Sunday, May 11, 2014

Snoopy reporters paid to solve a Titanic puzzle

Toledo News-Bee
April 24, 1912
                                                    It Costs the Newspapermen
                                                    $100 To Learn They're Stung

The joke is on those wise New York newspapermen, and it cost them just $100 to find it out. One of the enterprising journals of the metropolis dispatched a tug to meet the liner Carpathia as it neared New York with survivors of the wrecked Titanic.
On its way the press boat caught this wireless code message directed at Carpathia:
"If any rurhuman alegroness pessimabe herkeluaur buauing nbonrd claiming have alforjin from me ospiinylle false overgordel to orbing with all compnrsero consistent with procedidng nestilvitas minde sinturnus ipsuillees modify entedrntess and eninbindo procedure and ditifico egogue enerveinis or enerveront.
                                                                                    Sumner
Scenting mystery, the newspaper promptly printed the dispatch and offered $100 reward for a correct translation. Manager Sumner of the Cunard Line, which owns the Carpathia, telephoned the paper to send a representative and $100 to him.
"I think I can translate the cipher,"he said,"as I wrote it myself."
Then he informed the paper that the message merely warned the Carpathia not to let any newspaper boats send reporters aboard, and ordered the Captain to rush to New York.
The joke was all the funnier when it came out that the press boat in question relayed the code message to the Carpathia, thus killing its own chances to board the rescue ship and interview survivors.

How Far South Was The Iceberg That Holed The Titanic?

The Sunday Morning Star
Wilmington, Delaware
April 28, 1912
                                                 The Titanic's Position
   It will probably surprise most persons to know how far south the Titanic was when it encountered the iceberg that gave the steamship its death blow. The location of the boat given by the wireless call for help was 41:46 north and 50:14 west. A reference to the map will show that this point is south of all the New England states. A map of Europe will show the location of the Titanic when it went down ever more strikingly. The ship sailed from Southampton, England, in latitude about 50 north, and she was at least 9 degrees, or about 600 statute miles, south of that latitude when she struck the iceberg. She was in a latitude not only far south of the English channel, but farther south than any part of Germany, France, or Austria. She was about the same latitude as Rome and Constantinople. The Riviera, where many Europeans and Americans go to find a mild winter climate is farther north than was the Titanic when she ran into the ice field.
    In fact the Titanic was in the same latitude as the Adriatic Sea and the northern part of the Mediterranean. She was not more than 100 miles north of the Azores, which is on the southernmost course across the Atlantic, even for ships bound for the Mediterranean. If a line was drawn from New York City to Madrid, Spain, that line would pass near the point where the Titanic sank in a great field of ice. All reports show that the ice field was fast moving south.
    These facts raise and interesting question: How far south would the Titanic have had to go to have escaped the ice?