The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1891-12-11
MONEY SENT BY WIRE.
How Telegraph Company Handles
Its Money Orders.
THE GROWTH OF THE SYSTEM
Cipbers and Safeguards That Have Como
Into Use to Prevent any Attempt at
Fraud.

Accident created the system of tele-
graphic money orders, now a matter OF
everyday use all over this country. In the
late sixties a Chicagoan, now resident in
New York, asked General Anson Stager,
then Western Union superintendent in
Chicago. to telegraph 300 to New Orleans.
General Stager promptly declined to per-
form the service. Telegraphic money or
ders were never sent, he affirmed, save as
a matter Of personal convenience between
employees of the company. Such serv-
ice could not be thrown open to the pub
lie save at great risk.
The applicant, an old acquaintance of
General Stager, pressed his point. Would
the company transmit the money IL the
sender should assume all risk of lossi This
proposition finally won over Gener
Stager, and he undertook the service, but
with many misgivings. The money
reached its destination in safety, and thus
the business of sending telegraphic money
orders was fairly begun.
The system developed slowly. IL was
from the first regarded as an emergency
service, and surrounded with many safe
guards. Nevertheless 10 has reached enor-
nous proportions. With the growth of
the service there has developed an elaborate
system OF safeguarding the transmission OF
money.
For the purposes of the money order sys-
tenn the Western Union Telegraph COM
pany divides the United States and Canada
into twenty districts. each with central
office and a system of suboflices. There is
chief transfer agent at each central office,
a.,I IL .h<NH In 10.
trict to a suboflice in another must pass
through the central Office in each of the
two districts concerned. There are in the
United States and Canada about 1000
money order Offices of the Western Union
Telegraph company. The whole number
OF Western Union Telegraph offices in the
two countries is 5000. Population, volume
Of business and TO some extent situation
determine whether or not a town shall
have a money order Office. AS a rule a
town of 800 inhabitants has a money Or
der office, unless the volume of business is
below the average for place of its size.
THE CIPHERs.
Two ciphers are used in telegraphic
money orders. Cipher A il common to all
money order Offices. 1t consists of many
simple words arranged in three parallel,
vertical columns on "A single sheet of paper.
At the left of each word i'm the left hand
column is number. Reading horizontal
ly across the sheet the eye catches first a
number then a word in the first column,
next a word in the second column and
finally a word in the last column. Thus
there are three words for each number, and
when any one Of these three words is used
in a money order dispatch it is ordinarily
interpreted to mean as many dollars as the
number opposite the word in the first
column. There is no separate word for
dollars" nor is the number expressed
separately. The words chosen are such as
may be expressed geographically without
the use of spaced letters, since many of the
blunders of telegraphing arise from the
misinterpretstion of such spaced letters.
Cipher b consists of numbered words
arranged upon sheets. The sheets are made
up into books of 125 pages each, and no
word occurs without the same number on
two sheets. All the words. however, are
repeated upon each sheet of book. A CEN
trail Office assigns from time to time to each
of it's suboffices a sheet from one of the
cipher b books. No telegraphic money or
der is complete without a word from each
of the ciphers A and Is. When a word
from cipher B has been used in sending a
money order, that word is instantly can
celed with red ink in the book at the CEN
trail Office and upon the duplicate sheet at
the suboffice. When sheet has been fully
cancelled new page is assigned to the sub
Office.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
All this will become clearer by illustra-
ton. II John Smith wishes to send tele
graphic money order for ten dollars to Will
liam Jones at Middetown, n. Y, he pre-
sents his ten dollars at the money order
department, fills out a blank form OF
money order and signs it with his full
name and address. II the order is sent
with "strict instructions" 1t goes at the
risk of the company. II, however, the
order goes with liberal instructions" the
sender is required to send upon the back
of his order blank releasing the company
from liability for loss. Strict instructions
bid the receiving operator require the per-
son to whom the order is addressed to be
vouched for by some one known to the
operator. Liberal instructions give the
operator some latitude in accepting other
evidences Of Identification. An order sent
with strict instructions closes with the
word "vigilant," one sent with liberal in
structions closes with the word caution"
Smiths order does not 20 in the form of
a ulspdttn lTOH ulil bD JULIUS, DuJ ds "
communication from the transfer agent of
the central office to the agent at Middle
town. 1t informs the agent at Middle
town that John Smith at New York sends
ten dollars to William Jones at Middle
town. One Of the three cipher A words
for ten dollars is employed, and it is ac-
companied by n word from Middletown's
page of the cipher b book. Sometimes the
word from cipher B precedes that from
cipher A, and sometimes this order is re-
versed. IL two words from cipher A are
necessary to express the number Of dollars,
sometimes the word from cipher B is
placed between them. Some of the words
in cipher A occur in cipher B, but the page
OF cipher Is assigned TO "A subofiice has a
footnote indicating what the sequence of
the cipher word is TO be in any dispatch,
and thus confusion is impossible If the OPP
orators are careful. The whole system Is
Intentionally complicated at first sight,
though simple enough when once mas
tered. One Of the chief safeguards is the
constant change in the pages of cipher b