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Show pointed to a pile of books on his desk and remarked that they were the cipher systems sys-tems of various corresponding banks, and that much of the business communication between banks is being done by cipher. Banks generally get up a separate system for each bank with which they ' deal extensively; ex-tensively; The cipher books are carefully guarded in the bank's vault, ; and even the code orders are verified back and forth by other code words, systematized for the purpose, before a transaction involving much ; money is consummated, i Some houses have foreign connections, and the steamship companies use very. elaborate and extensive cipher systems". In such systems, over a cipher -word column, it may read : - "Carr you secure bundles of hides and find room for the same on the next steamer ? If so.telegraph us rates and particulars.'? , At one side of the column of cipher words will be found a column of figures running from one up into thous-. ands. The figures indicate the number of bundles or quantity, and the entire expression ex-pression quoted above, together with the number of bundles referred I to, ; may read simply, "Bones." If the message "Bones'! is sent from New York City to Melbourne, Australia; by the way of the Eastern route, it will be 13, forty cents being charged per wordjby the " Atlantic cables, and $2.60 per word by. the Eastern East-ern or Indo lines. Written out in full the original twenty-four words would cost $72. . . The Atlantic cables are more liberal in their treatment of ciphers than the land companies. The cables confine a word to ten letters generally, but accept of three cipher letters, whether they, make sense or otherwise. - That is, rxy . or zbq pass as a single word. Three figures also count as a word, but when figures and letters are mixed, as, for instance, 6qk, or g5m, each letter and figure is charged for as a distinct word. This is done to prevent too great, a liberty, being taken with cable dispatches. Nearly all civilized civil-ized nations, including China and Japan and the nations of South America, permit per-mit messages to be sent and received in cipher. Russia and her dependencies are the exceptions. Telegrams to or from Russia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Servia, : Roumanian Rou-manian Montenegro, Herzegovina, and Siberian points must be in open language, that the censors of the wires may read and investigate them at their leisure. The most expensive all-wire message sent from New York City, is one to some of the T interior South American: towns. They cost by direct cable and by the way of the Eastern $8.20 per word. r To go by Lth coast lines and cables saves considerable consider-able on this rate, but when these ' lines are out of order the message has to take a transatlantic trip. But a message can be sent to distant Bosnia or Servia for only 52 cents per word, 40 cents of which, is claimed by the cable companies. To reach Japan costs about $2.70 per word and China the same amount. - Khartoum can be reached at 95 cents. Turkey at $1 via Malta, or 54 oents via France. Messages to the various South American countries run from $1.40 to $3. Siam can be reached for $2.30 per word, and - St. Petersburg for 58 cents. In view of the figures given it will be easily understood why the commercial world takes kindly to the cipher system. New York Sun. |