roster of their near and distant relatives and wonder whose death or illness the message may announce before they open the fateful envelope, only to find that up-to-date Cousin Mary, who has learned that the telegraph is as readily used as the mail and many times more rapid and efficient, wants to know whether they can come out for the week-end.  When Cousin Mary of to-day wants to know, she wants to know right away—­not only that she has her arrangements to make, but also because she just does not propose to wait a day or two to get a simple answer to a simple question.

Therein she embodies the spirit of the times.  Our ancestors were content to jog along for days in a stuffy stage-coach; we complain that the train which accomplishes the same distance in a few hours is too slow.  We act more quickly; we think more quickly.  We have to if we want to keep within earshot of the band.

This speeding up makes itself quite obviously most apparent in our business processes.  No body of business men need be told how much keener competition is becoming daily, how much narrower the margin by which success must be won.  Familiar phrases, these.  But behind them lies a wealth of tragedy.  How many have fallen by the way?  It is estimated that something less than ten per cent. of those who engage in business on their own account succeed.  How terrible the percentage of those who fail!  The race has become too swift for them.  Driven by the lash of competition, business must perforce move faster and faster.  Time is becoming ever more precious.  Negotiations must be rapidly conducted, decisions arrived at quickly, transactions closed on the moment.  What wonder that all this makes for a vastly increased use of the quickest method of communication?

That is but one of the conditions which accounts for the growing use of the telegraph.  Another is to be found in the recognition of the convenience of the night letter and day letter.  This has brought about a considerable increase in the volume of family and social correspondence by telegraph, which will grow to very much greater proportions as experience demonstrates its value.  In business life the night letter and day letter have likewise established a distinct place for themselves.  Here also the present development of this traffic can be regarded as only rudimentary in comparison with the possibilities of its future development, indications of which are already apparent.  It has been discovered that the telegram, on account of its peculiar attention-compelling quality, is an effective medium not only for the individual appeal, but for placing business propositions before a number of people at once, the night letters and day letters being particularly adapted to this purpose by reason of the greater scope of expression which they offer.

Again, business men are developing the habit of using the telegram in keeping in touch with their field forces and their salesmen and encouraging their activities, in cultivating closer contact with their customers, in placing their orders, in replenishing their stocks, and in any number of other ways calculated to further the profitable conduct of their enterprises.