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 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: