to the current conundrums of a
period which tells more of the popular interests of the time than
anything but a newspaper could. The best conundrums of each period,
or those that center around a great event, would make most
illuminating historical reading. The opinions of the day are often
more clearly expressed in a conundrum than in an essay. It would have
been of interest to know what the wits, as well as the historians,
said of Napoleon at Waterloo, of the Boston Tea Party, and of
Washington and the Continental Congress. Possibly the opinion of
posterity would not have differed so widely from that of the wits as
from that of the contemporary chroniclers.

John Taylor, whose book, "Wit and Mirth," published in 1630, was one
of the oldest and most distinctive original collections, was the
forerunner of such punning poets as Hood and Holmes. In the
dedication of his book, in order to forestall criticism for the
publishing of sayings already well-known, he says: "Because I had
many of them (the jests) by relation and heare-say, I am in doubt
that some of them may be in print in some other Authors, which I doe
assure you is more then I doe know." The authors of all compilations
of conundrums in the almost three centuries since have had to make
increasingly comprehensive acknowledgment, which the present author
here hastens to give, having drawn from the great common sources, as
well as from the unpublished current wit of the day.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 7

Chapter Page

I. EARLY ENGLISH WIT 1

II. MYTHOLOGICAL CONUNDRUMS 18

III. BIBLICAL CONUNDRUMS 20

IV. HISTORICAL CONUNDRUMS 30

V. CONUNDRUMS OF THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD 38

VI. GEOGRAPHICAL CONUNDRUMS 44

VII. LITERARY CONUNDRUMS 52

VIII. CONUNDRUMS OF THE ALPHABET 60

IX. GENERAL CONUNDRUMS 73

X. CHARADES, STORIES, AND CONTESTS 183

CHAPTER I

EARLY ENGLISH WIT

In the anecdotes, dry remarks, repartees, and posers of this chapter,
the sayings of which were current from about 1600 on to the present
day, is seen the growth of the modern form of conundrum, which is
adhered to largely in the remaining chapter