  The fastidiousness of mere book-learning, or the overweening importance of politicians and men of business, may be employed to cast contempt, or even odium, on the labor which is spent in the solution of puzzles which produce no useful knowledge when disclosed; but that which agreeably amuses both young and old should, if not entitled to regard, be at least exempt from censure. Nor have the greatest wits of this and other countries disdained to show their skill in these trifles. Homer, it is said, died of chagrin at not being able to expound a riddle propounded by a simple fisherman,—“Leaving what’s taken, what we took not we bring.” Aristotle was amazingly perplexed, and Philetas, the celebrated grammarian and poet of Cos, puzzled himself to death in fruitless endeavors to solve the sophism called by the ancients The Liar:—“If you say of yourself, ‘I lie,’ and in so saying tell the truth, you lie. If you say, ‘I lie,’ and in so saying tell a lie, you tell the truth.” Dean Swift, who could so agreeably descend to the slightest badinage, was very fond of puzzles. Many of the best riddles in circulation may be traced to the sportive moments of men of the greatest celebrity, who gladly seek occasional relaxation from the graver pursuits of life, in comparative trifles. Mrs. Barbauld says, Finding out riddles is the same kind of exercise for the mind as running, leaping, and wrestling are for the body. They are of no use in themselves; they are not work, but play; but they prepare the body, and make it alert and active for any thing it may be called upon to perform. So does the finding out good riddles give quickness of thought, and facility for turning about a problem every way, and viewing it in every possible light. The French have excelled all other people in this species of literary amusement. Their language is favorable to it, and their writers have always indulged a fondness for it. As a riant fus n’agueres En pris t D’une o affettÉe u tile s espoir haitÉe Que vent ai d Mais fus quand pr s’amour is ris Car j’apper ses mignards que traits Etoient d’amour mal as Éo riant En L’oeil Ecus de elle a pris moi maniÈre rusÉe te me nant Et quand je veux chez elle e faire e que Me dit to y us mal appris riant En RONDEAU.En souriant fus n’agueres surpris D’une subtile entrÉe tous affettÉe, Que sous espoir ai souvent souhaitÉe, Mais fus deÇue, quand s’amour entrepris; Car j’apperÇus que ses mignards souris Etoient soustraits d’amour mal assurÉe En souriant. Ecus soleil dessus moi elle a pris, M’entretenant sous maniÈre rusÉe; Et quand je veux chez elle faire entrÉe, Me dit que suis entrÉe tous mal appris En souriant. BONAPARTEAN CYPHER.The following is a key to the cypher in which Napoleon Bonaparte carried on his private correspondence:—
The subjoined is a proclamation, in cypher, from Bonaparte to the French army; a copy of which was in the hands of one or more persons in almost every regiment in the service. PROCLAMATION.Neyiptwhklmopenclziuwicetttklmeprtgzkp Achwhrdpkdabkfntzimepunggwymgftgq Efdesronwxqfkzxbchqnfmysnqangopolfa PmmfampabJarwccqznauruvzskqdknh Hihydghbailxdfqkngtxyogwrlnlwtoy Pbcizopbgairfgkpzawrwlqipdgacrkff mwzfcrgpech. “FranÇais! votre pays Étoit trahi; votre Empereur seul peut vous remettre dans la position splendide que convient À la France. Donnez toute votre confiance À celui qui vous a toujours conduit a la gloire. Ses aigles pleniront encore en l’air et Étonneront les nations.” Frenchmen! your country was betrayed; your Emperor alone can replace you in the splendid state suitable to France. Give your entire confidence to him who has always led you to glory. His eagles will again soar on high and strike the nations with astonishment. The key (which, it will be seen, may be changed at pleasure) was in this instance “La France et ma famille,” France and my family. It is thus used:— L being the first letter of the key, refer to that letter in the first column of the cypher in capitals; then look for the letter f, which is the first letter of the proclamation, and that letter which corresponds with f being placed underneath, viz., n, is that which is to be noted down. To decipher the proclamation, of course the order of reference must be inverted, by looking for the corresponding letter to n in the division opposite that letter L which stands in the column. CASE FOR THE LAWYERS.X. Y. applies to A. B. to become a law pupil, offering to pay him the customary fee as