- ex R. M. Ballantyne (1825-1894), Post Haste; a Tale of Her Majesty's Mails (1880), chapter 28 "The Storming of Rocky Cottage and Other Matters". This and other works of Ballantyne, and of other 19th century authors, can be found via www.athelstane.co.uk, whence this excerpt is taken with thanks.
"Business men have therefore fallen on the plan of writing out lists of words, each of which means a longish sentence. This plan is so thoroughly carried out that books like thick dictionaries are now printed and regularly used. — What would you think, now, of 'Obstinate Kangaroo' for a message?"
"I would think it nonsense, Phil."
"Nevertheless, mother, it covers sense. A Quebec timber-merchant telegraphed these identical words the other day to a friend of mine, and when the friend turned up the words 'obstinate kangaroo' in his corresponding code, he found the translation to be, 'Demand is improving for Ohio or Michigan white oak (planks), 16 inches and upwards.'"
- Jim Reeds provides a good overview at
commercial telegraphic code books; see also his code book data base.
- A full transcription of The Nautical Telegraph Code and Postal Guide (Fourth Edition, 1920) can be found at
www.houwie.net/ntele01.html; other material (in Dutch) is elsewhere on the same site.
- Miscellanies of telegraphic literature appeared during the period 1870-1900; several were compiled by W. P. Phillips and by W. J. Johnston. Johnston's Telegraphic Tales and Telegraphic History (1880) provides quite a bit of information about codes and messages, which transcribed passages can be found here. A full digitization of Telegraphic Tales is available via Google Book.
(Phillips was a famed operator, general manager of United Press, and inventor of the Phillips Code, which you can find via www.qsl.net/ae0q/phillip1.htm. Phillips Code is more in the nature of a shorthand for operators — one that was memorized — rather than a lookup-mode code dictionary.)
- UK railway telegraph code words from the uk.railway FAQ website maintained by Michael Rodgers and Neil Sunderland, at www.rodge.force9.co.uk/faq/telegraph.html.
- A.N.A.R.E. Code of the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions can be found at www.suburbia.com.au/~anarensw/special/wyssa/wyssa.htm. More information at www.suburbia.com.au/~anarensw/ and www.anareclub.org.au/ (the latter being the Melbourne Club). Examples include :
YIHMO I have grown a beard but think I'll shave it off before I get back to Australia
YOIKS Thinking of you especially when reading following book and chapter (code word followed by name of book and number of chapter)
YOILT Our Position is Latitude...deg...mins Longitude...deg...mins.(code word followed by one four figure group for degrees and minutes of latitude; then one five figure group — commencing with 0 if necessary — for longitude).
- Information and examples from Slater's Telegraphic Code at homepage.usask.ca/~rhf330/tele.html.
- The Chappe optical telegraph system involved the use of semaphores and a code dictionary. chappe.ec-lyon.fr/
(in French) provides examples of the code vocabulary and actual messages, in addition to Les signaux réglementaires (service code) and Les (92) signaux de correspondance.
- The Fred Brandes collection of code books is described by two lists, of Letter Group Codebooks at www.codasaurus.com/codeart.htm, and Pronounceable Word Codebooks at
http://www.codasaurus.com/codenat.htm.
- Historic Cryptographic Collection, Pre-World War I through World War II
National Archives Box List, Records of the National Security Agency, Record Group 457
www.hnsa.org/doc/nara/nsaopendoor.htm
( search through with keyword "commercial" )
scroll down for useful finding aids for cryptographic history at www.hnsa.org/doc/nara/
hosted by Historic Naval Ships Association
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- A thorough overview of telegraphic codes and cipher messages appeared in Chambers's Journal (June 16, 1894) and is available here:
The Telegraphic Code, now so essential an adjunct to the foreign correspondence department of every businesshouse...
- Cables and Cabling : The World's Routes, with Directions for the Management of a Cable Department. Transcription of entry by Charles W. R. Hooker in Harmsworth's Business Encyclopedia and Commercial Educator. (London, 1925 ?) : 1122-26
- Codes : Their Nature and Manipulation. Transcription of entry by E. L. Bentley in Harmsworth's Business Encyclopedia and Commercial Educator. (London, 1925 ?) : 1483-88
- Telegrams were methodically read for statistical and administrative purposes. See The Telegraph Clearing House, a transcription from Chambers's Journal October 11, 1873 :
...the 'Clearing House' was first established in the beginning of 1871, experimentally for the purpose of examining at least one day's messages in every month of each Postal and Railway Telegraph Office in England and Wales...
The work, which chiefly consists in fault-finding, is well within the capacity of the female staff, and has been performed in a very satisfactory manner.
Maude Hanson (Mrs Arundel-Colliver) is identified as Superintendent of the female staff in the Postal Telegraph Service's London Clearing House in this genealogy site devoted to the Hanson-Allen family. Maude was earning an annual salary of about £400 ca 1892.
