The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1903-10-07
OABLECODESEXpLAINED
HELPS BY WHICH THE LONG
WlNpED MAY "cuT 1T SHORT"

twenty-five Cents to Five Dollars q
Word He Realizes That Sometimes
Talk Is Not at all Cheap.
There are many men who In their
business conversation murder brevity
and step all over the humanitarian
rule to say thing once only. They
maui their subject almost out of recog-
milton. They work 1t slowly back into
shape again. They finish off with a
number of personal anecdotes and
when they are leaving they turn back
and start all over again.
When one of these men writes let
ters he finds it expedient to compress
an hours talk into single letter page.
When he telegraphs he can general
ly get the same matter boiled down
into ten words.
When he cables and has to pay from
20 cents to $500 for each word, he
realizes that sometimes talk is not at
all cheap, and he soon learns the gen,
tie art Of cutting 1t short. If kc has
considerable cabling to do, he finds
SIS or so for cable code.
What are cable codes2
They are books containing lists of
classified phrases, alphabetically ar
ranged according to subject. Each
phrase is represented by code word.
These code words are also arranged
alphabetically so that the receiver of
cable code can easily translate the
message.
A code book genrally begins as fol-
lows:
fSUBJECT) ABSENCE.
10000 Aababer-Expect to be absent
on the date you name.
000C1 Aacrive-The person in charge
of this matter is absent.
00002 Acknowledgement explain his abb
sepce.
The above code words. although
closely resembling the names of Pull
man cars, are not thrown carelessly
together by the compiler of the code
book. The different telegraph and ca
BILE authorities held a congress at
Berne, Switzerland, some years ago
and compiled a list of about 250,000
words, without phrases. These words
commence with Aabam and end with
Zyzommes. This compilation is known
as the official vocabulary. Nearly all
the prominent code books have their
code words selected from this vocabu.
larry. It is expected that in the near
future all words sent by telegraph or
cable will either have to be in plain
language or in words selected from the
official vocabulary. This will put a
stop to the growing system of "doub-
ling up"
In cable messages written in plain
language words up to Is letters long
can be used. In messages containing
code words ten letters to the word is
the limst. Five figures are also reck-
oned as one word.
It will be noticed in the above Illus
tration Of the arrangement of code
book that each code word and phrase
is numbered. All code books are num-
bered in this fashion. Taking advan-
tage of this system OF numbering, va
rious schemes have been worked out
by economical souls for expressing two
code phrases by one ten-letter cipher,
or doubling up" as it may conven-
iently be called.
Say, for instance, that a man wishes
to cable the two following phrases:
06120 Duncifrot-Your letter of the
26th inst. duly received.
Answer is Yes"
07543 Evenzi-Do not take any action
in the matter until you
receive my letter on the
subject.
The sender of this message groups
the code numbers of the two phrases
thus: 0612007543.
He also has table something on the
following order, copy of which is in
the hands Of all correspondents:
Ga ST