soon as he shall have gained his first suit in law. To this A. B. formally agrees, and admits X. Y. to the privileges of a student. Before the termination of X. Y.’s pupilage, however, A. B. gets tired of waiting for his money, and determines to sue X. Y. for the amount. He reasons thus:—If I gain this case, X. Y. will be compelled to pay me by the decision of the court; if I lose it, he will have to pay me by the condition of our contract, he having won his first lawsuit. But X. Y. need not be alarmed when he learns A. B.’s intention, for he may reason similarly. He may say,—If I succeed, and the award of the court is in my favor, of course I shall not have to pay the money; if the court decides against me, I shall not have to pay it, according to the terms of our contract, as I shall not yet have gained my first suit in law. Vive la logique. SIR ISAAC NEWTON’S RIDDLE.Four persons sat down at a table to play, They played all that night and part of next day. It must be observed that when they were seated, Nobody played with them, and nobody betted; When they rose from the place, each was winner a guinea. Now tell me this riddle, and prove you’re no ninny. COWPER’S RIDDLE.I am just two and two, I am warm, I am cold, And the parent of numbers that cannot be told; I am lawful, unlawful,—a duty, a fault, I am often sold dear, good for nothing when bought, An extraordinary boon, and a matter of course, And yielded with pleasure—when taken by force. CANNING’S RIDDLE.There is a word of plural number, A foe to peace and human slumber: Now, any word you chance to take, By adding S, you plural make; But if you add an S to this, How strange the metamorphosis! Plural is plural then no more, And sweet, what bitter was before. THE PRIZE ENIGMA.The following enigma was found in the will of Miss Anna Seward (the Swan of Lichfield), with directions to pay £50 to the person who should discover the solution. When competition for the prize was exhausted, it was discovered to be a curtailed copy of a rebus published in the Gentleman’s Magazine, March, 1757, and at that time attributed to Lord Chesterfield. The noblest object in the works of art, The brightest scenes which nature can impart; The well-known signal in the time of peace, The point essential in a tenant’s lease; The farmer’s comfort as he drives the plough, A soldier’s duty, and a lover’s vow; A contract made before the nuptial tie, A blessing riches never can supply; An engine used in fundamental cases; A planet seen between the earth and sun, A prize that merit never yet has won; A loss which prudence seldom can retrieve, The death of Judas, and the fall of Eve; A part between the ankle and the knee, A papist’s toast, and a physician’s fee; A wife’s ambition, and a parson’s dues, A miser’s idol, and the badge of Jews. If now your happy genius can divine The correspondent words in every line, By the first letter plainly may be found An ancient city that is much renowned. QUINCY’S COMPARISON.Josiah Quincy, in the course of a speech in Congress, in 1806, on the embargo, used the following language:— They who introduced it abjured it. They who advocated it did not wish, and scarcely knew, its use. And now that it is said to be extended over us, no man in this nation, who values his reputation, will take his Bible oath that it is in effectual and legal operation. There is an old riddle on a coffin, which I presume we all learned when we were boys, that is as perfect a representation of the origin, progress, and present state of this thing called non-intercourse, as it is possible to be conceived:— There was a man bespoke a thing, Which when the maker home did bring, That same maker did refuse it,— The man that spoke for it did not use it,— And he who had it did not know Whether he had it, yea or no. True it is, that if this non-intercourse shall ever be, in reality, subtended over us, the similitude will fail in a material point. The poor tenant of the coffin is ignorant of his state. But the people of the United States will be literally buried alive in non-intercourse, and realize the grave closing on themselves and on their hopes, with a full and cruel consciousness of all the horrors of their condition. SINGULAR INTERMARRIAGES.There were married at Durham, Canada East, an old lady and gentleman, involving the following interesting connections:— The old gentleman is married to his daughter’s husband’s mother-in-law, and his daughter’s husband’s