Cable Rates

The following message might have been cabled, last week, from the U. S to England.

OCDIVCUKIT MUTLUOLAMI PANCAKE

Decoded, it would have read: "Have received no letter from you since June 3rd. Are you all right? Please reply by telegraph. Pancake." The recipient of the cable would have recognized the mysterious Pancake as Carl O. Pancake, assistant secretary of the Guaranty Trust Co., technical delegate to the approaching International Telegraph Conference at Brussels.

In the Manhattan offices of the Guaranty Trust Co., last week, Delegate Pancake conferred with fellow delegates, viewed with alarm a proposed change in cable rates. Up for discussion at Brussels will be the "Cortina report," recommending that code words be limited to five letters instead of ten, the cost of sending a 5-letter word to be 68% of the present 10-letter rate. Thus Mr. Pancake's hypothetical cable would read

OCDIV CUKIT MUTLU OLAMI

Instead of costing 40-c- (20-c- a 10-letter word), it would cost 52-c- (13-c- a 5-letter word), besides the cost of address and signature.

Mr. Pancake's opposition to the proposed change was vigorous. He noted that senders of social cables (13% of cable business) will profit by the new rates, requiring only a 13-c- MUPJY to convey the thought that "all are well and enjoy ourselves," while large users (87% of business) will bear the burden of the increase.

Mr. Pancake's supposititious cable was written in the code of the Commercial Cable Co. (I. T. & T. subsidiary). This code consists of 5-letter words, which can be joined in pairs to enjoy the 10-letter rate. But it could be deciphered by anyone with a code catalog. If Mr. Pancake had wished to be cunning and sly, he might have agreed in advance to use the catalog in this way: Instead of sending the word OCDIV ("Have received no letter from you since . . ."), he might have chosen the fifth word following, OCEHE, and so on throughout the message, the recipient being forewarned of the plan.

But if Mr. Pancake had wished to be extraordinarily cunning, excessively sly, he might have written to the American Code Co., 206 Broadway, Manhattan, commissioning Master Codist Frederick Ainsworth Hall to prepare a private code for Pancake messages. Codist Hall, secretary to Lord Roberts during the Boer War, onetime (1919-21) expert for Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Co., Ltd., would have devised a code similar in size to the Commercial Cable Code, charge about $1,000 for 1,000 copies.