The Russellville Democrat., 1882-02-09
Social Uses of the Telegraph.

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 Social Uses of the Telegraph.
 3 New York sun
 "Qneer messages pass through oul hands continually" said the Western Union telegraph superintendens Out we do not often recollect their contents A message may cause simle at the tune, sbut is sent and then forgotten. Opera, tors do thefr work nechanically The W ords are ,ticked of at tleir finger ends and are forgotten atonce.''S IVA
 Do you eyer get regular social letters for rtelegrsplfich trans.mission e
 "That has become a matter Of frequent daily occurrence, aud .often they. come to aIsin regular epistolary shape, beginning with Yours truly Of course the tele- graph company is quite willing to adhere to epistolary forms, for they make So many more word to charge for Some time ago we had d regular, down right love letter by telegraph. It was from some fellow travelling. in the south--a drummer, guess -t his sweet heart at home, and 1t began swith My Darling Lizzie,' and went on to Say that this would show to her how fervently and deyoutly hes loved her when he could not even wait for the mail to tell her how she was in his thoughts night and day, and so on for several hundred words. That sort of thing is unusual, of course. Tflt was a egnarway oi lovers, we might find ourselves called into court occasion ally as witnesses in breach of promise cases, because the originals. of the letters are in cur custody. sBff8 eB
 Tt is 8 common thing for us to send out stelegraphiq anupuneements of be- trotlIal, and get a food of congratulatory telegrams in reply. Telegraphic birth day congratulations aresalso of frequent occurrence, and the Puim festival al ways brings out crop of telegrams be- tween friends and relatives. Sometimes a message will simply read, I drink your 'health.1- We get such even for cable transmission.
 s" The uses of the telegraph for social purposes have become very large, how ever among people generally" the tele. graph man went on. Tt constitutes about twenty per cent of our domestic business, and aboutSeven per cent of our cable business. Most of Feur half rate night messages are of that character How is Ida his mOrning?' a man will ask his relatives in some other city. i4NCil ttitRIablS IuCllSo Ol d oAIllidI nature go across the ocean. The tele- graph brin F people into one community, and, aside from the expense. there is no more trouble in making such inquiries thaa in sending around to a neighbor's house to find how sick friend is getting along Sometimes 4 man visiting here on. business will send short letter to his wife by telegraph every night, Want of form and ceremony is excusable in tele. graph mess lges, and busy men to whom the expenseis no consideration are get ting more and more in the habit of pre- ferring the telegraph to mails, even when there is no necessity in the world for such expedition. Fellows who come to town on larks sometimes can't wait till they get home to tell their comrads of the good times. they are having. Their messages have high flavor at times, but we rarely make any objections. Even profanity goes by wire sometimes.
 Since the introduction of cipher codes the amount of business correspondence transferred from the mails to the wires is very great. About sixty per cent of our business telegrams are now in cipher, and by no means of the codes in use a great deal can be condo 1sed into little Where a business man used to send by mail he will now write a cipher letter to get at halfrates at night. He can write at the close of one days business and the telegraph puts his letter on his corres- 0pondents desk before business hours of the next day. In fact, the tra nsfer to the telegraph of matter that used t) go by mail has been so great since the adop ton of the half rate night system six or seven years ago that the amount of busi- ness increases faster than facilities can be provided. Business telegrams huc- tuate in quantity from day to day, but taking the year by seasons, the amount of work remains pretty steady. But in summer, when people are travelling about for pleasure; the increase of social com munieatoRs is tremendous. We have to increase our staff of operators along the coast watering pla .es fully twenty per cent. Lots of little offices are opened that there is no demand for in the win ter months. People send gossip, love, congratulations, regrets, jokes, condol- ences. appeals, and money by tele- graph" t..'
 THs violation of any of natures laws Al r.