Imperial Valley press and the Imperial press., 1906-07-14
AcROSTICS AND ANAGRAMS.
VR4y Have Been Known Since the
 Days of the Psalmist.


 We find that the acrOstic is the most ancient form of puzZlng mankind. Acrostic is Greek for a number of verses the first letters of which form a word. sometimes a name and some times a sentence. The final letter may form word, or, as Addison tells us, the letters will even run down the cen ter of the verses as a seam. The He brew poets often made their verses run over the entire alphabet. Twelve of the psalms are written on this plan, the most notable being the One Hundred and Nineteenth. This has twenty-twodi- visions, or stanZas, corresponding to the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew al phabet Each stanza is formed of eight coupletS, and the first line of each coup let in the first StanZa in the original Hebrew begins with the letter aleph, the second commences with beth, the third with gimel, and so on through the alphabet. The English divisions of the psalms are called after the Hebrew let ter that began the couplets. It was also customary to compose verses on sacred subjects after the fashion of He brew acrOstics. This was done with a view to aid memory, and such pieces were called abcedarian hymns.
 The riddle is also of ancient origin.
 The Proverbs of the Bible, or sayings attributed to Solomon, are often in the form of riddles. Was it not the queen of Sheba who proposed riddles to Solo, mon? The Koran, the scriptural book of the Mohammedans, also contains rid dies, as do some books now in exist Gnce, written in Arabic and Persian. The ancient Egyptians also propound- cd riddles, and one of the seven wise men of Greece, who lived in the sixth century B. C., was celebrated for bis riddles in verse. Homer, the Greek poet according to a statement in Plu- tArch, died of vexation at not being able to solve a riddle. In the middle ages riddles were encouraged for amusement on winter nights in the baronial hall and also in the monastery. In later days some of the most brilliant men of letters contributed to the list of riddles
 The anagram, or transposition of the letters in words or sentences, was much in vogue in Greece in the olden times. The Cabalists, or Jewish doc tors, thought that the anagram always pointed out mans destiny, and if his name written backward or transposed in any way spelled a word with mean ing they firmly believed it a revelation. The fatterers of James 1. of England proved his right to the British mon archy as the descendant of the myth ical King Arthur from his name, Charles James Stuart, which becomes ''claims Arthur's seat" The best ana grams are those which have in the new order of letters some signifcation appropriate to that from which they are formed. When Pilate asked, "Quid est veritas?" (What is truthO ? he prob ably had no idea that his question an- swered itself, but it did. The transpo- sition made it, "Est vir qui adest" Ct is the man who is here). Anagrams were written as early as 25O B. C., and their name comes from the Greek words ana (backward) and gramma (writing}.
 The TinseI Maker of Delhi.
 Here is an artists pretty description of a tinsel maker in Delhi, India: "The silken thread from a ball under the workers feet as he sQuats on the ground runs over the hook and is at tached to the spindle. One rapid sweep of the latter along the workers thigh sets it going and both the slender. sup pie hands are free, one for the thread. one for the reel of tinsel, which in a flash shoots upward to arms length coiled like a snake about the spinning thread. The sunlight and the gold tinsel together fash up the yellow silken thread, seeming to set it on fre''