Two words in our region of puzzledom pose,
And claim, through the passage of years
That neither the pages of Johnson disclose,
While either in Murray appears.
Solution
Here is a magic square of 81 cells.
| 53 |
8 |
71 |
28 |
73 |
10 |
51 |
6 |
69 |
| 62 |
44 |
26 |
19 |
37 |
55 |
60 |
42 |
24 |
| 17 |
80 |
35 |
61 |
1 |
46 |
15 |
78 |
33 |
| 66 |
21 |
30 |
14 |
59 |
50 |
34 |
79 |
16 |
| 3 |
39 |
75 |
77 |
41 |
5 |
25 |
43 |
61 |
| 48 |
57 |
12 |
32 |
23 |
68 |
70 |
7 |
52 |
| 31 |
76 |
13 |
72 |
27 |
36 |
11 |
56 |
47 |
| 22 |
40 |
58 |
9 |
45 |
81 |
74 |
38 |
2 |
| 67 |
4 |
49 |
54 |
63 |
18 |
29 |
20 |
65 |
If divided, as is shown, into 9 small squares,
each of these is also a magic square, and yet
another magic square is formed by the totals of
these 9 squares arranged thus:—
| 396 |
333 |
378 |
| 351 |
369 |
387 |
| 360 |
405 |
342 |
Images
This magic square, which has in its cells the
first sixteen numbers, is so constructed that
these add up to 34 in very many ways.
| 4 |
15 |
14 |
1 |
| 9 |
6 |
7 |
12 |
| 5 |
10 |
11 |
8 |
| 16 |
3 |
2 |
13 |
Image
How many of these, in addition to the usual
rows, columns, and diagonals, can you discover?
They must, of course, be in some sort symmetrical.
Solution
Can you fill in the missing letters which are
needed to turn the oft-repeated “u” below into
rhyming verse:—
.u.. .u.u. .u..u.., ..u...u. .u.. u..u..,
.u... .u.., .u. .u..u.. .u..u... ..u...u. ..u..;
...u.. .u...., .u.. .u..u.. ..u... .u... .u... u..u..,
U. .u...., .u.. ..u..-.u.u., .u..u.’. .u...u. .u..
Solution
| |
106 |
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13 |
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109 |
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113 |
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16 |
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14 |
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12 |
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110 |
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107 |
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15 |
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42 |
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9 |
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11 |
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100 |
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78 |
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74 |
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81 |
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112 |
|
10 |
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56 |
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71 |
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| |
67 |
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53 |
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87 |
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111 |
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83 |
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43 |
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34 |
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| |
27 |
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49 |
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50 |
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35 |
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59 |
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63 |
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84 |
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6 |
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96 |
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26 |
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46 |
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72 |
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68 |
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39 |
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37 |
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115 |
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7 |
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30 |
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95 |
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97 |
|
76 |
|
75 |
|
33 |
|
85 |
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3 |
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116 |
|
114 |
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| 91 |
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31 |
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28 |
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94 |
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40 |
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61 |
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82 |
|
120 |
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2 |
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5 |
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117 |
| |
92 |
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90 |
|
25 |
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64 |
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89 |
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47 |
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41 |
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119 |
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121 |
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8 |
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29 |
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93 |
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58 |
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62 |
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54 |
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69 |
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86 |
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4 |
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118 |
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32 |
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66 |
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60 |
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57 |
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73 |
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52 |
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80 |
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1 |
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44 |
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79 |
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65 |
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19 |
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45 |
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48 |
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36 |
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| |
51 |
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38 |
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104 |
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18 |
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55 |
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70 |
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| |
88 |
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22 |
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103 |
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105 |
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77 |
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| |
99 |
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23 |
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20 |
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102 |
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100 |
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98 |
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17 |
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21 |
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101 |
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24 |
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Image
In this ingenious diamond all rows and both
diagonals add up to 671; in the four corner
diamonds all add up to 244; and in the central
diamond, and the 16 rows of threes surrounding
it, to 183.
I see my first, I see my next,
And both I sigh and see
Joined to my third, which much perplexed
And sorely puzzled me.
’Twas fifty, and ’twas something more,
Reversed ’twas scarce an ell,
With first and next it forms a whole
Clear as a crystal bell.
What is my whole? A splendid tear
Upheld in cruel thrall;
Blow soft, ye gales, bright sun appear!
And bid me gently fall.
Solution
Here is a magic square, in which the rows,
columns, and diagonals yield the same product,
4096, by multiplication:—
Image
It will be seen that the numbers in this square,
1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, are in regular
progression, and 4096 is also the cube of the
central 16.
Here is quite a good example of a bordered
magic square of sixty-four cells:—
| 1 |
56 |
55 |
11 |
53 |
13 |
14 |
57 |
| 63 |
15 |
47 |
22 |
42 |
24 |
45 |
2 |
| 62 |
49 |
25 |
40 |
34 |
31 |
16 |
3 |
| 4 |
48 |
28 |
37 |
35 |
30 |
17 |
61 |
| 5 |
44 |
39 |
26 |
32 |
33 |
21 |
60 |
| 59 |
19 |
38 |
27 |
29 |
36 |
46 |
6 |
| 58 |
20 |
18 |
43 |
23 |
41 |
50 |
7 |
| 8 |
9 |
10 |
54 |
12 |
52 |
51 |
64 |
Image
It is a perfect specimen itself, and as each
border is removed a fresh perfect magic square
is revealed.
Take for my first a quadruped,
Transpose one for my second;
My whole, a biped, quick or dead,
Is dainty reckoned.
Solution
I am not in youth, nor in manhood, nor age,
But in infancy ever am known;
I’m a stranger alike to the fool and the sage,
And though I’m distinguish’d in history’s page
I always am greatest alone.
I am not in earth, nor the sun, nor the moon;
You may search all the sky—I’m not there;
In the morning and evening—though not in the noon—
You may plainly perceive me—for, like a balloon,
I am midway suspended in air.
Though disease may possess me, and sickness and pain,
I am never in sorrow nor gloom;
Though in wit and in wisdom I equally reign,
I’m the heart of all sin, and have long lived in vain,
Yet I ne’er shall be found in the tomb!
Solution
A magic square can be formed with the 81
numbers from 172 to 252 inclusive, which in all
its rows, columns, and diagonals will total 1908.
It may interest our solvers to complete the
square.
| 216 |
175 |
224 |
|
|
|
240 |
199 |
248 |
| 247 |
215 |
174 |
|
|
|
190 |
239 |
207 |
| 206 |
246 |
214 |
|
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230 |
198 |
238 |
| |
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213 |
172 |
221 |
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244 |
212 |
180 |
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203 |
252 |
211 |
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| 186 |
226 |
194 |
|
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210 |
178 |
218 |
| 217 |
185 |
234 |
|
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250 |
209 |
177 |
| 176 |
225 |
184 |
|
|
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200 |
249 |
208 |
Image
We have filled in, as a solid start, 45 of the
81 cells.
Solution
This magic square adds up in rows, columns,
and diagonals to 1908:—
| 469 |
484 |
472 |
483 |
| 481 |
474 |
478 |
475 |
| 482 |
471 |
485 |
470 |
| 476 |
479 |
473 |
480 |
Image
Can you decide in how many other symmetrical
ways the same total is to be made?
Solution
In this magic square the rows, columns, and
diagonals add up always to 33.
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Image
Can you rearrange it so that the first stone
(three-ace) shall occupy the centre, now filled by
the double six, and it shall still add up in all
ways to 33?
Solution
I am bright as a whole
Till you cut off my head;
Then as black as a coal,
Or a mortal instead.
Shaken up and recast
We with science are found,
Read us back from the last
And we live underground.
Solution
The arrangement of numbers in the 36 cells of
this square discloses a very close affinity between
chess and arithmetic.
| 30 |
21 |
6 |
15 |
28 |
19 |
| 7 |
16 |
29 |
20 |
5 |
14 |
| 22 |
31 |
8 |
35 |
18 |
27 |
| 9 |
36 |
17 |
26 |
13 |
4 |
| 32 |
23 |
2 |
11 |
34 |
25 |
| 1 |
10 |
33 |
24 |
3 |
12 |
Image
Can you follow this out?
Solution
In arts and sciences behold my first the watchword still,
All prejudice must bend the knee before its iron will;
Yet “Onward!” is the Briton’s cry—a cry that doth express
A holy work but half begun, and speaks of hopefulness.
In palace or in lonely cot its name alike is heard,
And in the Senate’s lordly halls sit my second and my third.
Strange paradox, though for my first my total is designed,
Sad marks of vice and ignorance we in that whole may find.
Solution
Those who combine a fancy for “Patience”
with some skill in numbers will find amusement
in filling the empty cells of this diagram with
appropriate numbers, each of which must consist
of two figures:—
| 17 |
|
|
|
24 |
| |
32 |
|
46 |
|
| |
|
14 |
|
|
| |
19 |
|
16 |
|
| 22 |
|
|
|
20 |
Image
It is required that each of the rows across from
side to side shall add up, when all the cells are
filled, to 143 exactly. No number must be used
more than once.
Solution
Can you divide a square into 15 parts, which
can be built up into this windmill?
Solution
Untouched I tell of budding growth and life;
Beheaded I lead upward more or less;
Again—with varied fragrance I am rife;
Again—but little value I express.
Solution
In this nest of 49 squares it is possible to
count a great number of distinct and interlacing
figures, whose opposite sides are equal, and whose
angles are all right angles.
Image
Can you decide exactly the number of these
rectangles, and say how many of them are
square?
Solution
Search Holy Writ and you will see
A victory was won by me.
Behead me, and I may be found
In water or on hilly ground.
Behead again, and then transpose,
A snare my letters now disclose.
If yet again my head you sever,
No matter how sharp-set or clever
’Tis all in vain you look about,
For no one yet has found me out.
Solution
Can you, using all the dominoes except double
five, five-six, and double six, construct with the
twenty-five stones a magic square that adds up
in all rows, columns, and diagonals to 27, and in
which the stones in the cells marked by the same
figures in this diagram also add up to that
number?
| 2 |
|
1 |
|
2 |
| |
4 |
3 |
4 |
|
| 1 |
3 |
|
3 |
1 |
| |
4 |
3 |
4 |
|
| 2 |
|
1 |
|
2 |
Image
Solution
The problem is to construct, with all the
twenty-eight stones, a domino pyramid of seven
stages, starting with a single stone, and adding
one stone on each successive stage.
The stones must be so arranged that the
number of pips in any row or column are in all
cases exactly three times the number of half-dominoes
of which that line or column is composed.
There are many solutions to exercise
the solver’s patience.
Solution
Said a lawyer aside to his friend in the court,
“Now I’d bet, were we not in this place,
That my first is my second a bottle of port,”
Then bright with my whole shone his face.
Solution
Six horse buses and four motor buses travel
each hour from Temple Bar to the Bank. The
horses take 15 minutes, and the motors 10
minutes on the journey.
If I come to Temple Bar, and wish to reach
the Bank as soon as possible, shall I take the
first horse bus that turns up, or wait for a motor?
It must be assumed that I can only see a bus as
it actually passes me.
Solution
The father of this venturesome lad, who was
on the point of breaking out of bounds, came
on the scene just in time to warn him in a sentence
of nine words, five of which were “Never
throw a leg, lad.”
Can you supply the other four words, which
are spelt with exactly the same letters?
Solution
In this picture we see that a cat has sprung
upon the table to interview the parrot.
The title “Catastrophe” recast by anagram,
tells the parrot’s happy thought at this critical
moment, and the appropriate sentence,
“New parrot-stand in a house,”
tells, also by anagram, how he put this into
instant operation.
Solution
My first, if foolishly or rashly taken,
May mar the future prospects of your life.
My second, by her fickle lord forsaken
(Sad type of many a gentle, patient wife),
May toil and moil to feed his many babies,
While he goes flirting off with other ladies.
The thrifty monarch of a former age
My whole a place in Britain’s history fills.
Immortalised in Shakespeare’s magic pages
As one who’d fain reform his tailor’s bills!
Solution
This is the picture of the first prize boy at a
baby show. The judge, noticing the position of
one chubby fist, said to the proud mother, “Your
lad Tommy likes such tit-bits.”
To his amazement the baby, removing the
comforting hand, replied in eight words composed
of exactly the same letters, “So to-day,
sir, . .... .. ......
.....” Can you
complete the sentence?
Solution
The lady who is sitting at the back of this
overloaded waggonette cries out, in her sympathy
with the struggling horse, “This big load quite
hinders his pull.”
Her husband, full of holiday spirits and energy,
answers her in a sentence of mingled reproof and
determination, which forms a perfect anagram
of the words of his wife, and describes his feelings
and action. Can you recast the letters?
Solution
At the moment when a burly and keen player
was in this strange and striking attitude,
a bystander whispered to the marker, “Eh! what
a stout player is striking!”
Can you, using exactly the same letters, put
into the mouth of the marker a reply appropriate
to the position?
Solution
My second, worn with pompous pride,
My first had dangling at his side,
On chain securely hooked.
My first he came from o’er the sea,
A bundle of conceit looked he,
And he was all he looked.
She led him to the village green,
Where in desponding mood was seen
My whole, with drooping head.
“Behold,” she said, “a perfect, true,
And striking likeness, sir, of you!”
And, laughing, gaily fled.
