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1036
Enquire within upon everything
·
Robert Kemp Philp
45
[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
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.
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