St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-11-27

the department received message to-
day containing certain information and
made it public, any one who could OBJ
tain access to the cable messages re-
ceived by the secretary of state tomor-
row, and who saw the same message or
a part of the same message, could make
a pretty good guess as to its contents.
Not only is the code susceptible
of remarkable variations, but the
department., in making the mes
sages public, changes their sequence
so as to disguise as much as possible
the meaning even for today OF certain
combinations of figures. The foreign
legations at Washington use cable
codes which are combinations of tig-
ures, and the telegraph operators, there
fore, are not often bothered with
messages in foreign tongues. The lega-
ton messages go from the main offices
of the telegraph companies, but the
state department has
SPECIAL TELEGRAPH OPERATOR
whose wire runs into the department
building, and MIR. Willis messages have
come to Secretary Gresham's office
direct from San Francisco, with per-
haps one relay midway OF the continent.
The way that the state department
code is varied is very simple. Minister
Willis, when he left Washington, may
have carried with him verbal or written
instructions that in using code he was
to go forward four figures or backwards
seven, or the secretary OF state may
have sent him instructions to make this
or some other change in the arrange
ment of the figure combination, Or
the first message sent to him may have
been preceded by cipher, which. trans
lated, meant Ego forward eight figures
before translating."
The remainder Of the message would
then be translated according to this in
struction. The necessity for taking so
many precautions in handling the tele
graph business of the department is
shown by the fact that some of the first
MESSAGES FROM HAWAII
leaked out presumably through the
employees of the Department., and Secre-
tary Gresham thought it advisable aft
erward to put all the department en-
ployes under oath. Ii the projected
Pacific cable was only in existence, the
news from Hawaii would be much more
quickly obtainable, but the state de-
partment would be under enormous eX-
pense for cable tolls. The Pacific cable
has been planned and the route for it
has been surveyed from Monterey bay
to Honolulu. But it is not at
all likely that the cable will
hold of the enterprise. The government
has no control over tolls when mes
sage leaves our own shores and, though
the cable companies in many instances
make special rates for government bust
ness. the rates are very high. If the
state department wanted to send
message to Queensland, for example, it
would have to pay 81 SO for each word,
If the message went by the Eastern
route; or 1884 if the message went by
Northern Siberia. If it went by
THE EASTEN ROUTE
1t would first be telegraphed from
Washington to New York, then cabled
from New York to London; then sent
via Lisbon and Morocco through the
Mediterranean sea, under the Arabian
sea to Bombay and across Hindostan to
Calcutta, around the Bay of Bengal to
than half way around the world. Tele-
grams to Muscat, in Arabia, go by
peculiar route. They are sent either to
Gwadur, in Beloochistan, where they
are pOsted-and In that case "POst GWa-
dur" is sent as part of the address; or
they are sent by special boat from Jask,
in Persia; and the charge for this boat
is SSH. which is in addition TO the reg
ular charge for the transmission of the
message. The rate to Jask is s1.16 per
word from Washington. You can send
messages to Bupder Abbas also by way
of Jask, and the charge for boat to
Bqndey Abbas is S7.s4. The charge for
boat to take telegram to Bassidor or
Lingah from Jask is s1l.76. The rate
from Washington to London is Is cents
a word. You can send cipher
MESSAGE TO TEHEhAN
or lspahap; but to most of the telegraph
stations ID Persia messages must be
written In French land III plain lam
guage." They are translated into Per-