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INSTRUOTSONS 
The telegraph must be used sparingly. In a message from one official or employee to another official or employee titles should not he 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 denianded 
as a condition to the transmission or deliveiy 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 tlje Weather Bureau) over the prmcipal telegraph Imes 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 Govemmejifc 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, sncli as 16tli (three words), 3rd (two words), 22nd (three words); but write them sixteenth, third, 
and twenty-second. ^ d ^ ^ ^ i ixi • t 
Telegrams, or any part thereof, relating to leave of absence are not ofiicial. Telegrams relating to salary or expense cnecxs are only omcial 
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 ofBcers and agents, m their transmission oyer the lines of any 
telegraph company to which has been given the right of way, timber, or station lands from the public domain shall liave priority over all other 
business, at siibh TGt,A,q PoRtmnster General shall anniiallv fix. And no 'oart of anv annroTiriation for the several Departments of the 
Government 
section. — Rev, Stad., sec, 5266 
the provisions of this 
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