Ancient Telegraph Code

[Chris Trask]

        I picked up a very odd book over the weekend entitled "ABC
Universal Commercial Electric Telegraphic Code", published by the American
Code Publishing Co. in 1899.  It appears to be a manual for a form of
telegraphic shorthand used by merchants and shipping agents, similar to
the Q-codes and numerical codes we still use.  There are over 25,000 codes
in this book, and they were able to use either a number or a word.  They
also had to add additional information if there's a "fill in the blank"
portion.

        Anyone know the history behind this?

Chris


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