wife’s mother. And yet she is not his daughter’s mother; but she is his grandchildren’s grandmother, and his wife’s grandchildren are his daughter’s step-children. Consequently the old lady is united in the bonds of holy matrimony and conjugal affection to her daughter’s brother-in-law’s father-in-law, and her great-grandchildren’s grandmother’s step-father; so that her son-in-law may say to his children, Your grandmother is married to my father-in-law, and yet he is not your grandfather; but he is your grandmother’s son-in-law’s wife’s father. This gentleman married his son-in-law’s father-in-law’s wife, and he is bound to support and protect her for life. His wife is his son-in-law’s children’s grandmother, and his son-in-law’s grandchildren’s great-grandmother. A Mr. Harwood had two daughters by his first wife, the eldest of whom was married to John Coshick; this Coshick had a daughter by his first wife, whom old Harwood married, and by her he had a son; therefore, John Coshick’s second wife could say as follows:— My father is my son, and I’m my mother’s mother; My sister is my daughter, and I’m grandmother to my brother. PROPHETIC DISTICH.In the year 1531, the following couplet was found written on the wall behind the altar of the Augustinian monastery at Gotha, when the building was taken down:— MC quadratum, LX quoque duplicatum, ORAPS peribit et Huss Wiclefque redibit. MC quadratum is MCCCC, i.e. 1400. LX duplicatum is LLXX, i.e. 120 = 1520. ORAPS is an abbreviation for ora pro nobis (pray for us). The meaning is, that in the sixteenth century praying to the saints will cease, and Huss and Wickliffe will again be recognized. THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST.VICARIVS FILII DEI. 5 + 1 + 100 + 1 + 5 + 1 + 50 + 1 + 1 + 500 + 1 = 666. Among the curious things extant in relation to Luther is the covert attempt of an ingenious theological opponent to make him the apocalyptic beast or antichrist described in Revelation ch. xiii. The mysterious number of the beast, “six hundred threescore and six,” excited the curiosity of mankind at a very early period, particularly that of IrenÆus, in the second century, who indulged in a variety of shrewd conjectures on the subject. But after discovering the number in several names, he modestly says, “Yet I venture not to pronounce positively concerning the name of antichrist, for, had it been intended to be openly proclaimed to the present generation, it would have been uttered by the same person who saw the revelation.” A later expositor, Fevardent, in his Notes on IrenÆus, adds to the list the name of Martin Luther, which, he says, was originally written Martin Lauter. “Initio vocabatur Martin Lauter,” says Fevardent; “cujus nominis literas si Pythagorice et ratione subducas et more HebrÆorum et GrÆcorum alphabeti crescat numerus, primo monadum, deinde decadum, hinc centuriarum, numerus nominis BestiÆ, id est, 666, tandem perfectum comperies, hoc pacto.”
It is but just to Fevardent, however, to observe that he subsequently gave the preference to Maometis. GALILEO’S LOGOGRAPH.Galileo was the first to observe a peculiarity in the planet Saturn, but his telescope had not sufficient refractive power to separate the rings. It appeared to him like three bodies arranged Smasmrmilmepoetalevmibvnienvgttaviras. Restoring the transposed letters to their proper places, we have the following sentence:— Altissimum planetam tergeminum observavi. (I have observed the most distant planet to be threefold.) PERSIAN RIDDLES.Between a thick-set hedge of bones, A small red dog now barks, now moans. “A human tongue!” The answer rung,— A soul above it, And a soul below, With leather between, And swift it doth go. On horse, with man a-straddle. The answer is a saddle. CHINESE TEA SONG.Punch has favored the world with the following song, sung before her Britannic Majesty by a Chinese lady. It looks rather difficult at first; but if the reader studies it attentively, he will see how easy it is to read Chinese:— Ohc ometo th ete asho pwit hme, Andb uya po undo f thebe st, ’Twillpr oveam ostex cellentt ea, Itsq ua lit yal lwi lla tte st. ’Tiso nlyf oursh illi ngs apo und, Soc omet othet eama rtan dtry, Nob etterc anel sewh erebefou nd, Ort hata nyoth er needb uy. DEATH AND LIFE.cur f w d dis and p A sed iend rought eath ease ain. bles fr b br and ag THE REBUS.Ben Jonson, in his play The Alchemist, takes an opportunity of ridiculing the