See also Trollope, immediately below.
- Anthony Trollope, "The Young Women at the London Telegraph Office," Good Words (June 1877), and his short Story "The Telegraph Girl," which appeared in Good Cheer, Christmas Number of Good Words (December 1877) and was collected in Why Frau Frohmann Raised Her Prices; and Other Stories (December 1882). Ellen Moody (who provides the transcription of the Trollope essay) notes that The Girl's Own Paper contained a number of articles on women's work, including "Female Clerkships in the Post Office" 4:186 (21 July 1883): 663.
further :
Susan Shelangoskie. "Anthony Trollope and the Social Discourse of Telegraphy after Nationalisation." Journal of Victorian Culture 14:1 (Spring 2009) : 72-92
Abstract (by, and copyrighted by, the author) :
The article examines two periodical works by Anthony Trollope, the non-fiction essay "Young Women at the London Telegraph Office" and the short story "The Telegraph Girl", to illuminate their contribution to the public discourse on the telegraph after its nationalisation in 1869. Both texts are read in the context of a wider debate in periodical press over the social merits of the telegraph system. Each text deploys rhetorical strategies used by proponents of the government telegraph, which countered criticisms of nationalisation as a financial debacle and reinforced a framework of value based on social responsibility and the social benefits of the new technology. Trollope focused on female telegraph workers to demonstrate how to stabilise the social application of telegraphy by containing it within the boundaries of dominant cultural and literary narratives. By uniting the theme of paternalistic government with the traditional marriage plot, his two works promote the potential of telegraphic technology for social good.
- Donald Murray. "How Cables United the World."
The growth of vast systems of submarine telegraphy, with the story of recent achievements in swift automatic transmission.
The World's Work 4 (July 1902): 2298-2309 (Google Book)
Rates, Codes, and Ciphers —
In the early days the Atlantic Telegraph Company started with a minimum tariff of $100 for 20 words and $5 for each additional word. Later this was reduced to $25 for ten words. It was not till 1872 that a rate of $1 a word was introduced. This word-rate system proved so popular that it was soon adopted universally and since 1888 the cable rate across the Atlantic has been continuously down to 25 cents a word. Rates now range from the 25-cent tariff across the Atlantic to about $5 a word between England and Peru. The average for the whole world is roughly $1 a word. This the Commercial Company proposes to charge from America to the Philippines, as compared with the present rate of $2.35 by the circuitous route across the Atlantic, through the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, across the Indian Ocean and on to Manila via Hong-Kong. Even from New York to faraway New Zealand the rate is now only about $1.50 per word. The cost of cabling, however, is greatly influenced by "coding," a system by which business men use secret words for commercial messages. A cipher, on the other hand, is a system of secret letters or figures used for secrecy by Governments. Practically Governments are the only users of ciphers. "Coding" has developed to an extraordinary degree of perfection. One code word will frequently stand for ten or fifteen words, and there are instances where one word has been used to represent over 100 words. Practically all commercial cablegrams are coded, and nearly all departments of commercial and industrial life nowadays have their special codes.
The increase in speed brought up another difficulty. No human operator can send so fastÉ To take full advantage of the speed of a modern Atlantic cable, therefore, it is necessary to have some automatic method of transmitting. The advantages of automatic transmission are higher speed, greater uniformity of signals, more legibility, and fewer mistakes. (p 2303)
- The Telegraph and the Turf — pp 29-32 of Charles Maybury Archer, ed., The London Anecdotes for All Readers : The Electric Telegraph. Popular Authors (London: D. Bogue, 1848)
The race-horse was once a favourite symbol of rapidity ; now, even Pegasus is outstripped; and the achievement of Flying Childers, who went over the four-mile course at Newmarket in six minutes and forty-eight seconds, or at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour, is thrown into the shade. The result of every meet is known in town, and at Tattersall's, almost before the last horse and jockey are at the goal; thus superseding the fleet posters and pigeons that conveyed the intelligence by the old regime...
- Charles Bright. Submarine Telegraphs: Their History, Construction, and Working —
Founded in part on Wünschendorff's Traitée de Télégraphie Sous-Marine and compiled from authoritative and exclusive sources
London: Crosby Lockwood and Son (1898) (Google Book; original at Stanford)
Miscellaneous and Commercial Résumé
Section 7.— Business Systems and Administration —
Codes and Cipher Messages.—
As has already been mentioned, one important change which has contributed very much to the increased use of submarine cables during recent years, is the development of a system of private codes. Secret language always took, as it does now, two forms, codes and cipher...
