The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1895-01-14
CABLE RATES AND RULES.
How They May BE Utilized to Transfe
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How They May BE Utilized to Transfer
Cash ut Small Cost.
1t is possible to take advantage Of the
rules of the cable companies regarding pre-
payment of messages to transfer small
amounts of money by wire. Cablegrams
will not be sent collect, neither may the
sender guarantee the payment OF tolls upon
reply to message, but he can prepay
such reply to the extent OF 30 words by de
posting cash to that amount at the origi
mating Office and stating in his cablegram,
"Reply, 10 words prepaid or whatever
number of words he may mention within
the limit.
For this phrase he pays usual tolls.
When the message is delivered to the per.
son addressed, the cable company at the
same time hands him in cash the amount
of prepayment. The party getting the mon
ey can use it to send the reply wanted or
otherwise as he sees fit. The smallness Of
the amount involved prevents any undue
advantage being taken Of this system,
which has been found of great convenience
in legitimate way, as even the shortest
cablegram is expensive, while prepayment
reasonably guarantees reply.
Considering thefact that very few cable
grams are Ineligible to the operators, the
mistakes made are surprisingly few, and
such as do occur are quite AS often due &c
the poor penmanship of the writer as &c
carelessness on the part of cable employees
When mistakes do creep in, however, the
result may be serious IL not detected, a an
error in n single letter may radically alter
the meaning Of n message.
For example, cheaper" may be used &c
signify, "Send 5000 bags of coffee to our
care at Boston" while cheaper" may stand
for the same phrase, except the substitu
ton of Philadelphia for Boston.
A careless writer or negligent operator
would here have an excellent opportunity
to make costly blunder. The codes ar,
arranged so far as possible to preclude mis-
takes of this kind arising through similari
ty of cipher words. but risks cannot be en-
tirely eliminated.
1t costs nothing to register an address
with the telegraph and cable companies ii
America and Great Britain, whereby ON,
word will stand for the full name of tn,
frm, and thus reduce the cost of cable
grams, but on the continents the various
| governments impose yearly tax for tn
privilege, small us it is.
The average citizen has no doubt Otter
| speculated how the cable people handl
messages written in foreign languages
that is, how n native operator at, say, st
| Petersburg or Mecca can intelligently trans
nit kilograms written in English. The ex
planation is exceedingly simple.
The only requirement Of the cable line
| is that all messages must be written II
Roman letters. This being done, it is a
easy for the operator to send or receive tn
| French word guerre" as its English equiv
alent, war" etc.
A telegram written in Russian or he
! track Turkish paralyzes the Morse alpha
bet until it is translated into equivalen
French, English or other Roman text, whe
it can be licked off merrily by an operate
absolutely unfamiliar with these languages
but who knows the telegraphic signs 70
the letters.
| The tariff books issued by the cabl
companies make interesting reading. Tn
rate per word from New York to Sout
Africa is S2.49; to Cape Colony and Tran,
vaal, SAB; Mozambique, Sal, and Zanz
bar, Sc 10. To New South Wales via on
route the rate is Sl.45 per word and via al
other line 50. 81. To Burmah 81. "a is charged
and to Beloochistan, Sl,l3 The rate I
China is sl.96 and to japan S2.ll.-Phils
delphia Times.