Solution
There are two English words which are appropriate
to this picture—
One of them has as its anagram the very apposite
sentence, “Or not a man first;” the other treated
in similar fashion becomes, “O I love nuts!”
What are the two words?
Solution
Who can turn WHEAT into BREAD with six
links, changing one letter each time, and preserving
the general order of the letters throughout?
Solution
How can we decide by anagram whether this
is a fancy portrait of “William or dear Jack?”
Shake up and recast the words in inverted
commas.
Solution
Can our readers solve this enigma, which was
published in 1811, and to which no answer seems
to be known?
I’m one among a numerous host,
And very useful in my post;
There’s not a house in all the land
Without me properly can stand.
Though men disputed long ago
Whether I did exist or no,
Once more some thousands have been slain
Because they could not me attain.
Solution
Take this picture in connection with the lines
below it, and find out what it represents.
Begin with the end of my first,
then you will find out the rest;
For it all will appeal to your thirst,
Or point to a ponderous guest.
Solution
His wife, who chanced to see Jiggers at the
trying moment here depicted, said that he seemed
to be in a “sad pet.”
How was this literally true?
Solution
Never was a cow so troublesome at milking-time.
Our picture was taken at the moment when
Farmer Hayseed was exclaiming, as he held on
behind, “See, we hold this cow’s horns and tail!”
The same letters, recast by anagram, form this
sentence spoken by his foreman—
“She cannot toss, ... ....
.... .. ..”
Can you fill in the five missing words?
Solution
These grave lips chatter no ill.
or
Elephants, all to richest giver!
Can you recast the letters of these sentences so
that either of them forms the same homely proverb,
to which the first anagram is most akin?
Solution
This very resolute horse and his anxious driver
take quite different views of the situation shown
in this picture.
We can fancy that the fast trotter, if he could
be endowed with speech, would say, “I’m a
train’d stepper!”
Can you take these same letters, and recast
them into a sentence which would seem to express
the driver’s point of view?
Solution
My first of rudeness has a sound;
The rest is in a city found;
My whole to win its way is bound.
Solution
In this picture a clever artist who has no arms
is seen calmly painting with his feet.
One onlooker says to another, “Why, now I
see this fine artist has no hand!” The other
replies in a sentence which contains exactly the
same letters:
“He draws in any fashion .... ...
... ... .”
Can you fill in the four missing words?
Solution
“This is a wine bottle, dear, on a lure,” said a
crafty fisher of men to his better half, who was
helping him, as he showed her this illustration of
their aims.
She knew, however, that the fish he sought to
catch was not to be tempted in this way, and
she replied in words spelt with exactly the same
letters, “And see, he will not .... ..
... ....!”
Can you fill in the four missing words?
Solution
This sturdy musical enthusiast, as he settled
himself upon his chair, said, “What shall I play?”
and some one replied, “Any strains of Beethoven,
he charms all!”
This suggestion, however, was not acceptable,
and he, as he struck up a piece after his own
heart, exclaimed, in a sentence composed of
exactly the same letters—
“Nay, for this ’cello ...... .... .
......!”
Can you supply the missing words?
Solution
This picture represents a parsnip lying across
a sturdy swede.
Can you so readjust them that they seem to
suggest a successful dramatist of the day? We
give this broad hint by anagram—
“Here is our parsnip on swede.”
ANAGRAM
Wise and superior person he!
Solution
Can you fill the places of these 21 asterisks
with only three different letters, arranging them
so that they spell a common English word in
twelve different directions?
| ● |
● |
● |
● |
● |
| ● |
● |
|
● |
● |
| ● |
|
● |
|
● |
| ● |
● |
|
● |
● |
| ● |
● |
● |
● |
● |
Image
Solution
My first is in cake, but not in bun;
My second in light, but not in sun;
My third is in night, but not in day;
My fourth is in game, but not in play;
My fifth is in head, but not in tail,
My sixth is in wind, but not in sail;
My seventh in wrong, but not in right,
My eighth is in battle, but not in fight;
My ninth is in sword, but not in knife,
My tenth is in lady, but not in wife;
My whole is a monarch at war with strife.
Solution
First form a short sentence with the ten
letters that are above the line in this
diagram:—
| |
S |
B |
| |
R |
E |
| |
Y |
D |
| |
O |
T |
| |
U |
O |
| O |
E |
E |
Image
Next number the letters of the sentence consecutively
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0, and then
work out a sum in addition with these numbers
substituted for the letters with which they correspond.
Solution
Find within these borders twelve specimens of
flowers and foliage:—
| 1L |
2L |
3B |
4H |
5P |
6E |
7F |
| 8L |
9Y |
10E |
11L |
12O |
13R |
14N |
| 15I |
16V |
17B |
18R |
19I |
20V |
21K |
| 22A |
23L |
24E |
25T |
26O |
27N |
28I |
| 29C |
30N |
31A |
32S |
33U |
34L |
35P |
Image
Move in any direction one square at a time,
and so spell out their names, using the same
square only once in each case.
Solution
My first except when it is old
Is never seen or heard;
When it is heard the sound is tolled
Out of a Jewish beard.
My next was in Imperial Rome,
It was her power and might;
Then you had but to write you wish,
And straightway ’twas in sight.
My whole was Frank
Of royal rank.
Solution
To test the powers of his young pupils, Dr
Puzzlewitz set the following little problem on his
blackboard:—
Image
What are the values of A and of B, when 4 is
the result of dividing A by B, or of subtracting
B from A?
Solution
How great in olden days my power!
Oft have I saved a castle tower
From war’s invading tide.
Transpose me, and how great my fall!
I am then the smallest of the small,
That nothing can divide.
Solution
This compact Enigma take,
All apart its letters shake.
Let your 6, 3, 5 be high,
Like 5, 1, 2 do or die.
Who 4, 6, 5, 1 enjoys
More than 5, 6, 2 by boys?
While 5, 3, 2, 1 are mine,
May 4, 6, 3, 2 be thine.
4, 1, 5 is rich and rare,
6, 5, 1, 2 ends my prayer.
The figures indicate the position of the letters,
which spell new words, in the original six-letter
word.
Solution
Can you fill in the empty cells with letters,
so that they form English words which read
alike from top to bottom and from left to
right?
Image
Solution
“Charles the First walked and talked,
Half an hour after his head was cut off.”
Old Couplet.
Cut off my head, I’m every inch a King,
A warrior formed to deal a heavy blow.
Halve what remains, my second is a thing
Which nothing but my third can e’er make go.
My third will vary as you take your line.
This less than human, that way all divine!
Solution
Taking the letters as arranged on this diagram
for a starting point, can you place in some of
the unoccupied cells five more of A, five of E,
five of I, and five of O, making eight in all of
each letter, so that in no case shall the same
vowel be in the same row, column, or diagonal?
Image
Each vowel is to be regarded without any
reference to the other vowels, and, of course,
only one may be placed in a cell.
Solution
Mix together the letters which form the eight
words on this draught board—
| |
V |
|
O |
|
T |
|
E |
| W |
|
O |
|
V |
|
E |
|
| |
P |
|
R |
|
O |
|
W |
| C |
|
A |
|
L |
|
L |
|
| |
S |
|
T |
|
E |
|
W |
| N |
|
E |
|
W |
|
S |
|
| |
C |
|
O |
|
R |
|
E |
| N |
|
A |
|
P |
|
E |
|
Image
and recast them so that they form eight fresh
words, which when placed in proper order on the
white squares, are a word square in which each
word reads alike from left to right, or from top
to bottom. The first of the fresh words is
CROW.
Solution
Form a short sentence with the letters above
the line in this diagram:—
| |
D |
U |
| |
E |
H |
| |
E |
D |
| |
A |
P |
| |
S |
T |
| D |
E |
A |
Image
Number the letters consecutively 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
6, 7, 8, 9, 0, and then work a sum in addition,
substituting these numbers for the letter with
which they correspond.
Solution
Touch me not, I’m firm and sure;
Behead, I’m used by rich and poor;
In house and cottage, hut and hall,
I stand of service to them all.
Behead again, in time of need
I tell that strength and skill succeed.
Solution
Shake up the sixteen letters of these four
words, and recast them into four other
words:—
| |
S |
|
E |
|
E |
|
K |
| S |
|
L |
|
A |
|
B |
|
| |
L |
|
E |
|
E |
|
K |
| M |
|
O |
|
A |
|
N |
|
Image
These fresh words, placed on the white squares,
must read alike from side to side, and zigzag
from top to bottom. The first word is MASK.
Solution
What river is that, where it is found,
Which Pope says does with eels abound?
What Scottish lake, by high hills bounded,
Is with bright birch and oak surrounded?
What stream is said in Devon to run
Into the sea near Otterton?
What bay on Cuba’s distant coast
Is justly deemed its pride and boast?
The initials of these names will show
A Scotch reformer, who, we know,
Flourished three hundred years ago.
Solution
Take the letters which form the words in these
sixteen cells—
| A |
F |
A |
R |
| T |
A |
S |
K |
| S |
E |
A |
T |
| L |
E |
A |
L |
Image
and recast them so that they form a perfect
word square.
Solution
My whole may be a mother, not a dad,
So former may, or latter;
But twist my tail, and I become as mad
As any hatter!
Behead me, and behold I am a man,
Who never was called mister;
Cut off my tail, and instantly I can
Become a sister!
Solution
There are five English words in this square:—
| c |
h |
e |
s |
s |
| g |
r |
e |
e |
d |
| c |
a |
n |
e |
s |
| r |
e |
a |
r |
s |
| c |
h |
e |
e |
r |
Image
Can you shake up their letters, and recast them
into five other words which form a perfect word
square, and read alike from top to bottom and
from left to right? The first fresh word is
CRESS.
Solution
Five familiar proverbs are hidden in this
square of 169 letters,
| R |
E |
N |
O |
W |
N |
E |
D |
T |
H |
A |
N |
W |
| S |
Y |
O |
U |
R |
C |
A |
K |
E |
A |
N |
D |
A |
| S |
T |
E |
T |
O |
B |
E |
F |
E |
A |
R |
H |
R |
| E |
A |
R |
K |
S |
S |
P |
O |
I |
L |
E |
A |
F |
| L |
E |
O |
O |
H |
E |
R |
S |
N |
T |
D |
V |
O |
| O |
T |
M |
O |
T |
L |
I |
N |
O |
H |
T |
E |
U |
| N |
O |
S |
C |
A |
L |
A |
G |
M |
E |
H |
I |
R |
| S |
N |
I |
Y |
G |
O |
R |
S |
O |
B |
A |
T |
S |
| E |
N |
G |
N |
E |
N |
O |
T |
S |
R |
N |
P |
A |
| I |
A |
O |
A |
M |
O |
O |
T |
S |
O |
A |
E |
W |
| R |
C |
D |
E |
V |
I |
L |
A |
H |
T |
D |
A |
S |
| O |
U |
O |
Y |
N |
O |
I |
L |
D |
A |
E |
C |
A |
| T |
C |
I |
V |
R |
E |
H |
H |
T |
A |
H |
E |
Z |
Image
The proverbs are arranged in a regular
sequence.
Solution
We are familiar with the anagram that so
charmingly points to the ministrations on the
battle-field of Florence Nightingale—Flit on,
cheering angel—but it is not so well known that
her name can also be recast with an appropriate
wish for her continuance in our loving memory.
Can you frame this?
Solution
A French sentence of 100 letters in twenty-two
words is concealed in these 100 cells.
| D |
L |
A |
N |
N |
E |
S |
M |
P |
A |
| L |
I |
R |
D |
L |
E |
E |
M |
L |
H |
| I |
L |
U |
E |
E |
A |
I |
N |
T |
J |
| C |
U |
R |
S |
E |
M |
N |
T |
U |
P |
| E |
U |
É |
S |
N |
P |
R |
E |
O |
S |
| O |
L |
I |
É |
D |
X |
S |
M |
A |
N |
| U |
D |
E |
A |
E |
É |
I |
X |
N |
T |
| T |
E |
T |
P |
E |
D |
N |
U |
Q |
E |
| B |
U |
U |
U |
F |
L |
I |
J |
I |
N |
| Z |
U |
E |
J |
I |
O |
E |
U |
N |
R |
Image
It can be deciphered by means of a cardboard
mask of similar size, with circular holes
cut out in some of its cells. This is placed
squarely over the diagram, turned round in four
successive positions. And thus the sequence of
letters is found, and falls into words.
Solution
The instant popularity of this clever puzzle
was amazing, and its sale is said to have run
into millions years ago in America.
Cut the pony into six pieces, as is indicated in
the picture, and rearrange these so that they
show a trotting horse.
Solution
I am
a man
I rate you
a beast
You know me.
Can you put this into shape?
Solution
Here is another of Sam Loyd’s famous trick
pictures:—
Can you rearrange the parts to show jockeys
and horses in racing trim?
Solution
My first, thou knowest, was in ancient Rome,
Rome’s fate my next, and one that all may dread.
Long may it be before that fate shall come,
And sever with my whole thy life’s last thread!
Solution
This boy is sure that if he takes his time, and
watches his opportunity, he will be able to
reach and secure with his mouth the sugar on
the chair. Will he?
Solution
The names of eight famous British poets are
buried in these lines—that is to say, the letters
that spell the names form in their proper order
parts of different words:—
The sun is darting rays of gold
Upon the moor, enchanting spot,
Whose purpled heights, by Ronald loved,
Up open to his shepherd cot.
