts at noon every day in City Hall Park. He has been a good deal concerned as to what the pigeons would do, when he was away. Dr. Tesla hired Western Union to attend to his pigeons. Well, they are not precisely his. They are really the People’s pigeons; but Dr. Tesla believes someone has to look out for them, and several years ago it occurred to him that it might just as well be he.

Ask the Western Union about it and you find out, not only about Johnny Luncon’s getting the Tesla pigeon feeding job, but about other curious jobs that people think up and give the company to do.

It seems it is a matter of adaptability. Johnny Luncon got the pigeon job because he is a boy who can get along with birds. He won’t arrive in their midst, open up a paper bag, throw out the contents suddenly and all in one place, and depart, whistling. He knows that, while pigeons eat steadily, they eat comparatively slowly. And that it is no more suitable to throw their food at them than it is for humans to have gongs beaten while they eat their meals.

Two Meals a Day

At 10 in the morning, and at 4 in the afternoon — and punctually — Johnny Luncon arrives every day with his supplies. It is understood that he is expected to take the time required for doing the job well. That means giving the pigeons a chance to become aware of his presence and rally round. Then it means scattering the food in reasonable amounts so that there is enough for all, and not too much at one time.

Pigeons develop great individuality, it seems. Like children, some of them are inclined to be greedy; to grab more than their share, and to fight with the others over the division. If Johnny Luncon can’t talk such birds out of their anti-social behavior he disciplines them, leaving them flat, with only a peanut or two between them, while he moves to a sector of the pigeon community inhabited by more temperate citizens who realize that, if they take their time, there will be enough for all.

Perhaps Dr. Tesla first got his idea of having the Western Union take over the pigeon job through remembering how Richard Harding Davis, sitting in a London club in 1899, writing notes to acknowledge social debts, called a messenger boy and said, “Jaggers, take this to the Duchess of — and this to No. — St. James’s Square, and then take this one to Miss Cecil Clark, Prairie Avenue, Chicago, U. S. A.”

From London to Chicago

Mr. Davis meant it for a joke, but Jaggers, who was 14 and earnest about his messenger boy’s job, said, “Yes, sir. Very good, sir.”

Mr. Davis howled with laughter and cried, “But do you mean you can go to Chicago?”

“Yes, sir,” said Jaggers. “Whenever you say, sir.” And Mr. Davis, who liked people very much who took their jobs that seriously, set to work on routes, expense money and general arrangements. And a few days later Jaggers was at sea. Jaggers beat the mails by several hours. And in 18 days, when he had traveled 8400 miles and was back in London, a duchess pinned a gold medal on him, and the Queen herself received him at a garden fete. Presently Mr. Davis married Miss Cecil Clark, and Jaggers left England, (a) to stand for a model for a figurine for the wedding cake, and (b) to be a very special kind of “buttons” in the Davis household.

Some Strange Tasks

And if some dim recollection of this tale, causing Dr. Tesla to think that telegraph companies could do special jobs and that they might, in particular, look after the practical details of his adopted pigeons, many other people have got ideas about setting Western Union uncommon errands to do.

Distributing telephone books and catalogues are the least of them. Hardly a week goes by but someone rings up and says, “How much to have two messenger boys throw rice at a wedding at 4 o’clock tomorrow afternoon. I can’t be there but rice has got to be thrown!”

That’s a job requiring special ability, too. You can’t have boys throwing fistfuls of rice in the bride’s face. They must be boys who can be counted on to distribute the rice so that it rather “poureth like the gentle rain from heaven.”

Then there is the cry for a fourth for bridge, frequently heard in the special services department. And there is one elderly woman who lives alone in a New York apartment, who has a messenger boy come in regularly and gossip over the day’s news with her. You couldn’t detail a boy for that job who only read the sporting pages or the comic strips. It has to be someone who knows what is going on in Spain and why — if anyone does.

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