Should the vessel be a yacht, it is the _Aline_ if she shows the flags P.W.N.D; the _Star of the Sea_ if her signal is T.N.B.H; but if it is the _Meteor_ we shall be aware of the fact from her hoisting the four flags L.C.T.P. The flag signal of the _Valkyrie_ is L.F.M.G.
Applications for the allotment of a code-signal, for the purpose of making ships' names known at sea, should be made, if of the United Kingdom, to the Registrar General of Shipping, Custom House, and, if belonging to a Colony, to the Registrar at the port to which the vessel belongs. If a ship to which this International Code Signal has been alloted is reported wrecked, lost, or sold to a foreigner, and her register is in consequence cancelled, the signal letters allotted to her are also cancelled, so that if the ship is afterwards recovered or re-purchased from foreigners, either in her original or some other name, new signal letters will be necessary, and the owner must make application anew for another allotment, as the signal letters the vessel originally bore may have been in the interval re-allotted.
The flags to be hoisted at one time never exceed four, and it is an interesting arithmetical fact, that, with these eighteen flags, never using more than four at a time, over seventy-eight thousand different combinations can be made. With these flags, only using two at a time, 306 different arrangements can be made, while by using three at a time we get 4,896 possibilities, and by using four at a time, we can make 73,440 changes; a total in all of 78,642 variations made from these simple elements. Marryat's code, prior to the introduction of the International, being the one most in use, twelve out of its sixteen flags were, to save expense, incorporated in the new code. Their significance was, however, entirely changed. Marryat's flags, too, were numerals, while the International code, as we have seen, has its flags named after the letters of the alphabet.
Proposals are in the air to add eight new flags to the code, the X, Y, and Z, and the five vowels, since it is held that even the great number of combinations now possible may in time not suffice. The reason for the absence of the vowels is a somewhat curious one. Directly vowels are introduced we begin to spell words, and it was found that amongst the thousands of combinations possible, would be presently included all the profane, obscene, and otherwise objectionable four-letter words of the whole world. To hoist D.B.M.N could offend no one's susceptibilities, but to { 139} run up the signal D.A.M.N in response to an enquiry is quite another matter, and it must be remembered that as this code is used by all civilised nations, a word that is merely meaningless in one country might be most offensive in another. An English Captain might hoist as a necessary signal J.A.L.P. or F.L.U.M. and see no possible objection to it, but "jalp" or "flum" might to the people of some other nationality carry a most atrocious significance.