TELEGRAMS--THE TELEPHONE
To send a telegram, you or your messenger must take what you have
written to the nearest telegraph office.
You may write a telegram on any kind of paper, provided always
that the writing is plain.
All telegraph offices are provided with regular blank forms, which
may be had without cost, and it is better to use these when they
are available.
The blank is properly ruled, with lines for the date, for the
address of the one to whom it is to be sent, and for the message.
CHARGES
The telegraph company charges a fixed sum for a message of, say,
ten words. These words do not include the name and address of the
sender.
The amount of the charge is always dependent on the distance
between the office from which the message is sent and the one at
which it is received.
Every word over ten, in the message, pays an extra fee, dependent
again on the distance.
Getting just what you mean into ten words may seem difficult when
you have a lot to say, but it is surprising how you can boil the
message down when each additional word costs five or more cents.
It may pay to practice this.
If it is actually necessary to make your meaning clear by the
addition of more words, do not hesitate at the cost.
If you are known at the telegraph office, you can send a message
to be collected from the receiver.
Never permit the receiver to pay for a message that is exclusively
on your own business.
Always make and keep a copy of every important telegram you send
away. Do not neglect this.
If you have neglected to keep a copy of a telegram, or having made
one have lost it, you may get a copy from the telegraph office,
provided the application be made within six months of the sending
of the message.
Telegrams are delivered by the company's messengers.
You must give receipt to the messenger on the delivery of a
telegram.
Where the receiver lives a long distance from the telegraph
office, it is customary to pay the messenger an additional fee,
depending on the distance.
The charges for telegrams to be sent at night and delivered in the
morning, are much lower than for day messages.
For an additional charge, less than the original, messages may be
repeated back to insure their accuracy.
Read over to the official, or still better, have him read your
message over in your presence, that you may be sure he understands
it as written.
You cannot hold others responsible for your own mistakes.
TELEGRAPHING MONEY
You can telegraph money with as much safety as you can send it
through a bank.
In handling money in this way, the telegraph company does not act
as a banker but as a carrier.
Telegraph money orders are a great convenience, when one wants to
send cash to a distant point in a hurry.
Country telegraph offices do not, as a rule, transmit money; that
function is left to the offices in the larger centers.
THE METHOD
One wishing to "wire money" will find at the telegraph office
suitable blanks; they are furnished gratis.
On lines provided for the purpose and properly indicated, as in a
postal order form, write the name and address of the person to
receive the money, with the amount.
This paper, properly signed, is handed to the clerk with the money
to be sent and the fee for transmission.
The fee is double that charged for an ordinary message of the same
length.
If, for any reason, the person to whom the money is sent cannot be
found within forty-eight hours, the money is returned to the
sender, but the fees are retained, as the company is not to blame
for failure.
The receiver of a money order, if unknown, must identify himself
as he would at a bank, and he must receipt for the money.
If the person to receive the money is an entire stranger in the
place to which the money is sent, the sender knows it, and he
provides for the situation by signing, on the reverse of the
application, an order to the distant operator to pay the money to
the person named within, without further identification.
When a telegraph operator receives a money order, he at once seeks
out the person to whom it is sent, and pays the money in
accordance with his instructions as to identification.
THE TELEPHONE
The telephone, local and long distance, is fast superceding the
telegraph as a medium for speedy business communications.
Its use is not confined to large cities as at first.
Nearly every village is now in communication with the outer world
through the telephone.
The world has just awakened to the needs of its food producer, the
farmer.
In Norway, which is not a rich country, the telephone has been
introduced on the farms. The rates are low and the benefits are
inestimable.
On our large farms, in the West, telephones have been in use for
some time as an essential part of the machinery.
Now, there is a move on foot to make them available for every
farmer in the more settled regions.
While business can be conducted over the telephone, as if the
speakers stood face to face, yet such transactions not being
recorded, will not stand in law, if one of the parties should
dispute the other's word.