And sundry denizens of air
Are flying—aye, each to his nest;
And eager make at such an hour
All haste to reach the mansions blest.
Can you dig them up?
Solution
Here are six little hoptoads, as our cousins
across the water call them, three white and three
black, going in opposite directions. A frog may
jump, one, two, or three steps, but no two may
be together at any time.
In how few jumps can the black frogs be seated
to the left of their white brothers? It is obvious
that one of the white frogs must jump first to
the stool marked 1.
Solution
This multiplies me, I declare,
Though it reduces one;
A sty is foul if it is there,
By it a deed is done.
Solution
Lennie ...... the words he read,
Studying ...... fable;
Lennie’s mother ...... the bread,
Sophy ...... the table.
“Work while you are ......,” they said
“...... while you are able!”
Solution
A very curious old print, of which this might
well be the title, was picked up on a bookstall.
This picture shows clever designs for two of the
digits:
1
Se Pierot or Lun,
A Figure of One.
2
Again he’s to view,
A Figure of Two.
When I write with my first in my second,
My whole is quite sure to be in.
Divided afresh, there is reckoned
A wit, or a something that’s thin.
Prefix a letter, and, as dear as paint,
You see the name of an old English Saint.
Solution
Here is the second pair of this queer company:—
3
Now ’tis plain you may see,
He’s a Figure of Three.
4
Behold him once more,
A Figure of Four.
My first, though half a noisy bird,
To a slight noise may turn;
My second twist, a stately word,
And it will bend we learn.
Solution
To half of ten add one,
Then half a score.
When this is duly done
Almost ten more.
This can be good for none,
But trial sore.
Solution
Here is the third pair of these quaint
characters:—
5
Now here we contrive
To make him a Five
6
He’s a Six here complete,
With his hands to his feet.
A proverb of eight words is buried here:—
I fancy this Tory outcry, this weary outrageous
attempt to show illegality, is as a cat chasing
snow-flakes. I must be forgiven if I shun his
example.
Solution
Quick ....... in action, now timid, now bold,
Like ....... of ropes far too rotten to hold,
....... a
....... ....... and disasters
For a State that ....... not incapable masters.
The six missing words are spelt with the same
seven letters.
Solution
Here is another pair of these quaint figures:—
7
With some alteration,
A Seven’s his station.
8
Here not being strait,
He forms a good eight.
My first as an heir,
My second a snare,
My whole is the offspring of fancy,
Which I sent on its way
Last Valentine’s Day,
As a token of love to my Nancy.
Solution
My love shall never know my first,
Shall never be my second;
It shall my all, come best, come worst,
Be surely reckoned.
Solution
Here is the final pair:—
9
While drinking his Wine,
He appears like a nine.
0
Nine Forms having past
He’s a Cypher at last.
I am a letter, and a word,
I am a tree, I am a name,
Cut me in pieces with a sword,
You and your act would be the same.
Thrice you must leave the aspirate in doubt,
And use it twice if you would find me out.
Solution
If you “resist disasters,” how may this affect
one of your home circle?
Solution
1 × 8 + 1 = 9
12 × 8 + 2 = 98
123 × 8 + 3 = 987
1234 × 8 + 4 = 9876
12345 × 8 + 5 = 98765
123456 × 8 + 6 = 987654
1234567 × 8 + 7 = 9876543
12345678 × 8 + 8 = 98765432
123456789 × 8 + 9 = 987654321
My first the rainbow shows
When in rich hues it glows.
My next has vowels three;
My third was once a tree.
My fourth begins the year,
My whole the past makes clear.
Solution
If you tell a schoolboy that the longest side
of a triangular field measures 100 rods, and that
each of the other sides measures 50 rods, and
ask him to estimate the value of its grass at £1
per acre, how should he answer?
Solution
Less than my last, my whole has place
Between my first and second:
Second has body, arms and face;
First is by inches reckoned.
Solution
What is the smallest number of straight lines
which can be drawn within this square so as to
enclose each of the wheels within separate
boundaries?
While solving this, rotate the paper in your
hand, and see the wheels spin.
Solution
My first at early morn the camp alarms,
And at its sound the soldier springs to arms;
My second nowadays fair ladies scorn,
Though in less dainty days it oft was worn.
My whole, a battle fought on Scottish ground,
With victory the rebel forces crowned.
Solution
A market gardener who has a large square plot
of ground wishes to reserve a fourth of it in the
shape of a triangle for himself, as is shown in
the diagram—
and to divide the remainder among his four sons,
so that each shares equally, with plots of similar
shape. How did he mark it out for them?
This appears in a less perfect form in “The
Twentieth Century Standard Puzzle Book.”
Solution
Here is a simple little puzzle which may
amuse anyone who has paper and pencil at
hand:—
Can you combine three figures similar to
Fig. A with two similar to Fig. B, so that a
perfect Latin cross is formed?
It is, of course, an easier matter to cut out
five such pieces in paper or cardboard, and
arrange them in the form required.
Solution
I love strolling ....... that wander around,
Each ....... a
....... in versatile skill;
Each ....... so quaint, each idea so profound,
My barn’s at their service, whenever they will.
A company played there last night, but to-day
Ducks ......., and poultry have vanished away!
The missing words are spelt with the same
seven letters.
Solution
Four poor men were living in the cottages
shown in this diagram, round a central lake well
stocked with fish. Four rich men built their
houses further afield, and selfishly determined
to exclude their neighbours from access to the
water.
How could they do this effectually without
cutting themselves off from the lake?
Solution
150 hat robe or tent
Can you form from this the name of a famous
British author, treating the 150 as Roman
numerals?
Solution
Cut out in cardboard four pieces of the shape
and size of each of the large patterns, and two
pieces of the small one:—
Now arrange these ten pieces so that they
form a perfect square.
Solution
I’m a worker most active, most useful, most known,
Of all that are busy in country and town.
Take from me one letter, and yet my good name
In spite of this loss will continue the same.
Take from me two letters, and still you will see
That precisely the same in effect I shall be.
Take from me three letters, or even take more,
Yet still I continue as sound as before.
Solution
The dotted lines in this diagram show how
the figure can be divided into nine parts by
four straight cuts
which can be reunited to form a perfect cross.
Solution
Tom Larkins, proud of his prize for arithmetic,
challenged his sisters to show on a blackboard
that if 50 is subtracted from the sum of the
nine digits, the result is equal to the number
obtained by dividing their sum by 3. How did
he prove his point?
Solution
Take in paper or cardboard a figure made up
of a square and half of a similar square, thus:—
How can you, in the simplest way, divide it
into four equal and similar parts by four straight
cuts?
Solution
B drove a goodly flock of geese,
And met with Farmer A;
Said Farmer A, “How much apiece
For this lot did you pay?”
Said B, “I paid for all I drive
Just six pounds and a crown,
And I am selling all but five
At the next market town.
If fifteen pence a head I charge
Beyond the price I paid.
I shall secure a sum as large
As he who sold all made.”
Solution
Can you draw twenty-two straight lines within
this circle so that they divide it into four
similar parts, each having three of the dots
within its borders?
Each line must be at right angles to another.
Solution
When second held first
For best or for worst,
I thought myself happy to win her.
But what could I say
When the very next day
She gave me the whole for my dinner?
Solution
Cut up this triangle into 5 parts,
which can be reassembled to form
this triangle.
Solution
The peculiar series of numbers, as arranged in
this triangular form, is said to have been perfected
by Pascal.
| 1 |
|
| 2 |
1 |
|
| 3 |
3 |
1 |
|
| 4 |
6 |
4 |
1 |
|
| 5 |
10 |
10 |
5 |
1 |
|
| 6 |
15 |
20 |
15 |
6 |
1 |
|
| 7 |
21 |
35 |
35 |
21 |
7 |
1 |
|
| 8 |
28 |
56 |
70 |
56 |
28 |
8 |
1 |
Image
It has the property of showing, without calculation,
how many selections or combinations can
be made at a time out of a larger number. Thus
to find how many selections of 3 at a time can
be made out of 8 we look for the third number on
the horizontal row that commences with 8, and
find the answer 56.
The series is formed thus: Set down the
numbers 1, 2, 3, etc., as far as you please, in a
vertical row. To the right of 2 place 1, add them
together, and set 3 under the 1. Then add 3 to 3,
and set the result below, and so on, always
placing the sum of two numbers that are side by
side below the one on the right.
This diagram shows an ancient and curious
method of multiplication, which will be novel to
most of our readers.
In this instance 534 is multiplied by 342.
Draw a square of nine cells with diagonals, fill
the three top cells, as is shown, by multiplying
the 5 by the 3, the 4 and the 2. Then multiply
in similar way the 3 and the 4 by these same
figures. Turn the square round so that the
diagonals are upright, and add. Of course,
placing the numbers thus is the same practically
as carrying them by our ordinary rule.
In this diagram 27 counters are arranged in 9
rows, with 6 in each row.
Can you rearrange them so that with similar
conditions they all fall within the borders of one
equilateral triangle?
Solution
The bees’ blithe vernal love-songs softly hum,
Blending so sweetly with the restful air;
The noiseless, deep-laced twilight shadows come,
And well I ken the lass who meets me there.
Can you discover a very familiar saying that
is buried in these lines?
Solution
Place eight cards of two different colours
alternately in one row, then with four moves bring
all of one colour together.
Image
Two cards (without altering their relative
position) are to be moved at a time, and placed
somewhere in the same line, one of them at least
touching another card.
Solution
A little beast without its head
Becomes a mighty beast instead;
But then the subject of my riddle
Is cut asunder in the middle;
And nothing this division gains,
Though unknown quantity remains.
Solution
Mary sat with ..... in hand
Writing ..... dramatic.
Did she ..... the plots she planned?
Negative emphatic!
..... to us the
..... may be
But at ..... they’re new to she!
The missing words are spelt with the same
five letters.
Solution
Cut out this diagram, and paste it on a card.
Hand it to anyone, and ask him to fix upon
whichever number he pleases, and merely to tell
you in which columns this appears.
| I. |
|
II. |
|
III. |
|
IV. |
| 1 |
33 |
65 |
97 |
|
2 |
34 |
66 |
98 |
|
4 |
36 |
68 |
100 |
|
8 |
40 |
72 |
104 |
| 3 |
35 |
67 |
99 |
|
3 |
35 |
67 |
99 |
|
5 |
37 |
69 |
101 |
|
9 |
41 |
73 |
105 |
| 5 |
37 |
69 |
101 |
|
6 |
38 |
70 |
102 |
|
6 |
38 |
70 |
102 |
|
10 |
42 |
74 |
106 |
| 7 |
39 |
71 |
103 |
|
7 |
39 |
71 |
103 |
|
7 |
39 |
71 |
103 |
|
11 |
43 |
75 |
107 |
| 9 |
41 |
73 |
105 |
|
10 |
42 |
74 |
106 |
|
12 |
44 |
76 |
108 |
|
12 |
44 |
76 |
108 |
| 11 |
43 |
75 |
107 |
|
11 |
43 |
75 |
107 |
|
13 |
45 |
77 |
109 |
|
13 |
45 |
77 |
109 |
| 13 |
45 |
77 |
109 |
|
14 |
46 |
78 |
110 |
|
14 |
46 |
78 |
110 |
|
14 |
46 |
78 |
110 |
| 15 |
47 |
79 |
111 |
|
15 |
47 |
79 |
111 |
|
15 |
47 |
79 |
111 |
|
15 |
47 |
79 |
111 |
| 17 |
49 |
81 |
113 |
|
18 |
50 |
82 |
114 |
|
20 |
52 |
84 |
116 |
|
24 |
56 |
88 |
120 |
| 19 |
51 |
83 |
115 |
|
19 |
51 |
83 |
115 |
|
21 |
53 |
85 |
117 |
|
25 |
57 |
89 |
121 |
| 21 |
53 |
85 |
117 |
|
22 |
54 |
86 |
118 |
|
22 |
54 |
86 |
118 |
|
26 |
58 |
90 |
122 |
| 23 |
55 |
87 |
119 |
|
23 |
55 |
87 |
119 |
|
23 |
55 |
87 |
119 |
|
27 |
59 |
91 |
123 |
| 25 |
57 |
89 |
121 |
|
26 |
58 |
90 |
122 |
|
28 |
60 |
92 |
124 |
|
28 |
60 |
92 |
124 |
| 27 |
59 |
91 |
123 |
|
27 |
59 |
91 |
123 |
|
29 |
61 |
93 |
125 |
|
29 |
61 |
93 |
125 |
| 29 |
61 |
93 |
125 |
|
30 |
62 |
94 |
126 |
|
30 |
62 |
94 |
126 |
|
30 |
62 |
94 |
126 |
| 31 |
63 |
95 |
127 |
|
31 |
63 |
95 |
127 |
|
31 |
63 |
95 |
127 |
|
31 |
63 |
95 |
127 |
| V. |
|
VI. |
|
VII. |
| 16 |
48 |
80 |
112 |
|
32 |
48 |
96 |
112 |
|
64 |
80 |
96 |
112 |
| 17 |
49 |
81 |
113 |
|
33 |
49 |
97 |
113 |
|
65 |
81 |
97 |
113 |
| 18 |
50 |
82 |
114 |
|
34 |
50 |
98 |
114 |
|
66 |
82 |
98 |
114 |
| 19 |
51 |
83 |
115 |
|
35 |
51 |
99 |
115 |
|
67 |
83 |
99 |
115 |
| 20 |
52 |
84 |
116 |
|
36 |
52 |
100 |
116 |
|
68 |
84 |
100 |
116 |
| 21 |
53 |
85 |
117 |
|
37 |
53 |
101 |
117 |
|
69 |
85 |
101 |
117 |
| 22 |
54 |
86 |
118 |
|
38 |
54 |
102 |
118 |
|
70 |
86 |
102 |
118 |
| 23 |
55 |
87 |
119 |
|
39 |
55 |
103 |
119 |
|
71 |
87 |
103 |
119 |
| 24 |
56 |
88 |
120 |
|
40 |
56 |
104 |
120 |
|
72 |
88 |
104 |
120 |
| 25 |
57 |
89 |
121 |
|
41 |
57 |
105 |
121 |
|
73 |
89 |
105 |
121 |
| 26 |
58 |
90 |
122 |
|
42 |
58 |
106 |
122 |
|
74 |
90 |
106 |
122 |
| 27 |
59 |
91 |
123 |
|
43 |
59 |
107 |
123 |
|
75 |
91 |
107 |
123 |
| 28 |
60 |
92 |
124 |
|
44 |
60 |
108 |
124 |
|
76 |
92 |
108 |
124 |
| 29 |
61 |
93 |
125 |
|
45 |
61 |
109 |
125 |
|
77 |
93 |
109 |
125 |
| 30 |
62 |
94 |
126 |
|
46 |
62 |
110 |
126 |
|
78 |
94 |
110 |
126 |
| 31 |
63 |
95 |
127 |
|
47 |
63 |
111 |
127 |
|
79 |
95 |
111 |
127 |
Image
You can then in a moment, and at a glance,
pick out the number that is chosen.
