Reynold, of the French navy, recognised by
the French government; and there is an
American code by Mr. Rogers of Baltimore,
recognised by the United States. These codes
all talk by numbers, they speak with flags
numbered from one to nine, with a cypher (0)
added. Merely to give by this system the
official numbers of fifty thousand ships would
prove a serious difficulty in connection with
any of these numeral systems. Some of them,
including Marryat's, have hitherto avoided
wholly the confusion incident to Repeating
Flags. In all these codes five flags in a hoist
are used to make high numbers, and in the
latest edition of Marryat's code, four Repeating
Flags are used for making consecutive
numbers as high as 99,999. Means have
been used also for the enlargement of a
code of signals by the use of distinguishing
pendants shown from another masthead.

The only plan that could be substituted
for the old system (which, with four of its
flags, could never express more than seventy
thousand distinct signals) was to take as
many flags as would yield in combinations of
two, three, and four, not less than seventy
thousand permutations, each capable of being
used aa a distinct signal. The sum in
arithmetic was duly worked, and it appeared
that a ship carrying eighteen signal flags
could make, with them, seventy-eight thousand
six hundred and forty-two signals, each signal
consisting of a hoist of not more than four
flags. A system of eighteen flags was, therefore,
the one adopted, and there appeared to
be no simpler way of naming the flags than
to call them by the letters of the alphabet,
omitting vowels. As the flags are not
intended to spell words, the use of vowels
is unnecessary; the letters are used simply
for familiar and handy names, by
which to distinguish each flag in the set
of eighteen from the others. Besides, were
vowels used, all manner of chance words
which have nothing to do with the signals
would arise in making them. With the most
friendly intent on both sides, we might signal
pig to a Mahometan, and get dog for an
answer. Because there have been sixteen
flags used heretofore in working Marryat's
code, and those flags are possessed by most
merchant vessels, it is not proposed to put
owners to the heavy cost of a new outfit of
signal flags; therefore, although improvements
were conceivable, Marryat's Flags, with slight
variations, have been applied to the new
method as far as they would go.

With the flags thus adopted, upon the plan
thus devised, the seventy thousand
permutations have been fitted with their meaning,
and two dictionaries are now issued to be
used by ships in talking to each other. One
is a list of ships—the Mercantile Navy List—
with the symbols corresponding to the official
number of each vessel, arranged alphabetically.
The list is so bulky that it was not
advisable to add it to the other dictionary.
It describes, at present, thirty thousand
vessels, and will be revised by frequent
supplements and yearly issues. The other
dictionary contains a signal for each word or
sentence that ships might require to utter to
each other, and it is, as usual, a dictionary in
two parts—Latin-English and English-Latin:
Signal-English and English-Signal. And just
as a Latin dictionary might be translated
into German by merely putting German
instead of English words to the fixed meanings
of the Latin, so may the new signal dictionary
be translated into every European language,
and the speech of ships peculiar to
themselves, and in itself not English, French,
Spanish, or Dutch be used in common
intercourse on the high seas by ships of England,
France, Holland, or Spain.

The new manner of speech is now being
taught to English vessels; and, if the seamen
of other nations will adopt it, a new
help will thus be afforded to the forward
march of true civilisation. On the sea, free
to all nations, there will be spoken a free
language peculiar to none and understood by
all; while, by its help, the shipping news,
which gives security to commerce and spins
many webs of friendship between land and
land, will run in the brief phrases of its universal
language rapidly and distinctly, each
fact contained in a few letters, liable to no
confusion and delay. This system of a
universal signal-language need not be confined
to the world's navy. A day is not distant
when so many widely separated peoples will
require to speak through the connecting wires
running from town to town, from land to
land, from shore to shore, that condensation of
the messages sent by electric telegraph will
become itself an object of some moment to
society.

In the new code, signals with two flags are
more urgent than signals with three; signals
with three flags import more than signals
of four. According to the number of flags
used, then, the signals fall into three natural
divisions. These are again subdivided: in
signals made with two signs, for example, the
burgee uppermost represents some attention
signal; a pendant uppermost defines a compass
signal; and a square flag uppermost a
danger signal.

In July will be published, price Five Shillings and Six-
pence, neatly bound in cloth,
THE FIFTEENTH VOLUME
OF
HOUSEHOLD WORDS
Containing the Numbers issued between the Third of
January and the Twenty-seventh of June of the present
year.