The Iowa transcript. (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1858-1866, 1866-04-25

1t. Ii | cannot succeed in readlng Vne
cipher, agree to lose my pains
lone thing MORE" said the private in
quirer; "you see the importance Of my
knowing the meaning Of this advertisement
rs early as possible; when can you let me
have the translation"
"rll do all can," replied; will you
look in at noon tomorrow | shall have it
for you by then, most likely, II can de-
cipher it at all"
AT this moment the door opened, and my
wife entered, dressed for the theatre
Waitzen bowed TO her, and then glancinR
pered "Iou will surely begin at once
You are not going out Only think of the
little time you will have!"
II really must CO." said. ~ shall
leave the theatre after the first piece, and
shall have plenty of time; besides, shall
look over it at the theatre"
He implorcd me 10 remain at home, and
to begin work at once; but was quite deaf
to his entreaties, and, taking my wifes arm
in mine, wen, down stairs. At the theatre.
| remarked. some half-hour after our arrival,
face which seemed always turned towards
us. except that, when looked in its direc-
ton, it became averted After noticing this
for two or three times discovered that the
face was the face Of Chr. Waitzen, who had
come to the theatre in disguise, to see, ap-
parently, whether carried out my promise
If looking over the cipher in my box. To
punish him for his distrust, l kept my eyes
on the performance the whole time.
On our return home, l haie my wife
good nj BIT, explaining that was going TO
sit up to work. It's all very well to preach
"early 10 bed and early 10 rise;" but If
you have any head-work to do, there's no
time like that between l | m and \. m. /,
when all your household is asleep. Every
thing is quiet; even the street noises, unless
you live in populous and late quarter, are
hushed, and, above all, you are safe from
interruption. As you sit in the genial
warmth Of q FIRE, with the light Of your
lamp concentrated on your papers or books,
you hear, perhaps. now and then, passing
cab coming home from the theatre, or, later,
the cry of some roiserer, singing the vulgar
music. hall melody that he heard an hour
ago, when = little less drunk than now;
you catch the tread of the solitary police
man, and notice that he tries your door as
he passes but all these sounds are moment
airy, and do but serve 10 intensity the quiet.
Mind and body are nicely balanced; body
has had its proper allowance of exercise,
but not yet tired, consents TO let mind be At
peace. But the morning! At what hour
can you rise when you viii not be disturbed
by noises? You are hungry; ten months
out of the twelve you are cold, for you are
without fire; and the other months it is SO
fine, that everybody wants TO be abroad in
the bright, smokeless day. No! # you want
to do work set up late.
1t was what, at all events, made up my
mind to do, so, after stirring the FIRE, l sat
down to look at the my sterious scrap Of
paper left me by Wai,zen. My first step
was to get some inkling of the nature of the
cipher, Of the plan on which 1t proceeded
Exclusive of the word at the head, found
that the specimen l had, consisted Of 252
figures, divided by brackets into IS groups,
dot, in every case, again separating the
figures within each bracket into two parts
The number Of figures enclosed in each
bracket varied from 2 up to 5; the proper
tions in which the various combinations
we're found differing widely, there being
only two instances Of groups of figures
each 2, of each; Is, Of 4 each; and So,
or more than three 6fths Of the whole num-
Der, OF each. Now, the object of these
brackets and dots might quite possibly be
merely TO increase the difficulty of reading
Nnc ClpueT IL WAS uOWcvcEy tyuU ROS.
sible that they were there to serve their
ostenslble purpose, the division and subdi-
vision of the figures. Carefully guarding
against absolutely assuming the correctness
Of this latter view, | sought in the cipher
itself for something to lead me to its adop-
ton or rejection. found that the charact-
/ ers used were the numerals from Q to 3. /
looked at this "O' little more closely,
and found that it occurred l9 times. Now,
had the division and subdivision Of the
figures been arbitrary merely, it would le-
qure no proof to show that it should have
occurred once. at the very least, ut the be-
ginning of a group. It did not SO occur.
The first step was gained; the division was
necessary part of the cipher.
The fact had remarked led me on an
| other step. Had the plan Of the cipher
been to represent certain letters BY certain
figures, should have been entitled to ex-
pect the 20" at the head Of group; since.
in English, the language ia which the cipher
was probably written, there is no letter OF
frequent occurrence which is not also an
initial letter, a rule which holds good in all
the European languages with which ! am
acquainted.
should have been already almost justi-
fed in concluding that the meaning of the
cipher depended on the grouping. but
found other proofs, which at the same time
led me still further on. | have already re-
marked the frequency of groups OF figures.
Now, this singular predominance Of groups
Of figures would scarcely harmonize with
any plan which represented letters by single
arbitrary signs, although it would no doubt
be possible to compose sentences consisting
chiefly of words Of 5 letters, retaining or
rejecting the vowels. But in the great ma.
juri,y OF cases Of s figures, found figures
before the debt. To these figures before the
dots, ], for the moment. restricted my atten-
ton, found that (taking all the groups)
they ranged, with intervals, from to 268 !;
in 81 cases ont of the Us, there we're three
| figures. Discarding repet,tions, found
that under 100 there were Is; between lOO
and 200, Is; and from 200 to the end IL
degree of uniformity higher than l had
expected TO find, and high enough to esta-
| blish that it was the result of the grouping
being dependent on plan.
had thus determined that the divisions
were not arbitrary, and that the characters
used did not singly represent letters; by
inference, therefore, as they must be held
to mean something, that in groups they
represented letters or words.
| now went over the groups of figures
after the dots, and found that they ranged
from to liz. Dividing the numbers be-
tween these points equally at 66, | found,
discarding repetitions, that up to that
number there were 81; above it, %. With
the light had now got, all converging on
one point, l should, in . long specimen,