Rebus, among the other follies of his day which he so trenchantly satirizes. When Abel Drugger, the simple tobacconist, applies to the impostor Subtle to invent for him a sign-board that will magically attract customers to his shop, the cheat says to his confederate, in presence of their admiring dupe,— I will have his name Formed in some mystic character, whose radii, Striking the senses of the passers-by, Shall, by a virtual influence, breed affections That may result upon the party owns it. As thus: He first shall have a bell—that’s Abel; And by it standing one whose name is Dee, In a rug gown; there’s D and rug—that’s Drug; And right anenst him a dog snarling er— There’s Drugger. Abel Drugger, that’s his sign, And here’s now mystery and hieroglyphic. A motto of the Bacon family in Somersetshire has an ingenious rebus,— ProBa-conScientia; the capitals, thus placed, giving it the double reading, Proba conscientia, and Pro Bacon Scientia. WHAT IS IT?A Headless man had a letter to write; ’Twas read by one who lost his Sight; The Dumb repeated it word for word, And he was Deaf who listened and heard. THE BOOK OF RIDDLES.The Book of Riddles alluded to by Shakspeare in the Merry Wives of Windsor (Act I. sc. I) is mentioned by Laneham, 1575, and in the English Courtier, 1586; but the earliest edition of this popular collection now preserved is dated 1629. It is entitled The Booke of Merry Riddles, together with proper Questions and witty Proverbs to make pleasant pastime; no less usefull then behovefull for any young man or child, to know Here beginneth the first Riddle.Two legs sat upon three legs, and had one leg in her hand; then in came foure legs, and bare away one leg; then up start two legs, and threw three legs at foure legs, and brought again one leg. Solution.—That is, a woman with two legs sate on a stoole with three legs, and had a leg of mutton in her hand; then came a dog that hath foure legs, and bare away the leg of mutton; then up start the woman, and threw the stoole with three legs at the dog with foure legs, and brought again the leg of mutton. The Second Riddle.He went to the wood and caught it, He sate him down and sought it; Because he could not finde it, Home with him he brought it. Solution.—That is a thorne: for a man went to the wood and caught a thorne in his foote, and then he sate him downe, and sought to have it pulled out, and because he could not find it out, he must needs bring it home. The iii. Riddle.What work is that, the faster ye worke, the longer it is ere ye have done, and the slower ye worke, the sooner ye make an end? Solution.—That is turning of a spit; for if ye turne fast, it will be long ere the meat be rosted, but if ye turne slowly, the sooner it is rosted. The iv. Riddle.What is that that shineth bright all day, and at night is raked up in its own dirt? Solution.—That is the fire, that burneth bright all the day; and at night is raked up in his ashes. The v. Riddle.I have a tree of great honour, Which tree beareth both fruit and flower; Fifty [sic] nests therein he make, And every nest hath birds seaven; ThankÉd be the King of Heaven; And every bird hath a divers name: How may all this together frame? Solution.—The tree is the yeare; the twelve branches be the twelve months; the fifty-two nests be the fifty-two weekes; the seven birds be the seven days in the weeke, whereof every one hath a divers name. BISHOP WILBERFORCE’S PUZZLE.“All pronounce me a wonderful piece of mechanism, and yet few people have numbered the strange medley of which I am composed. I have a large box and two lids, two caps, two musical instruments, a number of weathercocks, three established measures, some weapons of warfare, and a great many little articles that carpenters cannot do without; then I have about me a couple of esteemed fishes, and a great many of a smaller kind; two lofty trees, and the fruit of an indigenous plant; a handsome stag, and a great number of a smaller kind of game; two halls or places of worship, two students or rather scholars, the stairs of a hotel, and half a score of Spanish gentlemen to attend on me. I have what is the terror of the slave, also two domestic animals, and a number of negatives.” Reply.