Friday, February 25, 2011

The Cape Cod Mystery, by Phoebe Atwood Taylor

This is the first book to fature Asey Mayo, the "Hayseed Sleuth." It was published in 1931.

"'Heat wave hits East,'" Betsy read. "Prostration record of all time. Mercury soaring.' Well, that's gone and torn are peaceful vacation, that has. By to-night we'll have a stack of telegrams a yard high from city-sizzling friends who want to get cooled off."

Below is an example of a telegram. For many years, not all phone service was reliable, and not everybody had phones. So companies like Western Unionset up a service whereby people from one part of the country, or world, would call their offices in another part of the country, and dictate a few words, which an operator would type out on a teletype machine. These strips of paper would be glued to a telegram form, and then a bicyclist or motorcyclist would deliver it to the recipient's home or place of business.

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