History for the twits among us

Ben Schott has a column in The New York Times about the history of character-limited messages: The 140-character limit of Twitter posts was guided by the 160-character limit established by the developers of SMS. However, there is nothing new about new technology imposing restrictions on articulation. During the late nineteenth-century telegraphy boom, some carriers charged extra for words longer than fifteen characters and for messages longer than ten words. Thus, the cheapest telegram was often limited to 150 characters. Concerns for economy, as well as a desire for secrecy, fueled a boom in telegraphic code books that reduced both common and complex phrases into single words. Dozens of different codes were published; many catered to specific occupations and all promised efficiency.
The phrases here (click the image to make it readable) are from the third edition of The Anglo-American Telegraphic Code, published in 1891. It can only be hoped that, as Twitter advances, more people will begin Tweeting in code.