Show DISPATCH WAS GENUINE J f Original Copy Cipher Telegram of Minister Conger Dated July J7th Delivered to S ConsulGeneral Fowler l J Some Interesting Facts in Connection With American Ministers Message Brought to Light in Connection With Mr Fowlers Regarding the Matter When Wu Received He Found S it Contained Cipher Within a Cipher < Washington Aug 3The State department de-partment today issued the following The State department has received a dispatch from Mr Fowler Consul at Cbs Poo dated at night on the 2nd of August stating that when he I learned from the Shanghai papers that doubts were entertained of the genuineness genu-ineness of the Conger cipher telegram he wired on the 27th to the Governor of Shan Tung to send him the original by courier COMPLIED WITH REQUEST The Governor at once complied with the request sending a special postman who by traveling night and day for five days made the journey which in ordinary times would have required I twelve days He delivered to Mr Fowler Fow-ler the original of the Conger dispatch It Is signed by Mr Conger and dated the 17th of July It is precisely the same as the message received at the State department with several words prefixed which came in an unintelligible form to the Chinese legation here The dispatch In Its complete form says that the members of the American legation le-gation had been besieged for a month In the British legation Mr Fowler has no doubt of the genuineness the S despatch S CIPHER WITHIN A CIPHER Some interesting facts connected with the original cipher message have been brought to light by Mr Fowlers report It appeals that when Minister Wu received the cipher message on the 21st ultimo he found that it contained a cipher within a cipher The Governor of Shan Tung Yuan transmitted with the message a message from the Tsung 11Yamen which In turn transmitted Mr Congers message The latter was in the State department cipher the former In the Chinese official cipher J WU IN THE DARK When Mr Wu decocted the message mes-sage of transmittal he was unaware of that fact and thought that the several giqups of figures following were a por liop of the TsungHYamens message As a matter of fact they were the initial words of Mr Congers message and they were undecipherable by Minister Min-ister Wu because they were In the Slate department cipher Instead oJ beginning In British legation etc Mr Congers message really began We have been for a month in the British leg tlonetc Another fact developed is that the message was signed E P Conger Juy 17Ch DATE OF THE MESSAGE Many persons had supposed that while the message was genuine it was fraudulently dated by the Chinese ofll dais Now It appears that the Tsung 11Yamen or Yuan did date It the 18th It is thought that this date was accurate ac-curate and that while Mr Conger actually actu-ally wrote his dispatch on the 17th and put In cipher ready for transmission at the first opportunity the message did not leave Peking until the following day dayThe The developments have done much to rehabilitate Chinese officials In the animation some of those who have heretofore been very skeptical as to their Integrity In regard to the transmission trans-mission of these official messages 3 c |