—“Chest—eye-lids—kneecaps—drum of the ear—veins—hand, foot, nail—arms—nails—soles of the feet—muscles—palms—apple—heart (hart)—hairs (hares) temples—pupils—insteps—tendons (ten Dons)—lashes—calves—nose (no’s.)” CURIOSITIES OF CIPHER.In 1680, when M. de Louvois was French Minister of War, he summoned before him one day, a gentleman named Chamilly, and gave him the following instructions:— “Start this evening for Basle, in Switzerland, which you will reach in three days; on the fourth, punctually at two o’clock, station yourself on the bridge over the Rhine, with a portfolio, De Chamilly obeyed; he reaches Basle, and on the day, and at the hour appointed, stations himself, pen in hand, on the bridge. Presently a market-cart drives by, then an old woman with a basket of fruit passes; anon, a little urchin trundles his hoop by; next an old gentlemen in blue top-coat jogs past on his gray mare. Three o’clock chimes from the cathedral-tower. Just at the last stroke, a tall fellow in yellow waistcoat and breeches saunters up, goes to the middle of the bridge, lounges over, and looks at the water; then he takes a step back and strikes three hearty blows on the footway with his staff. Down goes every detail in De Chamilly’s book. At last the hour of release sounds, and he jumps into his carriage. Shortly before midnight, after two days of ceaseless traveling, De Chamilly presented himself before the Minister, feeling rather ashamed at having such trifles to record. M. de Louvois took the portfolio with eagerness, and glanced over the notes. As his eye caught the mention of the yellow-breeched man, a gleam of joy flashed across his countenance. He rushed to the king, roused him from sleep, spoke in private with him for a few moments, and then four couriers, who had been held in readiness since five on the preceding evening, were dispatched with haste. Eight days after the town of Strasbourg was entirely surrounded by French troops, and summoned to surrender; it capitulated and threw open its gates on the 30th September, 1681. Evidently the three strokes of the stick given by the fellow in yellow costume, at an appointed hour, were the signal of the success of an intrigue concerted between M. de Louvois and the magistrates of Strasbourg, and the man who executed this mission was as ignorant of the motive as was M. de Chamilly of the motive of his errand. “HistiÆus, when he was anxious to give Aristagoras orders to revolt, could find but one safe way, as the roads were guarded, of making his wishes known; which was by taking the trustiest of his slaves, shaving all the hair from off his head, and then pricking letters upon the skin, and waiting till the hair grew again. This accordingly he did; and as soon as ever the hair was grown, he dispatched the man to Miletus, giving him no other message than this: ‘When thou art come to Miletus, bid Aristagoras shave thy head, and look thereon.’ Now the marks on the head were a command to revolt.”—(Bk. V. 35.) Is this case no cipher was employed. We shall come now to the use of ciphers. When a dispatch or communication runs great risk of falling into the hands of the enemy, it is necessary that its contents should be so veiled that the possession of the document may afford him no information whatever. Julius CÆsar and Augustus used ciphers, but they were of the utmost simplicity, as they consisted merely in placing D in the place of A; E in that of B and so on; or else in writing B for A, and C for B, &c. Secret characters were used at the Council of NicÆa; and Rabanus Maurus, Abbot of Fulda and Archbishop of Mayence, in the Ninth Century, has left us an example of two ciphers, the key to which was discovered by the Benedictines. It is only a wonder that any one could have failed to unravel them at the first glance. This is a specimen of the first:— .Nc.p.tv:rs:.:sB::nf:c..:rch.gl::r::s.q:.::m: rt.r.s Jp Sjddjzbrza rzdd ci sijmr. Bziw rzdd xrndzt, and in ten minutes we read: “If William can call or write, Mary will be glad.” When the Chevalier de Rohan was in the Bastile his friends wanted to convey to him the intelligence that his accomplice was dead without having confessed. They did so by passing the following words into his dungeon written on a shirt: “Mg dulhxecclgu ghj yxuj; lm et ulge alj.” In vain did he puzzle over the cipher, to which he had not the clue. It was too short; for the shorter a cipher letter, the more difficult it is to make out. The light faded, and he tossed on his hard bed, sleeplessly revolving the mystic letters in his brain; but he could make nothing out of them. Day dawned, and with its first gleam he was poring over them; still in vain. He pleaded guilty, for