Various methods of building up a private code have been introduced from time to time with explanatory books of reference.* Probably the first was that of Reuter, followed some time after—in 1866—by that of the late Colonel (afterwards Sir Francis) Bolton, R.E.† The Telegraph companies at that time could but accept code on the same terms as ordinary messages. At the Rome International Telegraph Conference of 1870, however, certain regulations were laid down regarding the use of code words; and again at the St Petersburg Conference of 1875. At the latter it was decided that code words should not contain more than ten characters. Words of greater length in code messages are liable to be refused. Some telegraph companies, however, accept them at cipher rates, i.e., three or five characters to a word, according to régime. Subsequently the Bureau of this International Congress was authorised to compile a complete focabulary of the words to be recognised and admitted for code purposes. This vocabulary was duly printed and issued. Fresh editions of it are brought out now and again, and three years after date of issue it becomes obligatory upon all parties to the St Petersburg Convention to abide by it.
| * Almost from the very beginning of submarine telegraphy, temporarily improvised forms of codes were used both by Governments and by merchants. On the English land lines code messages were in vogue among the great mercantile firms as early as 1853, if not earlier. |
| † The telegraph codes of the present day are built on somewhat the same principle as the above. They are improvements mainly in the sense of being perfectly simple instead of extremely complicated—and yet they are equally, if not more, trustworthy, from a secrecy standpoint.
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The transmission of submarine code messages is liable to be partially, or entirely, suppressed at any moment by the Government of the country which granted the concession for the cable in question. Moreover, Government messages at all times take precedence (immediately on handing in) before all others. These conditions, under which all such concessions are granted, are very obvious and natural precautions, if only in view of war; indeed, whether expressed as a stipulation or not, it is certain that any Government would be acting within its rights in suppressing code messages at such a time, and would almost certainly exercise this privilege.
From the point of view of the general public, the economy effected by the use of code is often even a more important consideration than its secrecy. A single code word, charged for only at a slightly higher rate than one ordinary word, may be made to convey the sense of a good many.* The telegraph cable thus becomes available for business and other purposes by many people who could not otherwise afford it, and the number of messages which pass over it daily have enormously increased in consequence. And with this increase in the number of them, there has not been the corresponding decrease in their length which might have been anticipated. The public has simply become educated to the more liberal use of the telegraph, and has availed itself of its facilities in the measure and in the spirit in which they have been granted to it. The increase of the total volume of traffic, and of business leading to still greater traffic in the future, has more than compensated the companies for the economies effected by its code-using customers.
| * The following examples, taken from a certain mercantile code, may be of interest here:— |
| Code Words | Plain English Equivalents |
| Elgin | Every article is of good quality that we have shipped to you. |
| Standish | Unable to obtain any advances on bills of lading. |
| Penistone | Cannot make an offer; name lowest price you can sell at. |
| Coalville | Give immediate attention to my letter. |
| Grantham | What time shall we get the Queen's Speech? |
| Gloucester | Parliamentary news this evening of importance. |
| Forfar | At the moment of going to press we received the following. |
| A striking example of the unlimited application of the code principle is the word "unholy," which was used to express one hundred and sixty words. Another English word, which we cannot recall, was made to stand for no less than two hundred! This is economy with a vengeance. |
The fact is, but for the code system, the existing number of cables would, in many cases, be quite inadequate for the demands of the present traffic. This remark applies most conspicuously to the case of the North Atlantic, and will be readily understood when it is stated that, whereas prior to the universal recognition and adoption of code transmission, the average length of telegrams used to be thirty-five words, it is now only eleven. In other words, but for the code, the companies might, by now, be asked to transmit more than three times as many words as they are transmitting within the same time. More probably the proportion would not be so great in practice, for reasons already given. But even an addition of only half as many again would be embarrassing to the operators—and, indeed, to all concerned, excepting telegraph engineers and contractors, who would, in consequence, have extra cables to lay. (175-77)
| * Unless, indeed, as it is likely enough would have happened, the absence of code—or its suppression by unwise restrictions on the part of the companies—had starved and stunted the natural development of trade itself. All commercial traffic, practically, is nowadays "coded." Seeing that this custom began to grow up with the establishment of trans-Atlantic telegraphy, it is difficult now to estimate where we should be without it. |
- ex Joseph Colin Frances Johnson (1848-?) Getting Gold: A Practical Treatise for Prospectors, Miners, and Students (1898, but several editions), Chapter 11 (Rules of Thumb). Via Project Gutenberg or (where initially encountered) at Lateral Science, assembled by Roger Curry.
To provide a simple telegraphic code
Buy a couple of cheap small dictionaries of the same edition, send one to your correspondent with an intimation that he is to read up or down so many words from the one indicated when receiving a message. Thus, if I want to say "Claim is looking well," I take a shilling dictionary, send a copy to my correspondent with the intimation that the real word is seven down, and telegraph—"Civilian looking weird;" this, if looked up in Worcester's little pocket dictionary, for instance, will read "Claim looking well." Any dictionary will do, so long as both parties have a copy and understand which is the right word. By arrangement this plan can be varied from time to time if you have any idea that your code can be read by others.
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