New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1878-10-07
THE CIPHER TELEGRAMS.
Continued on Seventh page.


word but the Interpretation would have been
no better than a guess unless the other four dis
patches had confirmed it, The only systematic
method Of decipherng was to fit together httle
groups of words trying every rational combination
of two OF three. and verifying the experiment by
comparison with the corresponding words
in the parallel columns. Almost always
a few words can be found which seek
each others companionship obviously and naturally.
These we may call guide-words." In the first
column for instance we have the word adjourned
(27l We know, by the date of the dlspatch'
! tColum ola, November 13l, that the man VINO
wrote it was anxiousy watching the proceedings Oh
the South Carolina Board of State Canvassers. anu
the inference is clear that the only adjourn neht he
vouId be likely to telegraph about was the adjourn
nont Of the Canvassng Board We find no open
mention of the Board in his telegram
! but there is the substitution-cipher LON
| don" which is used with great frequency all
through the correspondence; if that means Gan
| wasting Board il will make q good nomiuative to
adjourned" Now we also know that the Board
did not complete it's labors till week after this
date: the adjournment then was not final. but
to some particular day, and the day must
have been gwen In the dispatch. London
adjourned until tomorrow is reading which not
only seems RATIONAL but agrees with the facts "a we
learn them from an examination of the newspaper
files for November, 1876 We have, therefore, the
sequence 20. 81, 10, 2S, which makes sense III tho
first column. In the second it produces this
arrangement of words " us out if az" IN the third
and fourth t yields large proportion Of blind
words which give little or no help; Ill
the fifth it produces satisfied by Bavaria
and" All these collocatiOns look at least
encouraging Tire fragment Of n sentence OF sen
Il. l,,,r. okf al, al
column, Gus ont if a." contains two clews by which
we can extend the sequence in both directions
plaiuly the word in that column which precedes us
out" is count" THE 10th word, and the 10Th
and 9th words, Intend to" are Just as clearly
the words that lead up to count" Our fragment
now contains words, and it ends with the arti-
Gle "a" (2S). There only two words left in the
column to which the indefinite article possibly
be applied" few" (2A and the yet unknown
"Copenhagen" (4l. A COMPARISON with the
parallel words in the fifth column shows
that Copenhagen will not do and we take few"
Now the phrase "a few" must be followed by
plural noun, and unless Copenhagen" stands for
q plural noun the only one that remains Is
"things" (26l. There is nothing in the
other columns 20 help us in deciding be-
tween them, so we leave the sequence for the
present and try some other blocks. We have
already got the order % .. 10, 3d. %, 10, %, o.
fitting perfectly in all the columns, far as they
are understood and we know that the next number
is either or 26. Let us look for guide-wOrd now
in one of the other coumnA In the
4th column we find dispatch" "a, and
most natural thing to say about dispatch Is that
1t has been received 800. 1t is very likely that
the message begins with the acknowledge
ment Dispatch received" This sequence
~, 3O) gives us for the opening words Of
the other kilograms, 1st) Supposed you"
2d) "Am here; (3G) :" Best l." and
t5thl "My hope" The verb which seems most ap-
propriately to follow Best " is-"can" t2G. and
the same order gives in other columns My hope
small" "supposed you telegraphed," and so on.
besides settling our choice between and
20 as the next number in the sequence just left IN
complete In the third column, we are irresistibly
tempted to try the arrangement %, 81. 10, keep
up appearances" and that fits all the other tele-
grams we accept it as correct.
Thus we have disposed Of IS of our 80
words and tho arrangement OF the others
is comparatively easy, because. of course,
with the elimination of successive groups Of
numbers the possible permutations of the re-
mander arc very rapidly diminished. We need not
carry the explanation of the process any further at
present Enough has been said to show that the
formation of tho separate blocks of words is not by
application of the rules of grammar and attention
TO known facts; that the succession of words
ia often not that which may be, but
that which mast be and that whenever We resort
to conjecture We verify it by repeated comparisons
Little by little the fragments fall easily into their
appropriate places and rs they fit themselves to-
vether the hidden meaning shines forth, not simply
in one dispatch, but simultaneously IN the whole
group of dispatches. This, then, is the sequence
which we obtained. after repeated experiment and
close study for the set of 30-wOTd messages given
above: II, 80, 20. !, IL, 30. 2J, 0. 10, %, n.
10, %, "a, 4. 7, IS, Is, II. %. 81, 10,
8, 8. ii. 2, e, 16 %, s;-that is to say.
the seventeenth word Of the cipher is the first word
of the translated message. the thrteth word Of the
CIPHER is the second word of tho message and 80 on
But there were many tests still TO be applied to the
solution. We tried the key thus found on great
many transportation ciphers, some belonging TO tho
Florida correspondence others to the South Carolina
collection, others to the Louisiana bundle-dis-
patches written 10 and from number of persons
There we're some which it did not fit, but il applied
perfectly To others, yielding at OncO easy and
Ineligible translation without any forced consruc
ton of sentences, that no doubt remained Of It's
strict accuracy. IL the sequence had solved only
two or three dispatches out Of large number. ITS
application TO those two OF three might have been
called an accident; but when ii was found to suit
two or three dozen written by different persons at
different dates and sent from different places TO DIFF
ferent persons there could he sort of question
that it fixed rule. Furthermore, the sequence
keys were not discovered by one person alone.
Three investigators, working at distance from
each other upon different bundles of kilograms.
and without intercommunication, reached indcpcn-
IDENTITY the same conclusions, Several Of the keys
were found by all three simultaneously. And it is
worthy of remark that one of these transators
got at the result by q very different road
from the otherR He picked out of great number