Solution
Let us suppose that these black dots represent
a succession of pillar boxes. It will be seen that
a postman, starting from the circle, and going
along the dotted lines, turns round 18 corners.
Can he take a course which involves fewer
turnings?
Solution
Here is an ingenious paper and scissors puzzle:—
Divide a square card into three pieces, so that
these can be reunited to form No. 2 or No. 3 of
this diagram.
Solution
(From an old Sanscrit source, quoted by
Longfellow in his “Kavanagh.”)
Ten times the square root of a flock of geese,
seeing the clouds collect, flew to the Manus
lake. One-eighth of the whole flew from the
edge of the water among a tangle of water lilies,
and three couples were seen playing in the water.
Tell me, my young girl with beautiful locks,
what was the whole number of geese?
Solution
Six hundred and sixty so ordered may be
That if you divide the whole number by three
You find the result will exactly express
The half of six hundred and sixty, no less.
Solution
Image
Leaving the Black King in his position, place
the three white men so that he stands checkmated.
Solution
An American paper published the following:—
There was a young damsel, oh, bless her!
It cost very little to dress her;
She was sweet as a rose
In her everyday clothes,
But had no young man to caress her.
Next day this parody appeared in a rival
paper:—
There was a young ......, oh, bless her!
It cost very little to dress her;
Some ........... and
.....
About Thanksgiving time,
And they ... the last bit from the
........
Can you fill in the missing words?
Solution
If we look with one eye only, or with eyes half-closed,
at these groups of circular dots, they
assume the appearance familiar to us in honeycomb.
This is an effect of the contrast and
opposition of the black and white in the sensation
of the retina.
Although the black and the white circles are of
the same diameter the irradiation is in their case
so intense that the white circles appear to be
larger than the black.
This excellent illusion appeared in a recent
number of the “Strand Magazine”:—
Most persons will at first see the passages
under these arches as running upwards from left
to right, but presently, as their line of vision shifts,
the arches will take a downward course from
right to left. This very curious effect will well
repay a little patience, if it is not realised at once.
She loses her head when she joins the brides,
He joins them after tea;
But both are swept by ruthless tides
Away on the western sea.
Solution
I have 91 bananas on my barrow, of two
qualities; some I sell at four a penny, and the
better sort at three a penny. If I had sold them
in mixed lots at seven for twopence, I should
have made a penny more. How many were
there of each quality?
Solution
The Puzzle Problem—
A passenger in a first-class railway carriage
notices that the top of a factory window due
S.W. of him coincides with a mark on the carriage
window, and does not move from it while the
train is running five and a half miles.
At the end of that distance the compass bearing
of the chimney is due N.W. How far was the
passenger from the chimney when he first noticed
it?
is solved by 31⁄2 miles.
We give a diagram to make the points clear.
As the chimney top does not move from its
place on the window, it is clear that the train
is running on a segment of a circle having the
chimney for its centre. It follows that the
observer’s distance throughout is equal to the
radius of that circle, and the radius of a circle
of which the quadrant measures 51⁄2 miles is 31⁄2
miles within about 11 ft.
The cross had been taken out from the centre
of this flag, and its owner, who had an ingenious
turn of mind, found that by cutting
what remained into two pieces, and rejoining
them, he could make it into a perfect flag
without any waste of material.
How did he accomplish this?
Solution
Add two more pieces similar in shape and size
to that marked A, and one similar to B, C,
and D respectively, and then readjust the eleven
parts so that they form a perfect square.
Solution
How does the sluggard’s garden grow?
When ..... are high results are low.
His borders ..... and bindweed spoil,
No careful culture ..... the soil;
But weeds that ..... are all alive
Where ..... pink or rose should thrive.
The missing words are spelt with the same
letters.
Solution
This is a simple arrangement of eight matches,
by which two squares and four similar triangles
are formed.
Correctly drawn results I yield.
Varied, but welcome everywhere;
But met with in the open field
I’m banned if frequent, blest if rare.
To this peculiar difference the clue
Is called with much significance the cue.
Solution
Wait while I think the matter over,
On holiday intent;
The best I’ve seen is surely Dover,
That pretty port of Kent.
Three towns are buried in these lines.
Solution
A hospital was built in six detached blocks,
and it was the duty of the night watchman to
go completely round every block at fixed hours
to see that all was safe.
What was his shortest course?
Solution
An Arab came to the river side
With a donkey bearing an obelisk,
But he did not venture to ford the tide,
For he had too good an *.
So he camped all night by that river side,
Secure till the tide had ceased to swell,
For he knew that whenever the donkey died
No other could be its ‖.
Solution
Can you rearrange the twelve counters on this
board of 36 squares so that there are two counters
on each row, column, and diagonal?
Image
There must not be more than these two
counters in the same straight line.
Solution
What ho, my jolly second! never say my first
While my final you can find in Amsterdam.
Think how a sound whole stays your hunger and your thirst,
Deftly readjusting bread and meat and jam.
Solution
This is a course by which the queen on a chessboard,
starting from K R sq., passes over every
square in fourteen moves.
“Did you score a score?” said Funniman to
his schoolboy nephew, after a local cricket match.
“No, uncle,” said the youngster, “but if I had
made as many more runs, half as many more,
and two runs and a half, I should have made
my twenty.” How many runs did he get?
Solution
In the “Twentieth Century Standard Puzzle
Book” we gave a figure similar to this, in which
there were 653 interlacing triangles in four tiers
of this character.
We now add a fifth tier at the base, and ask
our solvers to determine how many triangles of
all shapes and sizes can be counted within its
enlarged borders.
Solution
Six letters spell the happy state
Of two in love made one.
The same six letters tell the fate
Of marriage ties undone.
Solution
Place eight matches in a row, about an inch
apart, as indicated in the diagram.
The puzzle is to form these into four pairs in
four moves, by moving one match clear over
two matches every time.
Solution
My First’s a bond, my Seconds weigh;
These own the Rest of all my lay;
Busy my Third; Fourth like the Pole,
Whose opposite my Fifth makes goal.
Solution
For two months at the .... we played,
Ere we were .... to Lord’s;
Alas! the score our champion made
Was what a .... affords!
The crowd in .... of thousands came
But took scant notice of the game.
Solution
Place twelve matches, as is shown in the
diagram, so that they form four squares.
Now remove three of the matches, and readjust
the nine that remain so that they represent
three squares.
Solution
Edwin and Angelina were far apart, when this
message, with its touch of jealous resentment,
reached her on the wings of a Marconigram—
“No fickle girl is bonnie to my mind!”
Quite equal to the occasion, she flashed back
the reply—
“In love inconstant I no pleasure find!”
How did these messages reveal the places from
which they were despatched?
Solution
In the four corner and four central cells of
this nest of squares four matches are so placed
as to represent 1⁄2, 1, 4, 1⁄50, 11, 12, 41, and 49.
Can you, still using only four matches in each
case, fit different whole numbers or fractions in
similar fashion into the other 28 cells?
Solution
Set down three figures in a line,
Then multiply by four;
This, if you use the proper sign,
Makes five and nothing more.
Solution
Can you complete the top and bottom rows,
the two side columns, and the two diagonals of
this square by forming in each of them the same
sentence so that it can be read in twenty
different directions?
| R |
I |
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I |
R |
| I |
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I |
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| V |
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V |
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V |
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| I |
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| R |
I |
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V |
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I |
R |
Image
There are four words in the sentence of
thirteen letters.
Solution
Ask anyone to fix upon a number between 1
and 60 inclusive, and to point out to you the
square or squares in which it appears:—
| 3 |
5 |
7 |
9 |
11 |
1 |
|
5 |
6 |
7 |
13 |
12 |
4 |
| 13 |
15 |
17 |
19 |
21 |
23 |
14 |
15 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
| 25 |
27 |
29 |
31 |
33 |
35 |
28 |
29 |
30 |
31 |
36 |
37 |
| 37 |
39 |
41 |
43 |
45 |
47 |
52 |
38 |
39 |
44 |
45 |
46 |
| 49 |
51 |
53 |
55 |
57 |
59 |
47 |
53 |
54 |
55 |
60 |
13 |
| 9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
8 |
|
3 |
6 |
7 |
10 |
11 |
2 |
| 14 |
15 |
24 |
25 |
26 |
27 |
14 |
15 |
18 |
19 |
22 |
23 |
| 28 |
29 |
30 |
31 |
40 |
41 |
26 |
27 |
30 |
31 |
34 |
35 |
| 42 |
43 |
44 |
45 |
46 |
47 |
38 |
39 |
42 |
43 |
46 |
47 |
| 56 |
57 |
58 |
59 |
60 |
13 |
50 |
51 |
54 |
55 |
58 |
59 |
| 17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
16 |
|
33 |
34 |
35 |
36 |
37 |
32 |
| 22 |
23 |
24 |
25 |
26 |
27 |
38 |
39 |
40 |
41 |
42 |
43 |
| 28 |
29 |
30 |
31 |
48 |
49 |
44 |
45 |
46 |
47 |
48 |
49 |
| 50 |
51 |
52 |
53 |
54 |
55 |
50 |
51 |
52 |
53 |
54 |
55 |
| 56 |
57 |
58 |
59 |
30 |
60 |
56 |
57 |
58 |
59 |
60 |
41 |
Image
You can find the number at a glance, by
simply adding together the numbers in the right-hand
top corner cells of the square indicated.
Thus, if 45 has been chosen, 32 + 8 + 4 + 1 = 45.
Here is a little subtraction sum, which is not
quite so simple as it appears to be:—
| |
| |
miles |
|
furlongs |
|
rods |
|
yards |
|
feet |
|
inches |
|
| 1 |
„ |
0 |
„ |
0 |
„ |
0 |
„ |
0 |
„ |
0 |
| |
7 |
„ |
39 |
„ |
5 |
„ |
1 |
„ |
5 |
| |
|
|
| |
Image
Try it as it stands, without reducing the
distance to inches.
Solution
Can you, by supplying the missing words,
turn a grilse into a salmon? One letter is
changed each time, and, except in one case, the
order of the letters varies:—
To silver Tweed, or broader Spey,
The grilse of ......,
...... gay,
Glides on; the ......
...... draws
When salmon follows Nature’s laws.
Solution
I never move, and yet I run
From place to place all day;
Some loving swain, hot foot for fun,
Sees Dora in my way.
Solution
These are the arrangements of the nine digits,
by which they add up alike in rows, columns, and
diagonals in a square; on all sides in a triangle;
and from top to bottom and from side to side
in a cross:—
Image
The totals are 15, 20, and 27 respectively.
HAATTCEUMSSSS
Solution
Seven words in one of letters five we fix,
Five English, and one Latin;
No need to twist them, or afresh to mix,
If puzzles you are pat in.
Solution
The question was asked in a puzzle competition—“Why
is every angler ipso facto an
Ananias?” Although no such method was
asked for or expected, we find that the very
letters of the question can be recast into a most
apposite reply. Our answer by anagram runs
thus—
A liar, .. ..... gay fancies to a
..... ....
Can you complete the sentence by filling in
the missing words?
Solution
On a board of sixty-seven squares, arranged
as is shown in the diagram, place nine counters,
so that no two are in the same row, column, or
diagonal.
Image
The indentations do not affect the simple
conditions.
Solution
Peter White
Will never go right;
Shall I tell you the reason why?
Wherever he goes,
He follows his nose;
And that stands all awry!
If this appendage had slanted more
Why would it serve a hole to bore?
