Business Hints for Men and Women - Alfred Rochefort Calhoun (reading books for 5 year olds .TXT) 📗
- Author: Alfred Rochefort Calhoun
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REGISTERING LETTERS
A letter or a parcel may be registered to further insure its safe delivery.
When a letter or parcel is registered, it must have the sender’s name and address written across the left-hand end of the envelope and on the reverse side.
In addition to the stamps required ordinarily, eight cents in stamps or in a regularly prepared stamp, is the registration fee.
The clerk, receiving a registered parcel, gives the sender a receipt for the same. After the letter has reached its destination, the sender gets a second receipt, through the post office, signed with the receiver’s name.
The receiver of a registered parcel signs two receipts, one for the post office and the other for the sender.
SPECIAL DELIVERY
The purpose of what is known, in connection with the post office, as the “Special Delivery System”, is to insure the delivery of any letter or package to the person, to whom it is addressed, as soon as it reaches his post office.
In addition to the regular post charge, a fee of 10 cents is added for special delivery. This is in the form of a special stamp, though when this cannot be had, the same amount in ordinary stamps may be attached.
In the case noted, the sender should write in line with the stamps, “special delivery.”
Special delivery messages are delivered, not by ordinary carriers, but by special delivery messengers.
The special delivery letter is used when immediate knowledge is necessary. It saves a long telegram.
MONEY ORDERS
Money, in limited sums, may be sent through the post office. One advantage of sending money in this way is that it practically insures the sender against loss.
All post offices are not money order offices.
A post office money order may only be sent to those places where there are such offices.
At all post offices, authorized to send money orders, proper blanks can be had on which the sender can write his order.
Any sum may be sent by postal order, from one cent to one hundred dollars.
The fee is from three to thirty cents.
Read the blank carefully; it is simple, but be sure you understand it before filling out the order.
If in doubt, ask the clerk.
Having filled out the order, hand it to the clerk with the sum required, and the additional fee.
The clerk then prepares and hands out an order for the amount, on the postmaster of the town to which you are sending your letter, and this you enclose to your correspondent.
CASHING POST OFFICE ORDERS
The money order never contains the name of the sender; this the postmaster of the office from which it is sent supplies in a separate communication to the postmaster who is to pay.
No money passes from one office to the other.
A post office order is like a draft drawn by one postmaster on another. The one credits the sum, the other debits it.
The holder of an order will not get his money unless he is known to the paying postmaster or is identified.
Before paying an order the postmaster requires the holder to receipt it.
A post office money order, like a check or draft, may be transferred to another for collection.
Banks receive transferred money orders as if they were cash deposits.
The party to whom orders are transferred must go through the same forms at the office, where payment is made, as if he was the original payee.
ADVICE
It is not necessary to register letters containing checks. Never write “personal” on a business letter.
Always enclose a stamp for reply when writing to a stranger.
See that the addresses on your letters are distinctly legible.
To send a telegram, you or your messenger must take what you have written to the nearest telegraph office.
You may write a telegram on any kind of paper, provided always that the writing is plain.
All telegraph offices are provided with regular blank forms, which may be had without cost, and it is better to use these when they are available.
The blank is properly ruled, with lines for the date, for the address of the one to whom it is to be sent, and for the message.
CHARGES
The telegraph company charges a fixed sum for a message of, say, ten words. These words do not include the name and address of the sender.
The amount of the charge is always dependent on the distance between the office from which the message is sent and the one at which it is received.
Every word over ten, in the message, pays an extra fee, dependent again on the distance.
Getting just what you mean into ten words may seem difficult when you have a lot to say, but it is surprising how you can boil the message down when each additional word costs five or more cents.
It may pay to practice this.
If it is actually necessary to make your meaning clear by the addition of more words, do not hesitate at the cost.
If you are known at the telegraph office, you can send a message to be collected from the receiver.
Never permit the receiver to pay for a message that is exclusively on your own business.
Always make and keep a copy of every important telegram you send away. Do not neglect this.
If you have neglected to keep a copy of a telegram, or having made one have lost it, you may get a copy from the telegraph office, provided the application be made within six months of the sending of the message.
Telegrams are delivered by the company’s messengers.
You must give receipt to the messenger on the delivery of a telegram.
