THE BOGUS TELEGRAMS.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1619, 29 April 1879, Page 2

THE BOGUS TELEGRAMS.

[By Telegraph.]

Re the assertion of the Wellington agent of the Press Association that the Association’s Sydney agent did not forward the “ bogus ” telegram, but that it was done by somebody who had discovered the Association’s cypher, the Auckland “ Star ” says “The theory is

very ingenious. It is somewhat singular, however, that although the “bogus” message was circulated through the colony on Tuesday night last, the so ■called discovery has only just come to light, and on the eve of the outgi ing mail. A telegram from their Australian agent, repudiating the authorship, would reasonably have been looked for the day after the item appeared in New Zealand, Such an expedient. as that suggested, however, appears to us too absurd tor credence, inasmuch as it would not serve (he only useful purpose which our ruse would be designed to effect, namely, the exposure of the practice of piracy, without acknowledgment or payment, of our special London cable messages after their publication in Australia,” Further on the “Star” says—“ It was not necessary that the telegram to be pirated should appear in all editions of any of our Australian contemporaries. It would be quite sufficient to publish it in just a sufficient number of copies or extras to' reach the individual who was constantly on the watch to pick up these messages and wire them to New Zealand. A similar plan was carried out by the London “ Times,” which journal finding that all its important nows was clipped out of a very early copy, aud used in rival journals traced the source to certain papers furnished very early to the House of Commons. One morning six copies were printed specially with a very startling telegram, which did not appear in the remailer of the “ Times’” edition, but was very faithfully reproduced in all the papers which had been trading upon this disreputable system,”