Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1893-12-04

nla the RECENT of a telegram generally
means two things-death or birth, Sener-
ally the former. and under the clrcuIn-
stances the palpitation of the heart Is
easily accounted for. They never thlnk
of teIegraphing about sickness. unless very
critical The mails are used to tell when
contemplated visit will be inaUgurated and
the hundred and one reasons why the bust
ness man should use the telegraph are
unknown TO them. AS a matter OF fact,
a large number of private kilograms do
relate to the three great events in the
human piIgrimage-birth, marriage and
death OF the three death puts more money
into the treasury OF the telegraph compan-
les than the other two combined The old
saying that bad news travels quickly
has one more verification in the hundreds
Of death messages sent by wire every day.
1t is a standing jest in telegraph offices
that more people die on Sunday than any
other day in the week, for in the absence
of the usual volume of kilograms relating
to strictly business affairs those announc-
ing deaths and funeral arrangements stand
out with unusual prominence and their
frequency becomes apparent
When the Boys OvercharEe.
Among the messenger boys CT the tricky
class it Is known that the best time to
oyercharge for the delivery of a message
a
death is conveyed. Especially when it is
in the case of dear relative or close friend
is this true. The effects of the shock and
the excitement that follows prevents nine
persons out of ten looking at the envelope
or message to ascertain if it has already
been paid for. If the boys run against Il
person who is well-informed on points of
this kind they will innocently say: "Oh.
I've made a mistake. 1 thought it was
message number a. and the messenger
will forcibly crticise his sense of COM
prenension in the matter of sizing up
the wrong man.
Ii may seem sacrilegious to say that
many of the death kilograms sent over
the wires have a SroteSQue side. yet IL is
so. The hard-worked operators who handle
them cannot avoid seeing it all in the rush
and many smile goes around the tele
graph office over the uncouth way in which
sincere affiictiOn has been announced. IL
nteracy accounts for many of these grue-
somely amusing announcements. The men,
tai agitation accompanying the loss of rela-
tives or friends accounts for more but
there IS undoubtedly n certain percentage
which are ridiculous in a CHASTITY fashion.
because Of actual Observation-Disclosures on the
part of the sender. To the latter class. in
all probability. belongs the telegram sent
by n daughter 10 announce with cheerful
levity that Mamma kicked n II 30 last
night Will try and max burial Monday"
But such instances are. of course rare.
Authorizations are dangerous articles of
commerce at all times. but particularly 80
in the case of teIegrnns where periods
end commas. with their helpful explanatory
functions. are usually drnpped ont in the
transmission One irdividua1 failed TO
realize this. and. probably fror, y nistaE an
desire to econon1izs. teleeraphef1 to reIa-
tives: ''Jane die,I yesterday F,rr at .
o'clock Sundav." II took some time To
realize that fun was contraction for
funeral and That ~ hilarious disrespect
was intended to the deceased
TeieErnDher's Talk.
Talking about curious kilograms and odd
occurrences In a telegraph office to an
Evening Star reporter recently an employee
Of the Postal Telegraph Company said:
1.-THE curious and humorous things that
come under our notice In the course of n
weeks business would. If pronarIv told
MI a page Of The Star. One of the most
persistent humorous things is the matter
or continuing message within the regIIIa J.
ton number OF ten words People will
come into our office who from appea ra ces
are undoubtedly weil-to-dO who win work
for half an hour over p message sinopIy To
save few cents. 1t is not the wing T
OBJECT {" 50 much as the wav they butcher
I'D message simply to make this saving
A majority of them will start in and write
wh@t they have To saw regardless of the
smaller words and at its conclusion go
over II and pick out what they consider
useless words. The message as originally
written would have cost about 81 certs
Whlie the re9llar rate for ten words iS -
q
ITEM a whit. but mention - cents and tn av
almost get fit and Immediately set IN
~or. to XIII the sense of their message
Tor the saving of 10 cents
Another class. md n class We really
take an Interest in IS the moor naonIa
who COVE into an office with something of
awe and fully expecting to spn-d q dol
iar or message. They panaralIv ask MS
IN write the message for them and In nine
casaS ort OF ton II is the rnournfrr1 one Of
death. We will mt down what tbo,+ ~,
Ihnn road - IT.
mice Is never c-nvled a. We then on
nNaNor 70 save them n 1ittln money Nv
crossing ont vO-f1S bere and tbc-a n wat
w. an exDert can do quite deftIv. and 7
N9va vet tn come across person of this
Ftnd who has not trn0I,aI US most cor
dtallv fN- our effort. To and a. vor to 10 tho
same thing for Tho Otra- class would no
f9ter afrront and as our reward
rob the company Nf considerable revenue
Boiling DOVE.
THE nevsDaner men are the ones that
have the authorizations and short sentences
down fine. One not acquainted with their
style could hardly make head or tail of
their messages. The special correspondent,
pushed for time, will telegraph his paper
about some startling occurrence and in
quiFe how many words ~ send in so few,
words that The brevity almost chilis the
operator VINO has The sending to do. In
the times when tolls We're an important
item in the account bills of q newspa per
this boiling down process was carried 10
ing an item to be rewritten before the
compositOr could put il in cold type. Now
the tolls have been reduced to such an ex-
tent that this Authorization is done away
with. as the telegraph editors time IS too
valuable TO be wasted for the saving of n
few cents. and the kilograms generally go
out of our Office in typewrtten form and
almost the equal of the press associations
In the matter OF correct spelling q also
have considerable trouble to overcome One
of the commOnest stumbling blocks in SPELL
ing with the unletterei is Illustrated by a
message recently handled by US which said
simply: Our little boy died-choIerai in
phartomi And in the matter of punctua-
tiOn the following teleGram is recalled,
George is dying il haste answer In
both the above cases the operator could cas-
lily have Strengthened Out things but il is
standing rule with us to never alter 2
message in the slightest degree / could
cite cases by the hundreds to iIl1,stra te WHY
We have come to This conclusion bur IL is
enough to say that three cases out of -four
where 4 message IS altered a mistake will
result and the company r1ulcl.d of consii-
cradle money rs a result Of damage suit
show Peoples MeSsngeS.
Another class that receive curious mes
sages is the show people ard no matte!
what they say We let them 10 as they Law
only making sure that the operator at the
other end OF the line has read the hand.
writing correctly. The manager Of the ma.
scum down on 1th street underwent 0uits
a shock Of bevildermeut . few DAYS axe
w ha - FlrF.y