he could not decipher “Le prisonnier est mort; il n’a rien dit.” A curious instance of cipher occurred at the close of the sixteenth century, when the Spaniards were endeavoring to establish relations between the scattered branches of their vast monarchy, which at that period embraced a large portion of Italy, the Low Countries, the Philippines, and enormous districts in the New World. They accordingly invented a cipher, which they varied from time to time, in order to disconcert those who A still more remarkable instance is that of a German professor, Herman, who boasted, in 1752, that he had discovered a cryptograph absolutely incapable of being deciphered without the clue being given by him; and he defied all the savants and learned societies of Europe to discover the key. However, a French refugee, named Beguelin, managed after eight days’ study to read it. The cipher—though we have the rules upon which it is formed before us—is to us perfectly unintelligible. It is grounded on some changes of numbers and symbols; the numbers vary, being at one time multiplied, at another added, and become so complicated that the letter e, which occurs nine times in the paragraph, is represented in eight different ways; n is used eight times, and has seven various signs. Indeed, the same letter is scarcely ever represented by the same figure. But this is not all; the character which appears in the place of i takes that of n shortly after; another Symbol for n stands also for t. How any man could have solved the mystery of this cipher is astonishing. All these cryptographs consist in the exchange of numbers of characters for the real letters; but there are other methods quite as intricate, which dispense with them. The mysterious cards of the Count de Vergennes are an instance. De Vergennes was Minister of Foreign Affairs The card told more tales than the words written on it. Its color indicated the nation of the stranger. Yellow showed him to be English; red, Spanish; white, Portuguese; green, Dutch; red and white, Italian; red and green, Swiss; green and white, Russian; &c. The person’s age was expressed by the shape of the card. If it were circular, he was under 25; oval, between 25 and 30; octagonal, between 30 and 45; hexagonal, between 45 and 50; square, between 50 and 60; an oblong showed that he was over 60. Two lines placed below the name of the bearer indicated his build. If he were tall and lean, the lines were waving and parallel; tall and stout, they converged; and so on. The expression of his face was shown by a flower in the border. A rose designated an open and amiable countenance, whilst a tulip marked a pensive and aristocratic appearance. A fillet round the border, according to its length, told whether he were bachelor, married, or widower. Dots gave information as to his position and fortune. A full stop after his name showed that he was a Catholic; a semicolon, that he was a Lutheran; a comma, that he was a Calvinist; a dash, that he was a Jew; no stop indicated him an Atheist. So also his morals and character were pointed out by a pattern in the card. So, at one glance the Minister could tell all about his man, whether he were a gamester or a duelist; what was his purpose in visiting France; whether in search We come now to a class of cipher which requires a certain amount of literary dexterity to conceal the clue. During the Great Rebellion, Sir John Trevanion, a distinguished cavalier, was made prisoner, and locked up in Colchester Castle. Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle had just been made examples of, as a warning to “malignants:” and Trevanion had every reason for expecting a similar bloody end. As he awaits his doom, indulging in a hearty curse in round cavalier terms at the canting, crop-eared scoundrels who hold him in durance vile, and muttering a wish that he had fallen, sword in hand, facing the foe, he is startled by the entrance of the jailor, who hands him a letter: “May’t do thee good,” growls the fellow; “it has been well looked to before it was permitted to come to thee.” Sir John takes the letter, and the jailor leaves him his lamp by which to read it:— Worthie Sir John:—Hope, that is ye best comport of ye afflictyd, cannot much, I fear me, help you now. That I wolde saye to you, is this only: if ever I may be able to requite that I do owe you, stand not upon asking of me. ’Tis not much I can do; but what I can do, bee verie sure