Part 10 (2/2)
[The _m_ and the _y_, externals, are taken away.]
Why is hot bread like a caterpillar?
_Because it's the grub that makes the b.u.t.ter fly._
Why did the accession of Victoria throw a greater damp over England than the death of King William?
_Because the King was missed_ (mist) _while the Queen was reigning_ (raining).
Why should a gouty man make his will?
_To have his legatees_ (leg at ease).
Why are bankrupts more to be pitied than idiots?
_Because bankrupts are broken, while idiots are only cracked._
Why is the treadmill like a true convert?
_Because it's turning is the result of conviction._
When may a n.o.bleman's property be said to be all feathers?
_When his estates are all entails_ (hen-tails).
[EVERY MAN KNOWS WHERE HIS OWN SHOE PINCHES.]
57. Cryptography, or secret writing
from the Greek _cryptos_, a secret, and _graphein_, to write--has been largely employed in state despatches, commercial correspondence, love epistles, and riddles. The telegraphic codes employed in the transmission of news by electric wire, partakes somewhat of the cryptographic character, the writer employing certain words or figures, the key to which is in the possession of his correspondent.
The single-word despatch sent by Napier to the Government of India, was a sort of cryptographic conundrum--_Peccavi_, I have sinned (Scinde); and in the agony column of the 'Times' there commonly appear paragraphs which look puzzling enough until we discover the key-letter or figure. Various and singular have been the devices adopted--as, for instance, the writing in the perforations of a card especially prepared, so as only to allow the real words of the message to be separated from the ma.s.s of writing by means of a duplicate card with similar perforations; the old Greek mode of writing on the edges of a strip of paper wound round a stick in a certain direction, and the subst.i.tution of figures or signs for letters or words. Where one letter is always made to Stand for another, the secret of a cryptograph is soon discovered, but when, as in the following example, the same letter does not invariably correspond to the letter for which it is a subst.i.tute, the difficulty of deciphering the cryptograph is manifestly increased:
Ohs ya h sych, oayarsa rr loucys syms Osrh srore rrhmu h smsmsmah emshyr snms.
The translation of this can be made only by the possessor of the key.
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z h u s h m o n e y b y c h a r l e s h r o s s e s q
”Hush Money, by Charles H. Ross, Esq.”--twenty-six letters which, when applied to the cryptograph, will give a couplet from Parnell's ”Hermit”:
”Far in a wild, unknown to public view, From youth to age a reverend hermit grew.”
The employment of figures and signs for letters is the most usual form of the cryptograph. From the following jumble we get a portion of Hamlet's address to the Ghost:
9 a 6 2 x # 9 a 1
3 a 3 # 2 # * 7 6 9 5 2 1 2 7 2 a 1 ; # 4 2 8 * ; # ( 3 3 , * 7 8 2 9 x , 1 * 6 * 4 x 3 a 1 9
a 2 1
With the key
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