Solution
Can you arrange these nine cards so that they
form ten rows with three cards in each row?
| |
A ♣ |
|
| |
| |
A ♢ |
|
10 ♡ |
|
A ♠ |
|
| |
Q ♠ |
|
K ♣ |
|
K ♢ |
|
J ♢ |
| |
| |
K ♡ |
|
Image
This may, of course, be done with any nine
cards.
Solution
Thieaonunhinemileuchtormapa
Aitutoaeucceorlo;
Pringweetnetillpoeemoygra,
Aummertreemaofthadeacro.
Separate these strings of letters into words
that scan and rhyme, adding the same missing
letter in 55 places.
Solution
Two ladies and their squires, here represented
by the White Knights and the Black, were dressed
to impersonate Light, Liberty, Love, and Learning,
and took their places on the corners of a
pavement chequered to represent a chessboard,
as is shown below:—
Image
They undertook to step a figure which should
exhibit at each pause a revolving square, and
in three paces bring them together in the centre,
by a course traced upon the lines of their combined
monograms. What were their successive
steps?
Solution
Can you disentangle all this good advice?
| tell |
you know |
tells |
knows |
tells |
he should not |
| do |
you think of |
does |
thinks of |
does |
is not good |
| believe |
you hear |
believes |
hears |
believes |
is false |
| spend |
you have |
spends |
has |
spends |
he needs |
| judge |
you see |
judges |
sees |
judges |
is not there |
| never |
all |
he who |
all he |
often |
what |
Image
It forms 5 excellent maxims in its 36 cells.
Solution
Protected, open, plain,
Without my tail I’m flat;
I’m round curtailed again;
Again, you have me pat.
Solution
Study this quaint figure carefully, and try to
discover how it can be divided into two pieces,
so that these can be reunited to form a perfect
circle.
Solution
When all are gay this holds the sway,
But take a letter out,
That change of fare is ruling there,
You see, without a doubt.
Behead me twice; it is not nice
To have this in your skin;
Lop head and tail, and find a nail
Or tack to drive it in.
Behind his right, and in your sight
A little word you find;
But you will never make it out,
Though it is in your mind.
Solution
When Tommy was offered all the money by
his uncle if he could place 15 half-crowns and
15 pennies in such order in a circle that, counting
always by nines, and starting at a fixed
point, he came always upon a penny, and
removed it from the circle, he found the key
to success in this Latin line, given to him by a
school friend, who shared the spoil—“Populeam
virgam mater regina ferebat.” The vowels, from
a to u, are numbered from 1 to 5, and when
they are thus marked in the sentence—
| “ |
P |
o |
p |
u |
l |
e |
a |
m |
|
v |
i |
r |
g |
a |
m |
|
m |
a |
t |
e |
r |
|
r |
e |
g |
i |
n |
a |
|
f |
e |
r |
e |
b |
a |
t |
, |
” |
| |
4 |
|
5 |
|
2 |
1 |
|
3 |
|
1 |
|
1 |
|
2 |
|
2 |
|
3 |
|
1 |
|
2 |
|
2 |
|
1 |
|
they show the necessary sequence of half-crowns
and pennies.
Start counting with the half-crown marked a,
and remove each penny as you come to it on
counting up to nine, and the conditions are
fulfilled.
This smart advertisement of a polish known
as “Old Dutch Cleanser” appeared in an
American paper:—
Cleans Scrubs
Scours Polishes
Old Dutch
Cleanser
If the eyes of the proprietor should fall upon
this column, he will be surprised to find that
his catch words Cleans, Scrubs, Scours, Polishes,
can be recast into a perfect anagram, singularly
appropriate to the powder advertised.
The opening words of the anagram are “O
rub on, sir.”—Can our solvers complete the
sentence?
Solution
Replace all these 51 pieces on the chessboard,
so that no Queen attacks another Queen, no
Rook another Rook, no Bishop another Bishop,
and no Knight another Knight.
| Q |
Q |
Q |
Q |
Q |
Q |
Q |
Q |
| |
B |
B |
B |
B |
B |
B |
|
| |
B |
|
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|
|
B |
|
| |
B |
B |
B |
B |
B |
B |
|
| R |
R |
R |
R |
R |
R |
R |
R |
| |
Kt |
Kt |
Kt |
Kt |
Kt |
|
|
| Kt |
Kt |
Kt |
Kt |
Kt |
Kt |
Kt |
Kt |
| Kt |
Kt |
Kt |
Kt |
Kt |
Kt |
Kt |
Kt |
Image
No account is to be taken of the intervening
pieces, but each type of piece is to be considered
as if it stood alone upon the board.
Solution
Here is a beautifully symmetrical specimen of
the Knight’s tour:—
Here is another beautifully symmetrical Knight’s
tour:—
It starts from the corner square, and the
second half of the course has dotted lines.
He ...... himself much on his skill,
In many a burglary tried;
But when he ...... open the till
There was only a ...... inside.
The missing words are spelt with the same
six letters.
Solution
Here is quite a curious pattern described by
another Knight’s tour:—
Three-fourths of me an act display,
Three-fourths a bed for man;
Three-fourths have legs that cannot stray,
Three-fourths have legs that can.
I have a back without a spine;
An arm without a bone is mine.
Solution
My first is the French for my second,
My whole a narcotic is reckoned.
Solution
Here is a very symmetrical Knight’s tour, in
which half of the moves are indicated by dotted,
and half by unbroken lines:—
The letters of this sentence “Arrive to vote
at it,” can be so recast as to form two
palindrome words, or words that read alike from
either end. What are they?
Solution
Here is another specimen of the Knight’s tour,
which is beautifully symmetrical—
Half of the course is marked with dotted
lines.
Sweet till I lose my head,
Sweet-hearted then I show;
Decapitate again, I spread,
And cannot be below.
Served so once more, I am not dead,
But with fresh beauty glow.
Solution
On the board below a verse of eight lines
runs on the course of a Knight’s move from
square to square:—
| sor |
to |
king |
good |
say |
luck |
loy |
eth |
| and |
moth |
a |
soon |
dis |
our |
to |
bad |
| place |
ry |
church |
his |
force |
is |
hat |
al |
| er |
queen |
him |
wight |
he |
to |
may |
truth |
| man |
his |
and |
and |
chess |
es |
knight |
op’s |
| a |
sneer |
the |
and |
un |
lawn |
of |
tates |
| cas |
that |
at |
less |
pawn |
no |
bish |
lant |
| eth |
faith |
tles |
hath |
the |
gal |
in |
love |
Image
Can you disentangle the little poem?
Solution
“Dad,” said little Tommy, “give me as much
as I have in my purse, and I will put a
shilling in my money-box.” This was done, and
the process was repeated for three more days.
How much had Tommy originally in his purse,
which was now quite empty?
Solution
This is the way to draw three rabbits so
that they have but three ears among them
all:—
Two articles of English make,
And three from foreign source.
All these together you must take
Where dramas run their course.
Solution
On this table is shown in ten different ways
how exactly 100 can be arrived at by the use
of the nine digits, each appearing only once.
| 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
| 1 |
|
1 |
|
4 |
|
95 |
3⁄7 |
56 |
|
98 |
|
6 |
|
15 |
|
15 |
|
| 3 |
|
45 |
|
53 |
|
4 |
16⁄28 |
34 |
|
1 |
|
2 |
|
2 |
|
36 |
|
| 5 |
|
7 |
|
6 |
|
|
7 |
|
|
3⁄6 |
8 |
|
79 |
|
47 |
|
| 8 |
|
9 |
|
8 |
|
|
1 |
|
|
27⁄54 |
9 |
|
|
8⁄4 |
98 |
|
| 9 |
|
62 |
|
71 |
|
|
98 |
|
|
1 |
|
|
6⁄3 |
2 |
|
| 26 |
|
38 |
|
29 |
|
|
2 |
|
|
3 |
|
|
|
| 74 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
4 |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
75 |
|
|
|
| 100 |
|
100 |
|
100 |
|
100 |
|
100 |
|
100 |
|
100 |
|
100 |
|
100 |
|
| 9 × 8 + 7 + 6 + 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 100. |
Image
“If it were possible, I should choose,” said
young Hopeful, “a life double as long.”
“Yes,” said old Sobersides, “and you might
turn it to better account if it was also begun
old.”
How did their actual words bear this out?
Solution
On a piece of clear tracing paper draw with
pen and ink a close network of lines, such as is
shown in this diagram, near enough together to
conceal type of ordinary size.
Place this on the page of a book, and challenge
any one to read a sentence, or even a word,
through it, saying that you can do so easily.
How can you succeed?
Solution
Lop head and tail, and you will find
I have both tail and head.
Or if for spirits you’ve a mind
Set my tail first instead.
Life, as “a vapour full of woes,”
With many a darker page,
My whole in picture will disclose,
For “all the world’s a stage!”
Solution
In the diagram a strip of paper is shown (1),
with its ends simply gummed together; (2), with
a single twist; and (3), with a double twist.
Can you decide, without actual experiment, what
will be the result in each case if these are cut
completely round, as is indicated by the dotted
lines?
Solution
A glowing ........ window, graced
With ........ that true art has traced.
Solution
How do the actual letters of these words in
their union prove that anæsthetics are “blessed
in pain?”
Solution
Make two parallel cuts with a penknife along
the centre of a slip of leather or other material,
and below them a hole of the same width.
Pass a piece of string under the slit, and through
the hole, and tie two buttons, each much larger
than the hole, to the ends of the string.
How can the string be released without
removing either of the buttons?
Solution
Fasten a pair of scissors securely with a piece
of string to some convenient article, as is shown
in this diagram:—
Can you release them without cutting or
unfastening the string?
Solution
“What sin was it, sonny?” said an American
negress to her lover, when she sat on his best
hat, which was flattened. Wearily he heard
her musical laugh, and arose to go. His hobby
was botany, but not hers, for she was then a
merry girl. “Bother the flowers! I would
prefer this mellow pine-apple, Leonidas,” she
said; “I guess we Ethiopians just love fruit!”
Solution
This diagram represents in the simplest outline
a primitive wolf-trap.
The dotted line is a gate opening into a circular
enclosure. How was the trap set and the wolf
caught?
Solution
They .... the dress with grip so keen
That half the .... gives way;
And home return with purses lean
To .... of “bargain-day!”
What are the missing words?
Solution
To balance a needle on the head of a pin,
push the pin into the cork of a wine bottle, and
the needle into a separate cork.
With the aid of three forks, as is shown in the
picture, the needle may be balanced and spun
round on the head of the pin.
Air—“Three fishers went sailing.”
Three ...... went sailing out into the west,
Out into the west as the sun sank low;
Each thought as they ......
of the lad she loved best,
For they all had ......, and each had a beau.
But seas will rise, and spirits will sink,
And they all were too ill of ...... to think,
So these ......
...... back moaning.
Each missing word has the same six letters.
Solution
This diagram shows how, as an after-dinner
trick, four similar wineglasses can be placed on
the table
so that the centres of the lowest parts of their
stems are equidistant from each other.
Lurking in riddles oft my first is found;
My second should in ample stores abound,
Or help to make the sweetest songster heard.
Peculiar, and quite proper, is my third.
My whole has found with England’s monarch grace,
The verdant home of many a goodly race.
Solution
Ask any one, with this diagram to work upon,
to think of any number between 5 and 15, and,
while your back is turned, to count up to it,
beginning at the lowest step, and saying one,
two, three, four, and so on, as each step of cards
or single card is reached in the direction
indicated by the arrow. When the number
thought of has been thus arrived at, tell him to
stop, and beginning afresh on that card, to
count one, two, three, etc., backwards, this time
skipping over the double six and the 3 steps
until he again reaches the number thought of,
and notices which card he has touched last.
How can you, without having seen any of his
movements, at once find that card?
Solution
Cut a wedge out of an apple, as is indicated
in the diagram, and make six gashes as is shown.
When this has been done, challenge anyone to
divide the apple into six pieces by only two
straight cuts, so that there shall be one of the
gashes in each piece.
Solution
Accent my head,
An opening I appear
In other fashions said
I charm all far and near.
Solution
Cut out in cardboard a boomerang as nearly
as possible of the size and pattern given here:—
Place it flat on the back of the first three
fingers of the left hand, sloping them upward;
then flick it smartly with the second finger of
the right hand. It will fly off and return to
your lap. Try it.
Here are two simple sentences:—
A lamp shines out for thee.
Win me best by tears.
Can you recast the letters, so that they form
the names of two of the most important buildings
in London?
Solution
It was low tide; two children were throwing
pebbles into the sea, and sending their excited
collie in pursuit of them. The Puzzle Editor,
who was on holiday, quickened perhaps by the
salt air, bethought him of this appropriate
riddle:—What is the difference between that dog
and a hungry man?
Solution
Cut a radish in half, press the lower surface
firmly against a plate, as is shown in the
diagram:—
and you can lift the plate, to which it clings
as closely as a boy’s wet leather disc to the
pavement.
A part of me in rain,
A part in hail must be,
A part belongs to pain,
A part in bones we see,
A part in gleaming gold,
A part in common copper.
A part in peace behold,
A part in any topper;
Two parts are heard in sound,
And in our finals found.
Solution
The countryman who cut one hole in his door
for the cat and another for the kitten would
find it difficult to pass a penny through a hole
the size of a shilling cut in a stout piece of
paper.
