Description

Public Permitted to Telegraph Coded Phrases! French, published 1885, entitled Dictionnaire Abréviatif Chiffré. Bound in maroon fabric, 4-3/4″ x 7-3/4″ (12 x 20 cm), the book has 100 pages, each with 100 numbered words and phrases arranged alphabetically throughout, plus three pages of instructions, enabling “Correspondence Secrète.” Condition is good, the last few pages coming loose.

This “7th edition” explains that all editions are the same, also that a French law of 13 June 1866 permitted the public to correspond by telegraph using number codes. In use you and your recipient need copies of the book, and you must both identically hand-number the pages in any order from 00 to 99. Identifying each word or phrase by the numbered page followed by its numbered entry, thus by a four-digit number, we can generate a message as follows, using our particular book: 1131 = Avez-vous acheter; 5822 = Instrument; 1420 = Anglais; and thus “Have you bought the English instrument ?”