The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1896-02-05
CABLE RATES AND RULES.
How They May lie Utilized TO Transf

How They May lie utilized TO Trausfes
Cash at Small Cost.
II 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 a 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 themessage 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 OF
otherwise as he sees IT. The smallness Of
the amount involved prevents any undue
advantage being taken of this system
which has been found Of great convenience
In "a legitimate way, as even the shortest
cablegram is expensive, while prepayment,
reasonably guarantees reply.
Considering the fact that very few cable
grams are ineligible to the operators, th,
mistakes made are surprisingly few, and
such as do occur are quite as often due tc
the poor penmanship of the writer as to
carelessness on the part Of cable employees
When mistakes do creep In, however, the
result may be serious II not detected, as al
error in single letter may radically alte
the meaning of a message.
For example, cheaper" may be used Il
signify, "Send 5000 bags of coffee to on
care at Boston, while cheaper" may stanC
for the same phrase, except the substitu
tion of Philadelphia for Boston.
A careless writer or negligent operate
4 would here have an excellent opportunit.
| to make a 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 addres
with the telegraph and cable companies Il
| America and Great Britain, whereby on
word will stand for the full name of tn
| firm, and thus reduce the cost of cable
grams, but on the continents the variou
governments impose yearly tax for tn
privilege, small as 1t is.
The average citizen has no doubt ofte
speculated how the cable people handl
messages written in foreign languages
that is, how a native operator at, say, 81
Petersburg or Mecca can intelligently tram
nit kilograms written in English. The e,
PLANTATION is exceedingly simple.
The only requirement of the cable line
is that all messages must be written !
Roman letters. This being done, it is Q
easy for the operator to send or receive til
French word "guerre" as its English equiv
alent, war" etc.
A telegram written in Russian or he
track Turkish paralyzes the Morse alphi
bet until it is translated into equivaler
French, English or other Roman text, whe
It can be licked off merrily by an operate
absolutely unfamiliar with these language
but who knows the Geographic signs ft
the letters.
The tariff books issued by the cab
companies make interesting reading. III
rate per word from New York to Sout
Africa is s.. 40; to Cape Colony and Tran
vaal, s243; Mozambique, $2.4l, and Zanz
bar, $2.15 To New South Wales via OIL
route the rate is sl.45 per word and via a
other line 1897. To Burmah 81 "a is charge
and to Beloochistan, sl,13 The rate
China is s1.S6 and to Japan s2.2i.-Phil
delphia Times.