This diagram shows how easily it can be
done:—
Fold the paper across the centre of the hole,
place the penny in the fold, and bend the lower
corners of the paper upwards. This elongates
the opening, and the coin falls through.
Men commonly say I am clever,
Book-learning I never could boast;
Yet I turn the leaves inside the cover,
And when I am found I am lost.
Solution
. ... is like a
..... or what is most
Comparative, a .....
is like a . ...;
For when their substances in liquor sink
Both properly are said to be in drink.
One of the letters of the two short words is
used twice in the longer word.
Solution
Place a sixpence on the tablecloth, and over
it set a tumbler, as is shown in the picture
below.
How can you pocket the sixpence without
removing the glass, or having it removed?
Solution
abdeefiinnnoopprrrsssttuw
Solution
A wordy warfare waged with wit,
In youth its joys none need descry;
But where our elders take to it
Its name points loss of dignity.
Solution
How can you draw such a spiral as this with
very simple appliances?
This spiral is drawn rapidly without removing
the pencil from the paper.
Solution
My first’s in garb, but not in dress;
My next’s in praise, but not in bliss;
My third’s in man, but not in miss;
My fourth’s in we.
My fifth’s in boar, but not in hog;
My sixth’s in cat, but not in dog;
My next’s in calm, but not in fog;
My eighth’s in we.
My ninth’s in rope, but not in twine;
My tenth’s in light, but not in shine;
My next’s in four, but not in nine;
My twelfth’s in we.
Solution
Take a piece of stout paper or thin cardboard,
about 10 in. by 8 in., and cut it as is shown
below, removing the parts that are shaded in the
diagram.
If you hold this between a plain wall, or
other surface, and a strong light, you will, with
a little practice, be able to cast a shadow similar
to one or other of these Madonna heads, which
will vary in intensity and expression with the
positions of the paper and the light.
This excellent and easy little card trick will
commend itself for fireside use in the long
evenings.
Take the four Kings from a pack, and two
other cards. Hold the Kings thus, in the form
of a fan—
hiding the two other cards behind the King of
Diamonds.
After showing them, place the six cards at
the bottom of the pack. Now move the lowest
card to the top, and the two next cards to any
part of the pack, apparently leaving but one
King at the bottom. Ask some one to cut the
pack, and all the Kings will be found together.
Some appropriate patter will help the effect.
Can you recast this sentence—
A defeat whose test is very sure—
so that the same letters form an appropriate
proverb?
Solution
Its cells add up in columns and rows to 22, and
those of the corner squares add up to 10 and 12
respectively.
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Image
’Tis ..... that no one takes a
.....
To .... a .... of
....s;
A .... may often take a
....
To .... away the
....s.
Solution
This, though quite an old illusion, may be a
mystery to some of our readers, so we give it a
place among our many curiosities.
The table is placed on the middle of a platform,
well away from the background, and the
head, which is very much alive, is prepared to
answer questions, or to whistle, or to sing, at the
will of the audience. “How it is done” will be
explained.
Solution
I’m in everyone’s way,
Yet no one I stop.
My four horns each day
Horizontally play,
And my head is nailed on at the top.
Solution
With a little ingenuity, and by slightly warming
the wax, and shredding the matches for
some effects, all sorts of comical figures can be
contrived, similar in character to this dignified
general on his high-stepping charger.
Take five from five, and then
Put fifty in the middle;
Twice ten times five times ten
Will finish off my riddle,
And bring it to your ken
As fit as any fiddle!
Solution
Cut out in cardboard a cross similar to that
shown in this diagram:—
Place one of its limbs under the thumbnail of
the left hand, and give the next projecting limb
a sharp flick with the middle finger of the right
hand. The little boomerang will fly sharply
forward, and invariably return rapidly on its
tracks. Try it.
Can you fill these gaps with words of similar
sound?
No ..... will
..... before the wind
A ..... will
... before it;
We cannot .... the
...., or find
That earthly powers ..... o’er it.
The gaps in line 1 take words that sound alike;
so do those in line 2; and so do the other three
in lines 3 and 4.
Solution
Can you fill in the missing words so as to
complete this picture charade?
My first may .... candle
...,
My second then .....
..;
My whole in ..... moves
.....
....... an oar or
...
Solution
We seem to sound a note of lavish bounty;
Reverse us, and we indicate a county.
Solution
FTHNMLKBRNGSLLCTTN
LLSKMTMXTTLLTSTHN!
Can you so deal with this as to form a
rhyming couplet?
Solution
A good after dinner trick
Place four walnuts and four cobnuts in a row,
as indicated on the diagram.
Now, moving always two that stand together,
transfer them to some other positions along the
line, and in four such moves leave them so that
the large and small nuts range alternately. It
may, of course, be done with large and small
coins, or with other things that are at hand.
Solution
Yet I see them all! on golden wings that fly
Old memories steal anew;
With a tear, with a sigh, with an old, old cry
They return in ghostly hue!
Solution
Here is another exercise in Doublets, from
Lewis Carroll’s book on the subject:—
Turn ELM into OAK by seven links, introducing
the name of another tree as one of
them.
Solution
Can you read in this picture the question of
our riddle?
Solution
1.
My dear Mr Bird,
We are giving a ball;
First second we third,
Pray give us your all.
2.
Second, I did my first and last,
Till I became my whole;
And told the tale of my repast,
A sad and greedy soul.
Solutions
Here is an excellent example of how a characteristic
figure may be contrived by shredding,
warming, and uniting a few wax matches:—
Many similar figures can be made by handy
fingers.
My whole, industrious, wends his way
His daily task to meet;
Behead, transpose, and lo! a sound
Of music soft and sweet;
Behead again, I make my way
With swiftness past belief;
Again, and where the fields are gay
My bounty brings relief.
Solution
An old book, published more than 100 years
ago, gives the following samples of patterns which
may be formed with very simple materials:—
All that is needed for this pastime is a set of
128 coloured triangles, 64 of each colour, with
which an endless variety of patterns can be
arranged by the exercise of taste and ingenuity.
’Tis an absurdity to say
Women should try for a B.A.
To College honours forward looking;
They’d best confine themselves to cooking!
How could a Girton girl retort, using the same
words?
Solution
Eight letters (start with b)
Three syllables contain;
Take one away, and see
Four syllables remain!
Solution
Can you dig out nineteen beasts that are
buried in these lines?—
Ireland’s lot heals slowly. Troubles came long
ago—at times in battalions—to attack and harass
her. Ambitious democrats now countermine
famous enthusiasts nearly akin to heroes.
Anarchy enables cowards to sow hot terror and
all amazement.
Solution
Can you recast the following sentences so that
their words form a verse of four lines, which
makes good sense, with lines that rhyme alternately,
when read from either end?:—
Fading slowly day dies, mournful winds sigh,
Stars are waking brightly; owlet holding high
revel flies hooting, breaking nightly silence.
Solution
“The Observatory at Greenwich, in England,”
has been turned into an excellent anagram, which
starts—On landing here begin—Can you complete
it?
Solution
No man at all am I
And, if you turn me round,
To hear my warning cry
Not any men are found.
Solution
How can our sailors fare the best
When times are harder?
How do they greet with merry jest
An empty larder?
Solution
I lose my head when I am here,
Transpose me I am three;
Look in a book, you find me there,
And with me her and he.
Solution
Jack did ....... that he could square
The circle to a .......;
His friends ....... that a brain so rare
Required attention ........
The missing words are spelt with the same
seven letters.
Solution
My father is my son,
And I’m my mother’s mother;
My daughter and sister are one,
I’m grandam to my brother!
How was this?
Solution
Catch my first with nimble wit,
Add a simple word;
Then my whole may help a bit
Opportunely heard.
Solution
My mate and I from home did start,
Some little space we were apart.
When we had run a mile or more
We kept our distance, as before;
Shade of Colenso! could this be,
When twice as fast as I ran he?
Solution
A monument all men agree
Am I in all sincerity,
Half cat, half hindrance made.
If head and tail removed should be,
Then most of all you strengthen me.
Replace my head, the stand you see
On which my tail is laid.
Solution
I’m known to the poorest and worst,
And my worth by a child may be reckoned;
The least thing in nature is double my first,
And my whole is just half of my second.
Solution
My first without its head and tail
Is one and undivided;
My second shows its teeth, is frail,
And as a rule one-sided.
The two to hold my first avail,
My busy toil provided.
Solution
In each of these sentences a town is buried:—
His sister played the piano while we sang.
I saw Nell out here last evening.
The general rode a large black mare.
I have ordered a cab at half-past one.
Meet me in the lane at half-past nine.
Can you dig them out?
Solution
“The leaning tower of Pisa, in Tuscany, Italy.”
The first seven words of its anagram are “A
funny spot in a sweet city.” Can you complete
the anagram by adding four more appropriate
words?
Solution
When they found that catacomb
Near the ....... at Rome
’Twas the ....... discussion of the season;
But the ....... effect
Of the skeletons select
Deprived the poor Professor of his reason!
Solution
My first is pretence,
My second a dandy;
When fogs are most dense
My whole will be handy.
Solution
Can you prove by anagram that, whatever
may be true of other plays accredited to
Shakespeare, Bacon had certainly no hand in
“Much Ado About Nothinge,” if we adopt the
old spelling of the final word?
Solution
Use all your wits to guess my all,
Can any guess it right?
Transposed, and never seen at all,
It still is felt in sight.
Behead, transpose, then let it be,
And you at last a clue may see.
Solution
Can you recast “Insanitary” and “Sanitary
Reform” so as to form two very appropriate
anagrams?
Solution
Let my second cut my first
When I come to table;
Though I cannot quench your thirst
Eat me—you are able.
Solution
whtmrslndsosdlyswr?
whtdyssdrksdysthtwrslrm?
lssknyskthndfr,
llshllcllwrhrssndhrm.
whycllsblldstlkthtghstlyrt
llgllntctsgrndndmntyprt?
Can you supply the missing letters?
Solution
To me when whole, for I am sweet,
The moon fresh brightness brings;
Cut off my tail, I’m blunt, but meet
To sharpen other things.
Behead me twice, and I have led
Soldiers to face the foe;
Headless and tailless, one remains
Though all the rest may go.
Solution
We start when the ninth hour is past,
Then there’s an end of you.
A vengeful goddess shows at last
What Antifat will do.
Solution
When on charades intent I take my pen,
To seek some hidden goal,
Over my first my second comes, and then
Quite overcomes my whole.
Solution
The following cryptic lines were sent as a
reliable tip before a race in which Petronel was
to run:—
“Tell me, Ben, who tore it
Seek a plant for it, see Bob.”
Can you discover their hidden meaning?
Solution
I have no form, I have no friend,
From me all come, in me all end.
And it is strange but very true
That I am here and nowhere too.
Solution
Can you fill in this broken sentence, first to
describe a curse, and then to proclaim its
cure:—
A sed end ought
eat ease ain.
using 16, and then 17, extra letters.
Solution
My first is a cover,
My second a city;
The whole you discover
With this if you’re witty.
Solution
The deaf and dumb girl began gesticulating
with a message, and her delivery was ever neat,
with graceful pose in every attitude.
Four rivers are buried here.
Solution
If the “shingle” on the beach at Brighton
could speak, what would be its boast?
Solution
She is as deaf as any post,
Incurable I fear;
She is my guest, I am her host,
How can I make her hear?
Solution
A May-Day Dirge
Refused, rejected as before!
Yes,[A]
... .. I know of yore.
..... of youth, and deadly foe
To genius. Eastward then I go
With ..... undaunted, and my name
Through ..... shall yet resound with fame;
And subjects shall be mine by scores
From far ..... to Ganges’ shores.
Solution
The clever play-writer who suggested these
words as a phonetic excuse for wife-beating
might in another fashion invite a man to beat
his wife by merely calling him. What would
he say?
Solution
storm? a th |
an umbrella me who |
with alls |
all mud. |
Solution
NRNRMMHDLVLDHMMRNRN.
Can you, keeping these consonants in their
order, fill in vowels so as to form a sentence
which is a perfect palindrome, and reads alike
from either end?
Solution
“Can you tell me,” said an undergraduate to
his tutor, who was great at Ecclesiastical Law,
“whether the Pope would be allowed to bury
the Archbishop of Canterbury?” As some
slight stress was laid on the syllables Canterbury,
the tutor for a moment suspected some trick,
but being assured that it was quite a serious
question, promised to consider the point.
What should he reply?
Solution
While there are very many as kind as this,
they know no task unkind. Can you dig a
proverb out from this sentence?
Solution
Kate gathers me where children three,
Tom, Jane, and Mary, chatter;
He leads the way, and then we see
The other two come at her!
Solution
Strange weather! What could equal it?
Yesterday sunshine and soft breezes, to-day a
summer cyclone raging noisily; then other
changes, as floods of fiercest rain eddy beneath
the blast.
Solution
Fill in the necessary vowels, and form thus
with these consonants in their present order a
perfect palindrome:—
RDRTPTPTRDR
It must read alike from either end.
Solution
My first we all do when we fail;
My next is heard in rain or hail;
My fourth a sheep of gender male;
My third is one without its tail;
My whole for foreign countries sail.
Solution
On the outer wall of a Western college this
was written: “Young women should set a good
example, for young men .... ......
....!”
What three words will give a most ambiguous
sense to the inscription?
Solution
I’m but a little letter, still
I have my duties to fulfil;
If off you take
My tail, and make
An alteration in my lot,
Though I seem shorter I am not.
