The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-08-08
CONDENSING A CIPHER DIS-
 PATCH

"Speaking of cfphers," said an old re- porter in group which had been dls- cusslng the Conger message. I'm re- minded of the desperate efforts sthat were made by some of the newspaper correspondents down at Santiago to get contraband stuff past the censor. Two or three of them had arranged with their offices to use crude codes,l Tn which certain commonplace words and phrases stood for certain possible events; but the unexpected kept hap paning with such distressing regularity that they had little opportunity to put the scheme into execution. One Of the few times it was .ried resulted in horrifying blunder. and came near costing two or three good men their jobs It was during that trying period when Sampson had Cervera bottled up in Santiago harbor, and nobody had the least idea of what was going to happen next. If you remember 1t was not even certain that the Spanish cruis- CTS were inside, and all sorts of wild rumors were afioat as to sudden changes in the programme of blockade
 While the situation was at it's most critical stage a correspondent Who represented a big northern journal heard a report that two strange ships had been seen off the east end of the island, and, feeling certain that the censor would hold up any reference to the matter, he embodied in in code postscript, which he added to a harm less news message. The postscript ran about like this: Tell John to send, as quick as possible, another pair field glasses and six dozen rolls camera flne. No. A. The words John, field glasses camera films, and No. A. all stood for entirely different things, and their sequence, together with the reference to haste and quantity, had also certain fixed significance, Prop erly translated the sentence would have read: Two strange ships. supposed to be Spaniards, seen off indward pas-. sage Tn correspondent gave the message to a fellow-reporter who was going to a cable office on tug and told him to rush it through.
 "As bad luck would have it." con- tinued the story-teller, "the wires were swamped with business that day, and when the messenger arrived he was told that everything would have to be boiled down to the narrowest possible limits in order to stand the slightest chance of transmission. After submit- ting his own stuff to the boiling pro- cess he thought it would be an act of kindness to do the same for his friend, and when he came to the all-important postscript, he condensed it somewhat in this manner: Need No. camera ammunition and binoculars quick. In due time he returned, and the man who wrote the message questioned him eagerly as to it's success, Did you get it off old fellcw'' he asked Sure re- piled the other. but they made me boil down everything, and I was obliged to weed out some of your Superfluous English. l yanked out few ornamen- tai adjectives and switched it about bit, and it's probably on the wire by this time Did you do that to the postscript, too?' yelled the correspon- dent, breaking into a cold sweat Yes; the postscript in particular. said the messenger calmly; but don't worry, old chappie, I preserved the sense The you did' beloved the un- happy correspondent; I must get to that wire quick or my job isn't worth last years birds nest"
 He got there as quick as steam would take him, but not quick enough