Wife Finds Right Key to Hubby's Love Code

1916

His Clandestine Missives Then Read Like Open Book to Indignant Spouse.

SAN FRANCISCO, California — A code used by Chester J. Capps of this city in writing affectionate letters to other women fell into the hands of Mrs. Eunice Capps, his wife, and thereafter the little love missives became to his wife an open book. The letters written in the code language were introduced in evidence before Superior Judge Deasy when Mrs. Capps was granted a divorce on the ground of cruelty.

Capps, an employe of the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company, invented his code to carry on a correspondence with Grace Durbrow of Fresno. The directions for its use are as follows:

"Write each word backward and add a letter both before and after, so when you read it, all you have to do is leave off the first and last letters of each word and read it backward, as follows:

"A-d-n-a-t spells and, with the first and last letters stricken out. "A-l-l-i-w-y, d-e-e-s-o, s-u-o-y-a, s-n-o-o-s-a."

The code fell into the hands of Mrs. Capps when the young woman to whom it was addressed found that Capps was a married man. Accompanying the letter addressed to Mrs. Capps and containing the code was a copy of a letter addressed to Capps which read:

"I have just heard that you have a wife with whom you are living in San Francisco. You are a liar and a scoundrel and tarring and feathering is too good for you."

Investigation started by Mrs. Capps brought to light letters which her husband had received and written to several other women and these were introduced in evidence. There was introduced in evidence also a lock of chestnut hair which Mrs. Capps found in a locket her husband wore as a watch charm, and a dainty handkerchief used by another woman.

Capps explained that the handkerchief was his sister's but had no explanation for the hair. The letters also, he told his wife, were merely such as might be written from a brother to a sister.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 4.