The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1916-04-26
CODE OF A PRISON
Signal System Of the Terrorist
Societies of Russia.
TALKING IN JAIL IS SIMPLE.
The Cheekerboard Tapping Device
Makes II Easy For Prisoners In Soil
tary Confinement to Communicate
With All the Cells Of a Fortress.

With All the Cells Of a Fortress.
The most persistent and deadly enc
mics with which the secret service of
any country is forced to contend are
the terrorists of the broad lands of
the car.
The detective departments of the
Russian government have to deal with
the most skillful secret organizations
In the world. The devices at the com
mand of the secret orders, especially
their methods of communication. are
of the most extraordinary character
An authority who has made the closest
study of the Russian prison system
has assembled these devices. The
members of the secret societies of Rus
STA assert that they can communicate
with one another in any prison, no
matter how carefully guarded. No
method of prison supervision can pre-
vent it.
This communication Is by n system
OF tapping, either on the floor or walls
OF the cell in which the prisoner is
confined. There are two codes, MS de-
scribed by the prison authority Ken
nan. One is primitive and cumber-
some-namely, to Indicate the letters
in the alphabet by the number of taps.
as, for example, one for \, five for +.
ten for J. end so forth. This is n code
OF ancient usage. 1t was found too
slow and complicated. A new system
was presently devised.
Taking the English alphabet as an
example, it can be easily illustrated.
Leaving out one letter, as, for exam
pie X. and using the letter c wherever
one would use X, the working alphabet
is reduced to twenty-five letters. One
wishing to put this system into prac-
tice will imagine checkerboard of
twenty-five squares-five columns of
five squares each. He will place a
letter of the alphabet in each of these
squares, beginning with the top square
on the left and going straight down
the column.
Thus A would be in the first square
of the first column, beginning at the
left: Il in the bottom square of the
first column, + in the first top square
of the second column. and so on. With
the letters thus set i'm this checker
board it is Il very simple matter to spell
out any word by indicating the column
by one, two. three, four or five taps, a
slight pause. followed by the number
of the square i'm the column correspond
ing to the letter i'm the word to be
spelled: thus G would be twO-two. and
SO forth.
When the cells of the old stone for
tress of PetropavlOvsk at Petrograd
were filled with terrorists they talked
among themselves by this tapping sys-
TEN quite as freely as though they
were assembled i'm one of their places
of secret meeting in the Russian cap
ital. The police tried to prevent it by
putting the prisoners in alternate cells
only. But the cells were so small and
the stone walls were such excellent
conductors of sound that even this de-
vice did not prevent the communica-
ton.
The most inconseducntial article was
sufficient to carry on the code. a bit OF
broken cement. fragments of bone, Il
button or coin was all the prisoner
needed. This code was also used when
the materials were available to com
municate by systems of pinholes in
paper or other materials, or by marks
on the surface of a wall, door or any
I article that the prisoner thought would
come to the attention of his friend out
side.
ii was also a device to mravel any
article of clothing or prisoners equip
ment ana by series of knots tied in the
threads to spell out messages according
to unis code.
Another system was to sccrcte lit
| tie fat from the prisoners food and
wnen one passed Il window, If exercise
was allowed in the prison courtyard, to
make a sign ON the glass. When the
warm grease from the prisoners Tin
gers froze on the glass the signal be
came visible. Bits of broken glass. If
| they could be obtained. were also used
| to carry these messages, which We're
/ INV lSlDlt ullil ilt -ldSS W 10 ii'H'h-
Systems of signals used by the friends
of the prisoners to acquaint them with
current affairs were no less ingenious.
! The whole of the prisoners in the cells
of political fortress in Petrograd
were kept constantly Informed OF what
was going on in the capital by the sim
pie device of man reading book by
the light of candle. From certain
window of the prison mt night 1t was
possible to see this man read his book
III room of "A house opposite the pris-
on. BY the way in which the book and
candle were handled rs the man turned
the pages and read complete informa-
tion was signaled into the prison, and
by the tapping system it was conveyed
to everybody confined in the whole for
tress.-Melville DavissOn Post in Sat
urday Evening Post.