Solution
Says Tom to Bill, “Pray tell me, sir,
Why is it that the devil,
In spite of all his naughty ways,
Can never be uncivil?”
Says Bill to Tom, “The answer’s plain
To any mind that’s bright;
Because the ... .’
........, sir,
Cannot be ... .’
.....!”
Can you supply the missing words?
Solution
Beneath the ..... which shade the lawn
Her bicycle she mounted,
And with a ....., ere she had gone
An hour, ten ..... she counted.
It rained, it snowed, but nought could stop her,
Till in the ..... she came a cropper!
Solution
On the comparatively new organ at Ober
Ammergau, on a brass plate above the keyboard,
is the following Latin inscription:—
QVI CHRISTI LAVDES CANTANT
SANCTÆ PASSIONIS SVÆ VIRTVTE
IN IPSO ET PATRE VNVM SINT
which may be freely rendered—“May those who
sing the praises of Christ be, by virtue of His
Sacred Passion, one in the Father and in Him.”
These lines contain a hidden point, beyond
their obvious interpretation. Can you discover
it?
Solution
A woman’s name
Of foreign fame,
Hers was a noble mind.
Now, sir, transpose,
And I suppose
No smaller thing you’ll find.
Solution
Pour avoir mon premier
Femme qui cache mon dernier
Manque souvent mon entier.
Solution
Let go! let go! you naughty first,
Or you will make my second;
A stream of words will then outburst,
Swift as my whole is reckoned.
Solution
My first is first when cruisers charge in line,
And oft in frosty skies is seen to shine.
Don’t spare my second if you would suggest
To an impulsive child the way that’s best.
My sporting whole, though now neglected grown,
Travelled by tube before the tube was known.
Solution
First of men we lead a measure,
Last we end the same.
Starting merrily, our pleasure
Is to finish lame.
Solution
Tom, home for the holidays, and in teasing
mood, declared that he could give his sister
quite a simple sentence of seven common words
of one syllable, which she could not produce
with her new typewriter. What was his
sentence?
Solution
This French charade, ascribed by some to
Lady Waterford, and by others to Voltaire,
has neat points:—
Mon premier est un tyran, mon second un horreur,
Mon tout est le diable lui-même.
Mais si mon premier est bon, mon second ne fait rien,
Et mon tout est le bonheur suprême.
Solution
Sydney Smith, when questioned as to the
value and satisfaction of a City feast, said:
“I cannot wholly value a dinner by the
.... ... ..”
Can you supply the finish
of his witty reply?
Solution
In youth exalted high in air,
Or bathing in the streamlet fair,
Nature to form me took delight
And clothed my body all in white;
My person tall and slender waist
On either side with fringes graced;
Till me that tyrant Man espied,
And dragg’d me from my mother’s side.
No wonder that I look so thin,
The monster stripp’d me to the skin;
My body flay’d, my hair he cropp’d,
And head and foot both off he lopp’d;
And then, with heart more hard than stone,
Pick’d all the marrow from my bone.
To vex me more, he took a freak
To slit my tongue, and make me speak.
But that which wonderful appears,
I speak to eyes and not to ears.
All languages I now command
Yet not a word I understand.
Solution
Happy in the possession of a Keen Kut, the
newest form of safety razor, and meeting a friend
whose chin bore painful traces of a less trusty
blade, an undergraduate who had a turn for
puzzles propounded this riddle: “What is the
difference between my razor and yours?” Can
you answer it?
Solution
The ship rode in an ....... bay,
Asleep ...... the master lay.
A ..... and rugged man was he
And, like a .... at home at sea.
Like swooping ... he caught his prey
Whene’er an .. came his way.
But while due . the needle kept
He in his cabin lay and slept.
The missing word in the first line has seven
letters; its first letter is cut off to form the
second missing word, and this process is repeated
throughout the seven lines.
Solution
When the tempest roars the loudest
Oft my first a shelter proves.
Say what fair one, though the proudest,
Spurns my next from one she loves?
When the storms of life are past
Earth provides my whole at last.
Solution
One syllable, I help to turn the scale
Of party strife or faction;
Recast me, and two syllables avail
To stop all further action.
Solution
Lines to an owl:—
HNLDTWRSTHGLMWL
THLVSTTHTTHLVSTTHWL
RNLDKSRHLLWTN
SLSTSSLMNSNDSLN
SMRNFLNNLVSTG
RFRHTNGHWLSTKNW
As a hint, the last line is:—
Or of your hooting howls to know.
Solution
Here is an excellent little exercise for patient
or quick-witted solvers:—
I’m free to-day, the old sire said,
O no cell now have I to dread;
For this one happy day to me
Are glen and hill and forest free.
I, if I will, can ride, or fish,
A pit can enter, if I wish,
In search of chalk or sand.
In peace alone I now can dine,
And sing to Anna’s lute at nine,
Nor fear a reprimand.
Each word or group of words in italics forms,
when the letters are shuffled and recast as an
anagram, a military title. Can you decipher
them?
Solution
My first transposed becomes a name
Which may quite mean be reckoned,
Two syllables combine the same,
With one or two for second.
My whole when fields are fresh and green,
And softly blows the wind,
Where the first signs of spring are seen
Within the woods we find.
Solution
Silent long is the wood-bird’s song,
Bare is the woodland bough;
For waving trees in wintry breeze
Have “no buds now.”
Can you recast the three words at the end,
so that their letters form a word descriptive of
the scene?
Solution
A farmer with children sixteen
Killed the fattest young lamb of his flock.
To divide it these children between,
What must be the time by the clock?
Solution
To the far end of any train
Hitch on a pair of neddies;
Then you will hear, like steps of Cain,
The threat that in their tread is.
Solution
Take all the alphabet and cast
Its final letter out;
Then set the first where was the last,
And this you bring about:
Without a cook, without a fire,
A dainty dish which men desire.
Solution
My second with my first we greet;
My whole in earlier days
Gave understanding to the feet
That moved in tragic plays.
Solution
Here is another proverb in anagram:—
Behest on thy lips, Society!
Can you recast it, and so recover the proverb,
with which it is quite in keeping?
Solution
An epidemic of anagrams broke out in a
public school, and eight of the prefects, having
turned their Christian names into other words,
fashioned from them this sentence, which
contains them all in order.
“I, thy Tom, am sober and lie or live in
dew, but her brain sinned.”
Can you decipher them?
Solution
In any coward’s company you find
That I have place.
Cut off my head, and from your mind
All wrong erase.
Solution
My first elect among the few,
Chooses my second to expose his view.
1. Of various colours, changed at will,
1. I sit or stand for good or ill.
2. I rule alone from noon till night,
2. And when I am not am is right.
Solution
Why should a man in a rage go to a
“shooting gallery?” Each word has its
complete anagram.
Solution
Let her be or beat her,
Give her little ease;
Then in safety seat her
All among the bees!
Solution
“We,” cried my first and second,
“Are not quite satisfied.”
“The story may be reckoned
Imperfect,” fourth replied.
Said third, “The fact indeed I tell,”
And so at last all ended well.
Solution
“I dare not admit faint women.”
Can you recast these words so that their
letters form a well-known proverb?
Solution
My first and second are as best they should be,
My third in Latin mouth is what it would be.
My whole would soon be ashes if it could be.
Solution
Since Spooks, a ...... man is he,
...... this haunted house to me,
In ......
funk I ...... round,
And fear a ghost in every sound!
The missing words are spelt with the same
letters.
Solution
What is that which is found in the centre of
Australia and of America, and in no other
place?
Solution
“It’s grandfather’s turn,” cried the children
at a Christmas party where jokes and riddles
have been rife.
With a quiet twinkle in his eye, the old man
said, “Do you know why is the fourth of
July?” Not one of them could understand
or answer his question, which seemed to lack
finish and grammar. Can you?
Solution
My first is never far away,
My next in Latin found;
My third may rage by night or day;
All make melodious sound.
Solution
Through the ...... trees
Softly coo the doves;
Let a ...... breeze
...... youthful loves!
Solution
At starting, half your income take,
Then for my second write;
And let your table help to make
The total cosy quite.
Solution
My whole is a circle complete,
Beheaded I fall to your feet.
Behead me again and I fry,
Or am baked in a savoury pie.
Solution
Can you recast these short sentences into six
single words?
See a pug dog.Red paper.
Fat reward.
Stay, O morn.Set on a dish.
Solution
If my whole by my second and first you divide,
One more than ten thousand it gives.
In the land of my birth I have dwindled and died,
In museums my memory lives.
Solution
Though never present, I appear,
Of perfect form a token;
And all that centres round my ear
Is heard, though never spoken.
Solution
Behead me twice, and it shall be
That I my perfect self regain;
Restore both heads and you shall see
That most perfect I remain.
Solution
Grant, lady, grant your ..... his whim,
And give the coming ..... to him,
For this will ..... his jealous heart,
Stricken so sore by Cupid’s dart.
If not he ..... his hands of you,
To seek fresh ..... and pastures new.
Solution
“Yes, yes, I know,” said Jack to Jill,
“That thirty-two is freezing-point;
And I can tell you, if you will,
Exactly what is squeezing-point!”
Solution
To fifty add a third of one,
A third to five attach;
You have the means, when this is done,
To kindle any match.
Solution
The untrained .......... in the City
Is robbed by .......... without pity.
The missing words are spelt with the same
ten letters.
Solution
Comes Christmas merry? Hungry birds; no
bright berries; rents high, not paid; long bills;
empty barns; no peace and prosperity.
How can we amend this gloomy forecast?
Solution
Six common plants are concealed by anagram
in the following sentence. The letters which
spell each plant follow each other, but are in
disorder.
O rise love it lad never let this lamb chase
trains.
Solution
My first is quite a sin by name,
My third its simple cure;
My second puts an end to fame,
My whole of ease is sure.
Solution
Cut off my head, it is unshaken,
Cut off my tail, you turn it round;
But if both head and tail are taken,
Unconquered still I hold my ground.
Solution
Why should we quarrel, First and Third,
With nought between us but a word?
Let Third leave Second unessayed
To heal the breach these letters made.
If your solution be but fair
You find my whole disjointed there.
Solution
“Next week,” wrote Funniboy from Naples to
his friend, “I am going to ‘plant onions, etc.’
Let me hear from you.” How did his friend
gather his destination from these words?
Solution
In haunted house to sleep I tried
My dread first was my chum.
“With second of my first,” I cried,
“My whole I should become.”
Solution
My first is possessive and second;
My second possessive and first.
Such banks most attractive are reckoned
By those for rich treasure athirst.
Solution
RPLVLSLVLPR
Can you insert the missing letters, and complete
the palindrome so that it reads alike from
either end?
Solution
“Now, dad,” said Tom Pickles to his father
in the Christmas holidays, “take this bottle in
your left hand, and when I say ‘three!’ try
how far you can blow the cork into it.”
The cork, smaller than the neck of the bottle,
was placed just inside, and as Tom cried, “One,
two, three!” his father gave a lusty blow.
What was the result?
Solution
When are acorns as strong as oaken posts?
Solution
PTTPBTNTNTBPTTPBTNTNTBPTTP.
Can you add the vowels, and make a
palindrome that reads alike from either end?
Solution
The ..... of Shakespeare and of song
Have fair and dainty features;
But she I ..... my hopes upon
Excels those lovely creatures.
From ..... she .....
her name so dear,
She lives on ..... and honey;
She cannot ..... but she can steer,
And Madeline has money.
Solution
A politician used a high-flown phrase, which
implied inaccurate wording, though some spoke
of it as dust thrown in people’s eyes. Can
you recover the two long words which he used,
by anagram, from this sentence?
Axiomatic intelligence, or dust.
Solution
My first your bosom friend, or man or maid,
Whom you can trust, secure and unafraid.
My second, sounded double, tells of fate,
Or sounded single puts an end to hate.
My whole a hall’s arched roof, or soft or hard,
That lies beyond the gate with ivory barr’d.
Solution
Woman without her man would be helpless.
Solution
Can you recast these short sentences so that
each of them forms a single word?
A moment’s cure.
The old rocks.
Cod is nice.
It lures a cat.
Solution
Without my head I circulate
With speed and inclination;
Without my tail, at any rate,
I still have circulation.
Transpose three letters, in unbroken state,
I then receive the ashes of the great.
Solution
Many will remember how often the great
tenor, Sims Reeves, was prevented from singing
by his delicate throat. An excellent anagram
can be evolved from his name which, with
some exaggeration, proclaims this. Can you
discover it?
Solution
Consuming lust for ....., now so rife,
Like .....
..... mars both love and life.
Solution
Here are the bones of a palindrome sentence
that might be spoken by some unhappy
criminal lunatic. Can you clothe them with
their vowels, so that the sentence reads alike
from either end?
MNCLVDDVLCNM.
Solution
And as trim bees rise or go,
A long aim I’d say, a libel O!
Fruit and flowers are hidden here in anagrams,
each in its order separately.
Solution
NOW ONE OLD FORT.
What place is this?
RABID OWL.
Change this bird into a beast.
Solution
Alas, for that forgotten day
When chivalry was nourish’d,
When none but friars learn’d to pray,
And beef and beauty flourish’d;
And fraud in kings was held accursed,
And falsehood sin was reckon’d,
And mighty chargers bore my first,
And fat monks wore my second!
