St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-04-22
MESSAGES BY WIRE.
Nearly $4,000 of Them Are
Dispatched From st. Paul
Weekly.
Wholesale Firms the Most
Liberal Patrons of the
Telegraph.
The Bulk Of Cablegrams Sent
and Reeei we'd Are in
Cipher.
Business at This Point In
cpeaseS Twenty-Five Per
Cent Yearly.

-~z eessors,, who were
incapable of forming
any conception of right in prop
erty, to comprehend how property
to the amount of millions of dollars can
change owners through the medium of
a wire, with the parties in the transac-
ton 1900 or 5000 miles apart. When
one considers how progression tends
to the economy of energy and the
distractions of things rather than things
themselves, it is not very wild to con-
clude that the day will come when we
shall think the thought and accomplish
the deed The use of the telegraph
grows more general every day. There
are few business transactions that do
not require it at some stage of the pro-
ceedings, and those in which the en-
tire operation is carried On by its aid
are many. For all the efficiency of the
mail service, it can not match that Of
the telegraph. Where trains run once
week the telegraph clicks every min
ute of the day, and is bound in bust
ness deals of any Importance to be the
means of communication used.
The largest telegraph office west Of
Chicago and St. Louis is in st. Paul.
More men are employed, more work is
done, and the receipts are the greatest.
Between As, 1000 and $4,000 messages are
sent over the wires every week, the
number of words greatly exceeding
100000. These figures are strikingly
large when one considers the nature of
the business done in st. Paul. The
amount of grain buying done here is
comparatively inconsiderable, as is also
the produce business, and in other cities
grain buyers and produce dealers are
% 1or tnInGrarh
In st. Louis and Chicago they furnish
more than >one-third of the business
Gone.
Wholesale grOcerS are the most lib
eral patrons of the telegraph in st. Paul,
tie P. III. Kelly MeCcantie company
coming first and YAM, GriggS u HOWeS
next. The bills for telegraphing paid
by the former average S100 per month.
The proportion of real estate dealers
here is very large, and while they, like
everybody else in the commercial world,
employ the telegraph daily, their opera
lions, as one of them cOnfeSSeS, are
''mOStly conducted with their victims
by the ear" Wonderful as are the
facilities of the telegraph it cannot COM
pete with the ilyseductivenesS of
A sHREWD MANS TONGUE
nor the sweet persuaslveneSS of his
eloquent letter in bringing about trade
in realty. The large number of mes
sageS sent over the wires from st. Paul
every week is accounted for by the fact
that the Western Union has its repeat
ing office here. TwO-thirds of the mes
Sages are repeated messages. Any mes
sage from the territory northwest of
here sent east is received at the Office
here by one operator and sent on by an
other; and all messages from the east
directed beyond are repeated here.
Between fifty and sixty cablegrams
60 over the wires here week. With
very exceptions these are in cipher, adj
dress and all. A single word will con-
tain information enough to sink or swim
a man. Another word will cover the
address, and when a cablegram is sent
to Bourbon" it reaches its destina-
ton by the aid of key, which,
in the office is known only to the man.
ager and his delivery clerk. Various
systems of cipher are in use, each COM
mercial house generally possessing its
own original one. There has been,
however, very exhaustive cable cipher
code gotten up by New York man.
1t is collated from nearly every Ian
guage in the world, and contains 100000
words. Each word is represented by
number, and all are arranged in tables,
from each of which fifty separate words
can be built. In some cases single
word represents several long sentences.
This code can be applied to
EVERY COMMERCIAL LANGUAGE,
and is in very general use, especially
between cOuntrie having different Ian
guages. The price of the book con-
tanning this code is $50, and 10000 are
said to be in use, none, however, in st.
Paul.
eve are busy at all times" said the
chief operator in the Western Union Of
fee, ''but the rush during the day is be-
tween the hours of in the morning and
in the afternoon; during the night it
is from 6 o'clock to s. A great deal of
the night business comes from railroads,
and all of the mercantile messages that
Will permit the delay are sent at night
to take advantage of the lower rate.
But, of course, the main part of our
night work is for the newspapers. We
take from $4,000 to 10000 words of Spe-
Gals per day.
''Can you tell me anything about how
the telegraph business increases here?"
.'Well, don't know. AS the country
is opened up, and as the business done
in the city increases, it naturally fol-
lows that the volume of our business
grows. / think the increase is about %
per cent every year. We calculate on
that in making arrangements for the
summer, and generally find it to be not
far out of the way"