I've seen/read numerous old telegraph messages. They contain a lot of spelled-out punctuation. Why didn't they simply have the most basic few characters as part of the code, or at least turn a "STOP" into "." and "QUOTE" into a '"' on the other end?
This might make it harder to read. The reason seems unlikely to be technical, because if they can transmit 26 letters as Morse code, they can also transmit more characters OR use special "code tags" formed by the existing ones. For example, the word "TCC1" could be short for "Telegraph Character Code 1", meaning a period, which is never displayed as a "STOP" in the final message.
Even if the reason was that they couldn't agree on a standard, it would still seem better to get the actual code "TCC1" printed out rather than:
WE TRIED TO MAKE HIM STOP STOP AND WE COULD NOT FIND A WAY TO STOP HIM STOP STOP AT ONCE AND COME HOME STOP
As opposed to:
WE TRIED TO MAKE HIM STOP TCC1 AND WE COULD NOT FIND A WAY TO STOP HIM TCC1 STOP AT ONCE AND COME HOME TCC1
Or (for telegraph printers supporting my theoretical standard):
WE TRIED TO MAKE HIM STOP. AND WE COULD NOT FIND A WAY TO STOP HIM. STOP AT ONCE AND COME HOME.
Why did they not adopt such a scheme?