Part 11 (1/2)

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it is easy to write and not very hard to read the entire speech. The whole theory of the cryptogram is that each correspondent possesses the key to the secret. To confound an outside inquirer the key is often varied. A good plan is to take a line from any ordinary book and subst.i.tute the first twenty-six of its letters for those of the alphabet. In your next cryptogram you take the letters from another page or another book. It is not necessary to give an example. Enough will be seen from what we have written to instruct an intelligent inquirer.

58. Decapitations and Curtailments

are riddles somewhat of the nature of the Logogriph, which _see_.

In the first, the omission of the successive initials produces new words, as--Prelate, Relate, Elate, Late, Ate. In the curtailment the last letter of the word is taken away with a similar result, as--Patent, Paten, Pate, Pat, Pa. Of like kind are the riddles known as variations, mutilations, reverses, and counterchanges. A good example of the last-named is this:

Charge, Chester, Charge: on, Stanley, on!

Were the last words of Marmion.

Had I but been in Stanley's place, When Marmion urged him to the chase, A tear might come on every face.

The answer is onion--On, I, on.

[MOCK NOT A COBBLER FOR HIS BLACK THUMB.]

59. Enigmas

are compositions of a different character, based upon _ideas_, rather than upon words, and frequently constructed so as to mislead, and to surprise when the solution is made known. Enigmas may be founded upon simple catches, like Conundrums, in which form they are usually called RIDDLES, such as:

”Though you set me on foot, I shall be on my head.”

The answer is, _A nail in a shoe_. The celebrated Enigma on the letter H, by Miss Catherine Fanshawe, but usually attributed to Lord Byron, commencing:

”'Twas whispered in heaven, 'twas muttered in h.e.l.l, And echo caught faintly the sound as it fell;”

and given elsewhere in this volume (See _par_. 215, page 77), is an admirable specimen of what may be rendered in the form of an Enigma.

60. Hidden Words.

A riddle in which names of towns, persons, rivers, &c., are hidden or arranged, without transposition, in the midst of sentences which convey no suggestion of their presence. In the following sentence, for instance, there are hidden six Christian names:--Here is hid a name the people of Pisa acknowledge: work at each word, for there are worse things than to give the last s.h.i.+lling for bottled wine.--The names are Ida, Isaac, Kate, Seth, Ethel, Edwin. Great varieties of riddles, known as Buried Cities, Hidden Towns, &c., are formed on this principle, the words being sometimes placed so as to read backwards, or from right to left. The example given will, however, sufficiently explain the mode of operation.

61. Lipogram

from _leipein_, to leave out, and _gramma_, a letter--is a riddle in which a name or sentence is written without its vowels, as:

Thprffthpddngsthtng, The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Whnhnorslst ts--rlftd, Dths bt--sr rtrt fm nfmy.

”When honour's lost 'tis a relief to die, Death's but a sure retreat from infamy.”

This riddle sometimes appears as a proverb.