I wille. I knowe that, if dethe comes, if ordinary men fear it, it frights not you, accounting it for a high honour, to have such a rewarde of your loyalty. Pray yet that you may be spared this soe bitter, cup. I fear not that you will grudge any sufferings; only if it bie submission you can turn them away, ’tis the part of a wise man. Tell me, an if you can, to do for you any thinge that you would have done. The general goes back on Wednesday. Restinge your servant to command. R. T. Now this letter was written according to a preconcerted cipher. Every third letter after a stop was to tell. In this way Sir John made out—“Panel at east end of chapel slides.” On the following even, the prisoner begged to be allowed to pass an hour of private devotion in the chapel. By means of An excellent plan of indicating the telling letter or words is through the heading of the letter. “Sir,” would signify that every third letter was to be taken; “Dear Sir,” that every seventh; “My dear sir,” that every ninth was to be selected. A system, very early adopted, was that of having pierced cards, through the holes of which the communication was written. The card was then removed, and the blank spaces filled up. As for example:— My dear X.—[The] lines I now send you are forwarded by the kindness of the [Bearer], who is a friend. [Is not] the message delivered yet [to] my brother? [Be] quick about it, for I have all along [trusted] that you would act with discretion and dispatch. Yours ever, Z. Put your card over the note, and through the piercings you will read: “The Bearer is not to be trusted.” Poe, in his story of “The Gold Bug,” gives some valuable hints on the interpretation of the most common cryptographs. He contends that the ingenuity of man can construct no enigma which the ingenuity of man cannot unravel. And he actually read several very difficult ciphers which were sent to him after the publication of “The Gold Bug.” But we saw, several years ago, a method which makes the message absolutely safe from detection. We will try to describe it. Take a square sheet of paper of convenient size, say a foot square. Divide it by lines drawn at right angles into five hundred and seventy-six squares, twenty-six each way; in the upper horizontal row write the alphabet in its natural order, one letter in each square; in the second horizontal row write the alphabet, beginning with B. There will then be one square left at the end of this row; into this put A. Fill the third row by beginning with C, and writing A and B after Z at the end. So on until the whole sheet is filled. When completed, the table, if correct, will present this appearance. In the upper Each party must have one of the tables. A key-word must be agreed upon, which may be any word in the English language, or from any other language if it can be represented by English letters, or, indeed, it may even be a combination of letters which spells nothing. Now, to send a message, first write the message in plain English. Over it write the key-word, letter over letter, repeating it as many times as it is necessary to cover the message. Take a simple case as an illustration. Suppose the key-word to be Grant, and the message We have five days’ provisions. It should be placed thus:— Grantgrantgrantgrantgran Wehavefivedaysprovisions Now find, in the upper horizontal row of the table, the first letter of the key-word, G, and in the left-hand vertical column, the first letter of the message, W. Run a line straight down from G, and one to the right from W, and in the angle where the two lines meet will be found the letter which must be written as the first letter of the cipher. With the second letter of the key-word, R, and the second letter of the message, E, find in the same way the second letter of the cipher. The correspondent who receives the cipher goes to work to translate it thus:—He first writes over it the key-word, letter over letter, repeating it as often as necessary. Then finding in the upper row of his table the first letter of the key-word, he passes his pencil directly down until he comes to the first letter or the cipher; the letter opposite to it in the left vertical column is the first letter of the translation. Each of the succeeding letters is found in a similar way. A third party, into whose hands such a cipher might fall, | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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