Telegrams
I'm not sure if this has been settled or not, but the practice when sending telegrams for a long period of time was not only to dictate to the Western Union employee, but also to fill out a telegram form by hand, sign it and hand it over to Western Union for an employee to transmit at some later point. This was done to avoid the time it took for each telegraph sender to stand at the clerk's window dictating, whereas the written submission form could be handed over and then queued up to be sent when time was available. This was also done to ensure accuracy of the text being sent, and to ensure that any discrepancy between what was received (or intended to be sent) could be compared against the written and signed submission form.
There was recently available a written and signed Western Union telegram form from, I believe, Lou Dials of the Negro Leagues, which follows the same pattern.
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