SOME WAR OFFICE CABLE MESSAGES.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 152, 9 July 1901, Page 1

SOME WAR OFFICE CABLE MESSAGES.

Dkpartmkxtal pig-headedness could hardly have been better shown than by the action for more than three years of

the London General Post Oflice, now told by a London journalist. As long ago as September, 1896, Mr Ramsay, the editor of the London American, found that his telegraphic code address, “Kamsin,” was boing used by other than his own correspondents. He was continually receiving mysterious messages, mainly couched in a cypher of which he hal not the slightest comprehension. Enquiry at the Post Office brought to light the fact that “ Kamsin ” had been the code address of none less than the British War Office, or rather the secretary to the Commander-in Chief, which comes to much the same thing, but

it had been relinquished, and subsequently assigned to Mr Ramsay. The mystery was partly solved—some of the War Office’s correspondents, though doubtless notified of the change of address, were continuing to use the obsolete code word. The explanation of the affair did not, however, end it. Strange telegrams continued to arrive in Mr Ramsay’s office. At first he sent them back to the Post Office, but they would not accept them. They had been delivered to the owner of the registered address, and therefore must bo meant for him. So the telegrams still came-—from the West Indies, New Zealand, the Cape, and America, when the Venezuela incident was threatening to cause trouble. Some were in cypher, others were not; all went into Mr Ramsay's waste-paper basket, for he did not want them, the Post Office washed its hands of them, and ho does not seem to have considered it any part of his duty'to send them to the War Office. At last, after three years of this sort of thing, Mr Ramsay succeeded in bringing the Post Office authorities to a sense of thenresponsibility in the matter, and the telegrams were taken back for delivery at the place for which they were intended. A few weeks ago, however, the business again, Lord Kitchener, who should know better, having apparently forgotten all about the word “ Ivamsin ” being no longer used to denote the War Office's address. One day Mr Ramsay was amazed at receiving the following enigmatical message Pretoria Residency, 3.5.01, 9,50 a.in. To Ivamsin, London. R. 133, l'our 7332 goolto Cainoncillo jockeying. Day dreams. —Kitchener.” Mr Ramsay sent this cryptogram at once to the War Office, and has had none since. But one can easily imagine that the nondelivery of cable messages to the 'WarOffice might some day cause serious disaster. Especially does one wonder what was the import of'those messages from New Zealand that found an ineffective resting place in the editor’s waste paper basket.