New-York tribune., 1878-12-19
THE FLORIDA CIPHERS.
ANOTHER CODE EXPLAINED.


One of the systems Of cipher employed by the
Democratic politicians in FLORIDA consisted entirely
OF numbers used so far as we are now aware, with
out any intermixtnre of words. In undertaking
the translation Of this cipher it assumed that
the numbers stood for letters of the alpha
bet and not for words or phrases, since the
construction OF a vocabulary cOpious enough to
give a separate arbitrary sign for every word that
might De required i'll the course Of an active cor
rcspondcuce extending over several weeks would
be wor, of enormous labor and the vocabulary
when complete would be too clumsy for use. Then
ii was observed that double and triple numbers oc-
cured frequently in this code whence 1t was III
fcTrcd that, as in the case of the double-lctteT-
cipher which we explained "A few days ago
two figures were used for each letter. The
figures were then pointed of by couples and written
down in their numerical order. Ii soon appeared
that they began at 20. and that there were twenty
four cphcrS all, G6 being the most frequent, and
o. - and - coming next in order.
In decipher1ug correspondence of this class,
knowledge OF the relative frequency of the charac-
ter, is of some help. is used oftcHcr than any
other letter in our language and after it come t. A.
o.u. i. etc. etc. Bat this general rule does not
always hold good in short tclcgrams, and It proved
TO bc at fault when tried upon the few number
other clcw to the Interpretation therefore had to be
sought. and it was found in the following dispach
TALLAHASSEE, NOV. 10, 1876.
J. J. DANIEI. Jacks9HriHe, Ftd.:
sl55S93I932 16G~y272o i2GG3ij5
3.lg52o3i 500 5JaD93l2JJJ393l 81
GIs9J5a27g5t i'33ls39i3l27
3,2lS3966-22O3l t2s2 1893 ls296
is3gGG-2 23;I93 -O9339J527s2i566
52IS4iJ5t2S2 isS9Si i55069G5233
- siG6i-9320-2a3s'rt}-1i o93 l2@O66 -
sg2T3Ig3IS isg3i i1g5Jj2u- SS2332OGG2T66
zoos 793-2;i Jo9j2i3 II iNs2IJ J33G671o6
s233274 4S7755e 793 $3.50 lG6EiS76 7662527
.:t377g33I93~l so 1865 ~ OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
2UG5yG1.27i +, ,5g66G2jo3g5- 81 l-,:j3G63}2OSfjJ3l
77-2J3GG<i -s2yGI623.o- 3GGl S95ai e93 iS=3Lal
L'ENGLE.
At the date of this telegram, November 10, the
Democratic managers at Tallahassee were in great
excitement over the rumOr that Governor Stearns
meant to claim authority under the statutes of
Florida to canvass tho Electoral votes J. j. Daniel
was one OF the most important members of the
Democratic State Executive Committee. T.. N.
EEuglc was one of his confidential men at the cap
ital Ii was natural 10 suppose that this dispatch
referred the chief topic Of the day, and If so the
word " canvass must be in it somewhere. The
problem was, therefore, 10 find Combination
of seven numbers, of which the second and fifth.
standing for 4. should be the same, and the sixth
and seventh IS ~ also the same The translator be-
gan a. the beginning and tried every sequence of
ciphcrs until at the end OF the twelfth line
found which fulfilled the desired cond tiOUS namely,
81. GO. 33, 81. SO. %, or This agrees well
enough with what is known Of the average fire.
auency of the different letters; 66 is the COM
morcst of these number cphcrs and 4, though not
auitc SO common letter i, stands but little be-
low 1t. If G6 represents A. and 80 represents n,
we may safely assume that the combination
GG. 33. 20, which occurs twice in this dispatch.
means and We now have the translation OF SIX
of the cipher characters standing for 4, {, ID, \,
5 and V. Writing ont the numbers in vertical
columns and placing the equivalent letter opposite
every one that has been discovered, get several
pieces of words that are easily filled out For in
stance the fragment sand d'''a's," is plainly
Thousand dollars" and this gives us six more let
ters. Twelve important characters being known,
the rest follow quickly, and we have TINS cipher
alphabct: