Secretary Hay at once called for Second Assistant Secretary Adee, and the two officials themselves set to translating the cipher into English. This occupied them for nearly half an hour, and because of the peculiar arrangement of the message and the fact that Mr. Conger's own words came toward the end, not until the lapse of that time did either know the state of affairs at Peking, The first movement of Secretary Hay on deciphering the message was to make a copy and di-parch it by messenger in haste to the White House, with a request to the telegraphers there to forward it at the earliest. moment to President, McKinley for his information, It was estimated that the President's train was noming Canton at the time, so that he would be likely to receive the mes: aze promptly on his arrival.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.