e 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 employe 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 preeminent. 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