The Columbus journal., 1879-03-19
THE CIPHER DISPATCHES.

In the Summer of 1873 THE NEw-YORK TRIBUNl
found itself in possession of a mass of telegraph
dispatches which had passed between certain
leaders of the Democratic party in New-York Cit,
and their confidential agents in various contested
States, at the time of the canvass of the electOra
vote in 1876. The whole number of these dis
patches was not far from 4OO About half of then
were in plain English these, although they wer
sometimes useful in determining the meaning o
messages of another kind. related generally t.
transactions of little importance. The rest were il
cipher and a slight examination was sufficient Il
show that they covered political secrets of the frs
consequence.
We first began dealing seriously with these dis
patches during the Summer of 1873. The fact thai
the publication of the famous "Gobble" message
had soon brought forward person familiar witt
the cipher in which it sent, led to the belief
that similar result might be reached again. Specr
mems of the various ciphers were accordingly pub
Hshed from time TO time. accompanied with com
ments intended to attract to them wide attention.
Our hope however, was completely disappointed.
No one seemed to know the key. Absolutely no
help came from any quarter. All manner OF sugges-
tons were received and many were tried, but none
proved in the end to be of the slightest practlcal
value save a single one communicated by secretary
Evarts That gentleman suggested that possibly a
fborough student of pure mathematics might be
able TO divine a law on which the clphers were con-
structed. Copies of a few of the dispatches were
thereupon sent to mathematical professor IN q
distant city who had kindly offered TO attempt a
translation on the condition that bis name should
under no circumstances be made pubic ana al
work with he did not succeed IN discovering the
system upon which the ciphers were constructed,
and never sent single translation until after the
same thing had been translated in the office, his
work had, nevertheless, considerable value, as cor
rObOratlng the results attained Dy Othei DelOre
they had reached the point where their work proved
itself.
Finally. I committed large number of the dis
patches to Mr.. John X. G.. Hassard chief of The
TRIBUNE staff, and serious and determined efOrt
for their translation was tarly begun Shortly
afterward, Colonel William NJ. GrosvenOr, also of
1HE TRIBUNE staff. who had become greatly inter
ested in the specimen dispatches thrown out, asked
for a chance at the same work, and a considerable
number of the dispatches were conhded to him;
These gerfyfenen at first worked independently of
each other, and without communication. For time
both grouad blindly, If not hopelessly. Ill what
seemed ti,e impenetrable darkness of the ciphers.
About the same date each began TO get gIimmerings
of the system on which the double cipher was con-
structed. When. after weeks of labor, they first
compared notes, Mr. Hassard had found two trans
position keys and was just finishing a third, while
Colonel Grosvenor had found three others. The
system being thus discovered, the rest were found
much more rapidly. The last was discovered by
both gentlemen the same evening, the one work.
ing at Litchtield, Conn.,, the other at EnglewoOd.
n J. Each fastened to transmit the key to me, and
the two letters came upon my table the next day
within an hour of each other.
A dictionary cipher bafied research much longer
It's character was easily determined In the office,
but the dictionary on which it was constructed
could not be found. One circumstance. however,
at last demonstrated that the dictionary in ques-
tiOn must be of the editions of Webster for one
or two words occurred in some of the dispatches
sent in this cipher which were not found any of
the modern English dictionaries, excepting Web
ster's Mr. Isaac \. Ford, of The TRIBUNE Staff,
had meantime labOriously gone through forty or
ffty dictionaries of all sorts and Sizes Omtting
luckily, the very one which had at first been suS-
pected for the reason that it happened to be the
only one not the shelves of the downtown book
store where these searches were made. just the
hnut was narrowed down to this particular dctOn-
ary the mathematical professor telegTaphed that
this dictionary was the basis of the key and in
twenty hours the clphers 1t contained were un
locked.
After the main work had been done, a number of
dispatches among local politicians at the South APP
different character from any previously translated
were attacked by Mr.. Hassard. Among these were
the double number and the double letter ciphers.
had intrusted in all about 400 dispatches to Mr..
Hassard and Colonel GrosvenOr. When they had
finished their labOrs only three of that whole cOlec
tion remained untranSlated. These are in cIpherS |
of which there are no other examples, and they |
have not yet been mastered.
Valuable aid rendered by many of the |
younger gentlemen IN the office, and as the hunt
became keener, almost the entire Staff took part IN
it, The credit of translation, however, belongs alb
solutely To Mr.. Hassard and Colonel GrOsvenOr |
They received assistance from any outside quar- |
ter, excepting from the mathematical professor |
before mentioned. and received from him no trans
lation whatever and no important clew, until after
they had discovered it themselves w.R.
Tribune Obice, January Ia, 1879.