TELEGRAPHY.

There is one thing favorable to young women who want to become telegraph operators: the qualifications required for success in this line of business are very simple. An ordinary common school education, with a special ability to spell well, and to write plainly and more or less rapidly, is all that is required in a pupil before commencing to learn this art. This may account for the large number of young ladies who, of late years, have sought employment in this field of labor. Another thing, it is office work, with just enough bustle and activity about it to keep it from being dull, with the occasional chance, in times of public excitement, of its being exceptionally interesting.

In the city of New York there are, at the present time, about two hundred ladies engaged in this occupation. They are nearly all employed by the Western Union Telegraph Company, three fourths of the number being employed at the main office of the company. Here and there a lady may be found employed in a broker's office, a position, by the way, which is considered exceptionally good, the pay being generous, with the sure chance of the employé receiving a present at the Christmas holiday-time. But the great majority of women are employed by the companies, in hotels, in the smaller stations situated throughout the city, and throughout the country in the offices located in various villages and towns.

Instruction in telegraphy has become a special feature in about forty colleges in different parts of the Union, and in several special schools, among which the New York Cooper Union School of Telegraphy is preëminent. Instruction in this last institution is free, and the Western Union Telegraph Company is so far interested in the success of the school, that when operators are needed, graduates of the Cooper Union are preferred over anybody else. The school is always crowded; it is difficult to gain admission, and situations are not provided by the company alluded to for all the graduates. Last year (1882) one hundred and sixty applied at the regular examination of the school and passed, but they could not be admitted to the class for want of room. The school admitted sixty pupils during the year. The number receiving certificates was twenty-eight. Some time since the Kansas State Agricultural College added telegraphy as a branch of industrial education, using Pope's "Hand-book of the Telegraph" as a text-book.

Women can learn to become telegraph operators at almost any age. Young girls of fifteen have successfully studied the art, and women as old as forty have also learned it. But the age which is recommended by good judges as being the best, is not younger than eighteen, nor older than twenty-five.

The time it takes to learn to become an operator depends, of course, on the aptness of the pupil, her general intelligence, and previous education. Some learn very readily, others after months of study never become sufficiently proficient to take positions.

The course of instruction, in most of the institutions where telegraphy is taught, covers a period of six months. It is said, on good authority, that practising four or five hours a day for a period of six months, will enable a young woman to master the art. Probably telegraphy is, in this respect, very much like phonography—a person may learn the principles of the latter science in a comparatively short space of time, but to avail himself really of its advantages, a great deal of practice is required. The principles of telegraphy are far simpler than those of phonography, but the necessity for practice is equally important. Young girls learn easier than women over the age of thirty, and yet there are several instances of women past the age of forty, who have quickly qualified themselves to become operators.

The salary of lady telegraphers ranges from $25 to $65 per month. In the office of the Western Union Telegraph Company they commence with a salary of $25 per month; the highest wages paid being $60 a month, unless in some special cases, where they take full charge of important offices, when they are given $75 a month.

What is called a "good" position may be either in the city or the country. In fact, the term good, used in this connection, is a purely relative term. For instance, the salary may be larger in a city, but the expense of living will be greater, and the work more arduous than it will be in some small country town, where the wages will be lower. But, as a rule, the positions in the city seem to be preferred, probably on the general principle that most young people prefer the excitement and gayety of metropolitan life to the more quiet and healthful enjoyments of country towns. During the summer months positions at the various watering-places are particularly sought after, the pay of the operator being $30 a month and her board. In the large city hotels, where business is quite brisk and important, the salary is from $40 to $50 a month. Operators in the country towns and villages receive from $30 to $40 a month. But, as was stated above, the brokers' offices supply the positions most sought after by telegraph operators. There are very few of these positions. The salary paid an operator in such a situation is from $75 to $90 a month. The hours of work are light, being from 9.30 A.M. to 3 P.M. A woman, however, to hold a position of this kind must be thoroughly competent, and not only rapid, but accurate in her work. She must, too, be a woman in whom the utmost confidence can be placed, and possessed of that rare womanly gift—the ability to keep a secret; for she is, in reality, a sort of confidential clerk.

A gentleman occupying a high position in one of the leading telegraph companies in New York says, that telegraphy is a good occupation for a young woman, and, provided she has no talent to do any thing better, it will furnish her a reasonably pleasant, profitable, and sure means of employment. But the opportunities of eventually getting a large salary, or of obtaining an enviable position, do not exist in this field of work. Women, he says, do not make good managers. They do not seem to possess the ability, so common even with many ordinary men, of grasping the varied details of a large business, and conducting it with system and regularity. In the company alluded to, there are ladies who have been employed for the last twenty years, but they are receiving no more pay now than they received ten years ago, and ten years from now their salary will be no higher than it is at the present time, if, indeed, it is as much.

It might be thought by some, that from the comparative ease with which this art is acquired, many might take it up as a temporary means of subsistence, and leave it, either for some better employment, or to assume matrimonial relations. But this is not the fact. The occupation seems to be one in which few die, and none resign. It should be added, however, that with the growing use of the telegraph by private individuals, and the starting of new telegraph companies, good operators may be reasonably sure of obtaining positions.

Telegraphy is generally learned at some business college, or some school which makes a specialty of teaching it. The lady who desires to become an operator should be very careful in making her selection among institutions of this kind. The Cooper Institute School is not included in this remark, but attention is called to the many firms throughout the country, who advertise largely in the weekly papers, to teach telegraphy in an astonishingly short space of time, and, it may be added, at astonishingly high rates of tuition. Some of these schools are good, but many of them cannot be recommended. Before entering any one of them, the would-be pupil should get the honest advice of some man or woman who is engaged in the business, and who knows something of the character of the institution she proposes to enter.