Where the receiver lives a long distance from the telegraph office, it is customary to pay the messenger an additional fee, depending on the distance.
The charges for telegrams to be sent at night and delivered in the morning, are much lower than for day messages.
For an additional charge, less than the original, messages may be repeated back to insure their accuracy.
Read over to the official, or still better, have him read your message over in your presence, that you may be sure he understands it as written.
You cannot hold others responsible for your own mistakes.
TELEGRAPHING MONEY
You can telegraph money with as much safety as you can send it through a bank.
In handling money in this way, the telegraph company does not act as a banker but as a carrier.
Telegraph money orders are a great convenience, when one wants to send cash to a distant point in a hurry.
Country telegraph offices do not, as a rule, transmit money; that function is left to the offices in the larger centers.
THE METHOD
One wishing to “wire money” will find at the telegraph office suitable blanks; they are furnished gratis.
On lines provided for the purpose and properly indicated, as in a postal order form, write the name and address of the person to receive the money, with the amount.
This paper, properly signed, is handed to the clerk with the money to be sent and the fee for transmission.
The fee is double that charged for an ordinary message of the same length.
If, for any reason, the person to whom the money is sent cannot be found within forty-eight hours, the money is returned to the sender, but the fees are retained, as the company is not to blame for failure.
The receiver of a money order, if unknown, must identify himself as he would at a bank, and he must receipt for the money.
If the person to receive the money is an entire stranger in the place to which the money is sent, the sender knows it, and he provides for the situation by signing, on the reverse of the application, an order to the distant operator to pay the money to the person named within, without further identification.
When a telegraph operator receives a money order, he at once seeks out the person to whom it is sent, and pays the money in accordance with his instructions as to identification.
THE TELEPHONE
The telephone, local and long distance, is fast superceding the telegraph as a medium for speedy business communications.
Its use is not confined to large cities as at first.
Nearly every village is now in communication with the outer world through the telephone.
The world has just awakened to the needs of its food producer, the farmer.
In Norway, which is not a rich country, the telephone has been introduced on the farms. The rates are low and the benefits are inestimable.
On our large farms, in the West, telephones have been in use for some time as an essential part of the machinery.
Now, there is a move on foot to make them available for every farmer in the more settled regions.
While business can be conducted over the telephone, as if the speakers stood face to face, yet such transactions not being recorded, will not stand in law, if one of the parties should dispute the other’s word.
There are two kinds of expresses, viz.: local and general. The names describe the provinces of each, though a general express may do a local business.
All express companies are common carriers.
The carrying business done by our express companies is enormous. They have their own special cars attached to passenger and fast freight trains, and their goods are given special departments in water transportation.
If living between two towns, it is always better to have your letters and express business done through one office.
INSTRUCTIONS
When ordering material by express, make sure that you give the address, to which you wish it sent, in such a way that a mistake on the part of the forwarder will be out of the question.
If you send away goods by express, make sure that they are securely packed, and be equally sure that the address is clearly written and in a large hand. It would be better if the address could be painted on with a brush.
If you should send perishable stuff, like meat, flowers, glass, or fruit, be sure to label the package “perishable” or “Handle with care, glass.”
On long distance transportation prepayment is required; on short distances it is optional.
It is always better to get from the express agent a receipt for the matter taken in charge.
Take care to put your own address on the lower left-hand corner of the package to be sent.
If the person to whom the parcel is sent cannot be found, the address will enable the express company to notify the sender at once of the fact.
When sending any goods by express, it is always prudent to notify the person for whom they are intended of the fact by mail, and also to state the company by which the matter was sent and the date of shipment.
THE COMPANY’S DUTY
The express company must always require, on delivering goods, a receipt from the receiver.
If the goods should be received by a second person, on behalf of the consignee, he must sign the consignee’s name, and under that his own.
If a package appears to be damaged in transmission, the express company must permit the receiver to examine it before signing. He may refuse to sign or to accept in any way, if the goods are injured, or not as he ordered.
Express companies are responsible for all damages sustained by goods while in their charge.
COLLECTIONS BY EXPRESS
All the large express companies have the machinery for collecting accounts and notes whenever they have branch offices.
Such companies are reliable collectors.
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