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INSTRUCTIONS.

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The telegraph must be used sparingly. In a message from one official or employee to another official or employee titles should not be used, and in a great many cases the names of the parties in both address and signature may be limited to single words. Messages sent from or to the Department at Washington should not be paid for by the persons sending or receiving the same, except in cases where payment is demanded as a condition to the transmission or delivery of the messages, and the agent, operator, or messenger should be directed to have the same charged in the company's monthly bill at Washington.

The rates for the transmission of official messages (except those for the Weather Bureau) over the principal telegraph lines in the United States, including those of the Western Union Telegraph Company, are fixed annually by the Postmaster General, and all payments in excess of those rates will be at the expense of the persons making the payments.

Payment for Government messages sent over telegraph lines owned or operated by bond-aided railroad companies is forbidden by law.

Write numbers out when fewer words result than there are figures in the number, except in cablegrams, when figures should be used instead of the corresponding words.

Do not abbreviate ordinal numbers, such as 16th (three words), 3rd (two words), 22nd (three words); but write them sixteenth, third, and twenty-second.

Telegrams, or any part thereof, relating to leave of absence are not official. Telegrams relating to salary or expense checks are only official when the funds are actually necessary to carry out official instructions; and such messages must be clearly explained.

Telegrams between the several Departments of the Government and their officers and agents, in their transmission over the lines of any telegraph company to which has been given the right of way, timber, or station lands from the public domain shall have priority over all other business, at such rates as the Postmaster General shall annually fix. And no part of any appropriation for the several Departments of the Government shall be paid to any company which neglects or refuses to transmit such telegrams in accordance with the provisions of this section.—Rev. Stat., sec. 5266.

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