In adding a Supplement to The Robinson Telegraphic Cipher, no other
change whatever has been made.
All but the supplement being printed from the same plates as the former Revised Edition.
The supplement will supply to a great extent phrases, etc., that changes in business methods
and new Grades, Railroads, etc., have been called into use since the last revision.
The additions by themselves, rather than scattered through the code, will avoid danger of using
a code word for the additions, with one who has not as yet received a copy with the
supplement.
With the present arrangement it will at times be necessary to look in two places, for a phrase
or code word, the extra turn of a leaf.
Many users of the code having written their own phrases on the blank lines, or pasted phrases
over the printed ones they do not care for, but using the "Code" word for the phrase covered up.
Any change in the original book would cause confusion, loss and lack of confidence.
You have probably found phrases not needed by you, and failed to find some you do want; to
supply this need, write them in the blank lines. A few minutes time will do it.
To attempt to put in one Code the matter to meet all wants, the size would kill its
usefulness.
Time is too valuable these days of rush, to use a dollar's worth hunting through a big code to
save a few cents in Telegraph Tolls.
Better use two code words, combining the phrases of each, for even then you will
seldom fail to get your Telegram inside ten words.
The All Important Thing is Safety.
Very few realize the liability of error by the receiving operator in receiving cipher or code
words by sound, where the connecting words are no help.
The missing or adding of a single dot or dash, the misjudgment of a "space", may change the
entire meaning.
It is therefore vital that the code words should be selected with the utmost care, and
by one fully competent to judge of their fitness.
I studied nearly a year selecting a list of words I considered safe to use, analyzing every one
from a telegraphic standpoint, as well as from their liability of being misread from
manuscript. In many cases several words equally safe, if but one used. Cutting out the words from
Webster's Unabridged Dictionary till I had between five and six thousand I considered safe to use
as "code words."
Every word added, the danger of error increases, and the more words added the ratio of danger
increasing in proportion.
In this selection I gave the benefit of fifteen years' personal experience as an operator and
manager, over three years as operator and cipher clerk for the United States Government, and ten
of the fifteen as telegraph manager on the Chicago Board of Trade.
In the majority of codes the cipher words are virtually copied as they come out of a
dictionary. Many words so little in use that the sending operator for fear of sending one wrong
asks to have the words rewritten, thus causing delay that may cost as much as if sent
wrong.
During the past thirty-five years The Robinson Telegraphic Cipher has
been, and is still in use in nearly every city and town in the United States and Canada having a
telegraph office. Thousands using it, yet the errors in transmitting its code words are less even
than in messages in plain English. In fact virtually nil.
Its record speaks for itself.
