Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 176, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1918 — Use an Ingenious Code. [ARTICLE]

Use an Ingenious Code.

Two persons having a copy of a dictionary of the same edition make up the message which they send by the number of the page and the number of the words counted down the column of the page, for example, the word “ship” might be 30-17, thirty being the number of the page and 17 the number of the line in which the word “ship” appears in the book used as a cipher. In the opening of the war, when the English were treating the captured German officers as courteous enemies, one of these devices, it is said, was made use of for getting information out of England, with respect to English destroyers, their number and equipment. An officer pretended to be interested in the English game of golf. He endeavored to learn it and appeared to be exceedingly enthusiastic. The letters which*he was permitted to send out to his wife In Dresden were filled with details of the game, which permitted an abundance of figures on strokes and distances. Important information with respect to the English admiralty was conveyed to the German staff through the medium of the apparently harmless letters of this convert to the English game. The book used for the cipher was a certain English edition of Shakespeare, of which there was a copy in the Dresden public library.—Everybody’s.