from the mass 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
substitution 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 substitute, 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

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
9 4 5 1 2 7 6 8 3 + - x | a * ( ) \ # , ; : . o $ /

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
substitute 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, Pa