Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1879 — THE CIPHER DISPATCHES. [ARTICLE]

THE CIPHER DISPATCHES.

Jn the Summer of 1878 Tun Nkw-Yokk Tkbuve found itself >io possession of a musd of telegraphic dispatches which had passed between certain leaders of the Democratic party in New-York City and their confidential agent* in various contested States, at the time of the canvass of the electoral ▼ote in 187(1. The whole number of these dispatches was not far from 400. About half of them were in plain English ; these, although they were sometimes useful in determining the meaning of messages of another kind, related generally to transactions of little importance. The rest were in cipher, and a slight examination was sufficient to gbow that they covered political secrots of tho first consequence. We first began dealing seriously with these dispatches during the Summer of 1878. Tho fact that the publication of the famous “ Gobble ” message had soon brought forward a person familiar with the cipher in which it was sent, led to the belief that a similar result might be reached again. Specimens of the various ciphers were accordingly published, from time to time, accompanied with comments 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 suggestions were received, aud many were tried, but none proved In tlie end to be of the slightest practical value, saves single one communicated by Secretary Evarts. That gentleman suggestdtl that possibly a thorough student of pure mathematics might be able to divine a law on whjch the ciphers were constructed. Copies of a few of the dispatches were thereupon sent to a mathematical professor m a distant city who had kindly offered to attempt a translation, on the condition that his name should under ud circumstances be made public ; and although (having comparatively little material to work with) he aid not succeed in discovering the system upon which the ciphers were constructed, and never sent a single translation until after the same thing had been translated in the office, his work had, nevertheless, considerable value, as corroborating tno results attained by. others before they had reached the point where their work proved 1 committed a large number of the dispatches to Mr. John R. G. Hassard, chief of I he Tbibc.ne stall', aud a serious and determined effort for their translation was fairly begnu. (shortly afterward. Colonel William M. Grosvenor, also of ’1 he Tbibunb staff, who liud become greatly interested in tho specimen dispatches thrown out, asked for a chance at the same work, and a considerable number of the dispatches were confided to him. These gotWismcn at first worked independently of each other, and without communication, for a time both groofed blindly, if not hopelessly, in what seemed tt® impenetrable darkness of the ciphers. About the same date each began to get glimmerings of the system on which the double cipher was constructed. When, after weeks of labor, they first compared notes, Mr. Uaesaid had found two transposition keys and was just finishing a third, whde Colonel Grosvenor had found three others, ihe Bvstem beiug thus discovered, the rest were found much more rapidly. Tho last was discovered by both gentlemen on the same evening, the one working at Litchfield, Conn., the other at Englewood. N. J. Each hastened to transmit the key to me, aud the two letters came upon my table tho next day within an hour of each other. A dictionary cipher bafflea research much longer Its character was easily determined in the office, but the dictionary on which it was constructed could uot be found. One circumstance, however, at last demonstrated that tho dictionary in question must be one of the editions of Webster, for one or two words occurred iu some of the dispatches sent in this cipher which were not found in any of the modern English dictionaries, excepting Webster’s. Mr. Isaac N. Ford, of The Tbibune Staff, had meantime laboriously gone through forty or fifty dictionaries of all sorts and sizes, omitting, unluckily, the very one which had at first been suspected. for the reason that it happened to be the only one not on the shelves of the downtown bookBtore where these searches were made. Just as the hnut was narrowed down to this particular dictionary flie mathematical professor telegraphed that this dictionary was the basis of the key. and in twenty-four hours the ciphers it contained were uulocksut After the main work had been done, a number of dispatches among local politicians at the South, apparently of minor importance, sent in ciphers of a different character from auy previously translated, were attacked by Mr. Hassard. Among these were the double uumbor and the double letter ciphers. I had intrusted in all about 400 dispatches to Mr. Hassard and Colonel Grosvenor. When they had fiuished their labors only ilireo of that whole collection remained untranslated. These are in ciphers of which there aro no other examples, and they have uot yet been mastered. Valuable aid was rendered by many of the younger gentlemen iu the office, anil as the hunt became keener, almost the entire Staff took part in it The credit of translation, however, belongs absolutely to Mr. Hassard and Colonel Grosvenor. They received ho assistance from auy outside quarter, excepting from the mathematical professor before mentioned, and received from him uo translation whatever, and no important clew, until after

they had discovered it themselves. Tribune Office, Junuary 14,1879.

W. E.