Ah, then I carried sword and shield
And casque with flaunting feather,
And earn’d my spurs in battle-field,
In winter and rough weather;
And polish’d many a sonnet up
To ladies’ eyes and tresses;
And learn’d to drain my father’s cup,
And loose my falcon’s jesses!
But dim is now my grandeur’s gleam,
The mongrel mob grows prouder;
And everything is done by steam,
And men are kill’d by powder;
And now I feel my swift decay,
And give unheeded orders;
And rot in paltry state away
With sheriffs and recorders.
Solution
My first you oft savagely pierce through and through;
My next harbours nonsense, and wisdom, and dust;
But, oh! what disaster might chance to accrue,
Should my whole, from my second, step into my first!
Solution
My whole describes the action of a gale,
Decapitation makes an organ play.
Behead again, it sounds o’er hill and vale;
Again, it tells of what we do not pay.
Take nothing off, it is an eagle’s sail.
Again behead, and half a string denote;
Again, and lo! a horse’s head and tail;
And last of all on music’s notes I float.
Solution
Society—how her enthusiasts worship at her
Juggernaut car. Cases exist here, proving how
illogical are these eagle-sighted, place-hunting
beings, scoffing at hereditary position, yet
striving to get her smile.
A well-known proverb is buried in this
sentence. Can you dig it out?
Solution
What should we put on a bird’s tail to catch
it without a steel trap?
Solution
Across my first, with flash and roar,
The stately vessel glides alone.
And mournful on the crowded shore
There stands an aged crone,
Watching my second’s parting smile,
As he bids farewell to his native isle.
My whole comes back to other eyes,
With beauteous change of fruit and flowers,
But dim to her are those bright skies,
And sad those joyous hours;
For, alas! my first is dark and deep,
And my second cannot hear her weep.
Solution
When morning dawned, and the tide was out,
The pair crossed over ’neath Allah’s ..........,
And the Arab was happy beyond a doubt,
For he had the best donkey in all that §.
You are wrong! They were drowned in crossing over,
Though the donkey was bravest of all his ....;
He luxuriates now in perpetual clover,
And his master has gone to the prophet’s em⏞.
Solution
A ..... .....
on ....’. strands
Caught Pat’s heart in her meshes;
He left the ..... in Cupid’s hands,
And watched her ..... her tresses;
Tresses of ..... coloured gold,
Veiling, like any frock,
A tail which, as it did unfold,
Gave to poor Pat a shock.
Solution
Where can you be “in a stone-pine garden”?
Solution
No ..... sympathy was ever shown,
Than when ..... news from Kingston
..... was known.
The three missing words are spelt with the
same five letters.
Solution
What bodily discomfort follows an ague-fit?
Solution
Can you readjust the 16 letters in this square
so that they form a perfect word square?
| I |
E |
I |
T |
| I |
S |
A |
S |
| A |
S |
I |
S |
| E |
D |
E |
D |
Image
Solution
What European rivers are concealed in these
eight anagrams:—Set in red robe Henri Le Roi
O sell me red pine nerves biter.
Solution
Rearrange these letters so that they form a
palindrome, or sentence that reads alike from
either end:—
F PPPP RRRR SSSS TT
EEEEII OOOO
Solution
What political parrot cry can be evolved by
anagram from this sentence, which condemns it?
O fool! O musty cry! O lurid woe!
Solution
What statesman’s name was a “terrible
poser?”
Solution
Can you recast the letters of this sentence into
a well-known English proverb?
Yea, a glad sun rose red.
Solution
Has there been a poet of unusual solemnity?
Solution
No, no, I hardly ever touch
The thing which many love so much.
It has a place within these lines,
But is taboo where Delia dines.
Solution
“Yes,” said young Biceps of St Boniface,
who had failed to satisfy the examiners, “they
have ploughed me in Euclid, and yet if I had
half a chance I could teach them how to
square a circle!”
“Bravo, Biceps!” cried his chum, who was
helping him to drown dull care in fruity port,
“don’t keep the great secret to yourself!”
And so he told him—what?
Solution
When his friend had recovered from the
shock of the atrocity described in our last, he
retaliated by assuring Biceps that he could
extract a circle from a given square. What
was his method?
Solution
He said, “You ......” when one lied,
He said, “Don’t ......” when one sped,
His glass held ...... at his side;
He can ...... what he denied.
As all your wits “entranced” you bend
To find the key omit the end.
Solution
My captive second, sulking in my first,
Might surlily bemoan his fate accurst;
Bemoan, or as alternative you find
My whole the word that fits his state of mind.
For meet enclosure, you can take a score
Of captive seconds, first deducting four.
Solution
THGLBDWNWSLLLDSTFTHLT,
MNFTNRDRNRGTNNTHSPT.
Add two vowels alternately to complete the
couplet.
Solution
Can you discover by anagram what his
brother was when he put “Tim in a pet?”
Solution
Who knows the .... a land may know
Famed for its ...., and long ago
A .... of sage and seer.
The native there, so full of tricks,
To .... his hunger
.... with sticks,
Nor knows his ways are queer!
Solution
If doubled you would see my first
Let third and second be reversed.
But if my last you would behold
Increase my first a hundredfold.
Combine them all, and you can trace
The four within an empty space.
Solution
In the words welcome to a thirsty toiler,
“Mower, I will tap the cask!” are hidden by
anagram the names of an English poet and of
one of his poems. Can you discover them?
Solution
My first is small, and seldom reverential;
My next not large enough to heed or prize;
My whole is altogether consequential;
My third, though small, is counted very wise.
Solution
To be
aaaaaaaaaa
tCrIiOfUlSes
standing
is the mark of a mean
Solution
Can you recast the letters that spell RED
NUTS AND GIN so that they form one long
word?
Solution
Can you rearrange these letters so that they
form the title of a well-known novel by Charles
Dickens?
CDEHHIILOOOPRSSTTUY
Solution
In swift ...... the beaters add
Fresh ...... to the heaps of slain;
And still, with lust of slaughter mad,
The ...... plies his hand amain!
The missing words are spelt with the same
six letters.
Solution
My first is nothing but a name,
My second still more small,
My whole shows such a lack of fame
It has no name at all.
Solution
“If father gives us a new dog, it will wake
the lazy ones!” Can you discover from these
words which of his children were often late for
breakfast?
Solution
NGOTRDSREAOHR
ETNSVEENUDOEO
Can you decipher the common proverb here
concealed?
Solution
Well known by story, not by name,
I died a death unknown before,
Nor ever to corruption came;
My shroud the waves cast on the shore.
Solution
How might an oyster, if it could speak, and
knew that unda is Latin for wave or water, complain
in similar phonetic iteration when disturbed
by thunder under unda?
Solution
When ....., our puppy, sets out for a run,
Over ..... he .....,
all frolic and fun;
For no whistle ..... he in his desperate hurry,
The slow sheep to ....., and the old cow to worry.
The five missing words are spelt with the
same five letters.
Solution
Bad hero set by thy door hurt me ma. Army
may get ruder daily.
Ten girls’ names are here in anagrams.
Solution
Lord Beaconsfield’s statue,
True as old ———
Can you can complete this anagram?
Solution
These three lines are perfect anagrams of
three consecutive lines in “Romeo and Juliet,”
Act II., Scene V.:—
The tub sold has old rough shelves.
And e’en this fisherman caught best white smelts.
A living lord’s black dress, worn high, I vow!
Can you discover the original lines?
Solution
That mystical gnome never flinches from toil
Who ...... the ......
in Orient soil;
Yet ...... mortals will ever abound
To ...... all the soil till the treasure is found.
Solution
My feathered first has wings and sings,
Unfledged my second swings its wings;
My third on blackest pinions flies,
My fourth can float beneath the skies.
The letters to my first that fall
Are the initials of them all.
| ◯ |
◯ |
◯ |
◯ |
| ◯ |
● |
● |
● |
| ◯ |
● |
● |
● |
| ◯ |
● |
● |
● |
Image
Can you substitute words which fulfil the
conditions?
Solution
My first was of the ...... breed,
Their ..... captain, hot and riled,
To .... his men found vain indeed,
They only ... and smoked, and smiled!
One letter is dropped each time.
Solution
Can you convert HARE into SOUP, using
not more than six links, changing only one
letter with each link, and preserving the order
of the letters from link to link?
Solution
Putting two small beasts that you take
To the beginning of an end,
A pointed weapon you will make
To wound a foe or praise a friend.
Solution
If a “newspaper” could speak, what might
it say of the general work of its staff?
Solution
How can you turn the positive quantity 1011
into a negative?
Solution
What one word can you form from the
sentence—
“O, I’m man’s trial!”
Solution
EEE and xxx URXXI XXX and eee.
Solution
Why may not the owner of a pine forest fell
his timber?
Solution
He ....... to be .......
as a wonderful shot
But he potted the dog, and ....... was his lot!
The missing words are spelt with the same
seven letters.
Solution
Can you change ARMY into NAVY with
seven links, changing one letter every time, and
preserving their sequence?
Solution
‘I excel not by a pun’—
Turn these six words into one.
Solution
When is an onion like music?
Solution
What is the bitter cry of “Christianity?”
Solution
Show by anagram that a Conservative is
constant to his cause.
Solution
Christmas Day and New Year’s Day fall as a
rule upon the same day of the week. Can
any ingenious reader discover why they will not
fall upon the same day of the week in the
year 1910.
Solution
“War is a game which, were their subjects wise,
Kings would not play at,” wrote the poet’s pen;
But in war’s issue will be staked the prize,
While kings and subjects are but erring men;
So Britain—native empress of the seas—
On ocean cradled, by her storm-king nursed—
Friend of the fallen, guardian of the free,
Rests on her well-tried last and trusty first.
Her first alone can well maintain her right,
Unscathed by any threat or mutinous blast;
And though, when needed, foremost in the fight,
Her first (strange paradox!) is always last!
But should the tide of war approach the shore
And threaten to engulf her island seat,
My whole, replying with defiant roar,
Would crash the audacious foe beneath her feet!
Solution
My first is flogged to make it move the faster,
And turns at once to satisfy its master.
My next will ripen as a pleasant fruit,
For those whose simple taste its flavours suit.
My whole, when breezes blow and pennons fly,
Stands up aloft and points us to the sky.
Solution
A noun there is, of plural number,
In daily use from here to Humber.
Now almost any noun you take
By adding “S” you plural make;
But if you add an “S” to this,
Strange is the metamorphosis!
Plural is plural now no more;
Useless what useful was before.
Solution
First, a semi-circle make,
Add to this another
Figure of two little lines
Meeting with each other;
Then a perfect circle form,
Truly, neat, compactly,
Add another form to these,
Like the first exactly;
Then, to make it all complete,
Form a kind of angle,
With a straight line, that should meet
In a kind of tangle;
When you this have rightly done
(’Tis the truth I’m telling),
You will get an article
Useful in a dwelling:
Should you this decapitate,
You may have another
Article, which, in its place,
Is useful as the other.
Solution
Veiling the leas, my first may steep
Late autumn’s listless air;
And with my tainting second creep
On idle spade and share.
When happy days link soul to soul,
And sunny faces shine,
May both combined, a subtle whole,
Be far from me and mine!
Solution
Old Charlie Brown, who a big rogue was reckoned,
Was brought up at my first for making my second;
He was fined, and because he no money would pay
Had to work with my whole on the King’s highway.
Solution
Complete, I grow within a field
And pleasant pasture often yield;
Behead me once, a suitor then
Is quickly brought before your ken;
Behead again, I am a word
That on the cricket-ground is heard.
Restore my heads, cut off my tail,
To name a spice you’ll not then fail;
Behead me now, and you will find
The master passion left behind.
Put on my head, my tail restore,
Complete me as I was before,
My second letter take away,
An envelope I am, you’ll say;
But now curtail me just once more,
I am an inlet on the shore.
Solution
My second is double my first,
My first is but half of my second;
And I’m sure you’ll admit that my whole
Is ten times the latter when reckon’d.
Solution
My first I went the other day,
And pretty surely reckon’d
A basket of fine fish to catch,
With hook and rod and second.
But I was out in reckoning;
A very pretty she
Of her fair face show’d just my whole—
And pretty soon hook’d me.
Solution
Of mirth the parent, though the child of art,
A stranger to myself in every part;
Each India has a native in my breast,
The West my sweetness, and my fire the East.
While milder climes my virtue to complete,
Quicken my softness, and correct my heat;
My dearest friends upon my vitals prey,
And as they see me sinking, grow more gay.
Solution
When my whole takes a flight in the air you will find
That my next is not left a great distance behind;
But join them together, and plain to your view
It all is as firm and as tight as a screw.
Solution
To three-fourths of a cross, add a circle complete;
Then, let two semi-circles a perpendicular meet;
Next, add a triangle that stands on two feet;
Then, two semi-circles, and a circle complete.
Solution
Leader of Vandals and of vice
My head is reckoned;
A Turkish captain will suffice
To be my second.
My third is firm if well selected;
My whole a wanderer neglected.
Solution
One thousand, two hundred,
Nothing, and one,
Transposed, give a word
Expressive of fun.
Solution
My first was creeping on his way
Through the mists of a dull October day,
When a minstrel came to its muddy bed,
With a harp on his shoulder, a wreath on his head;
“And how shall I reach,” the poor boy cried,
“To the courts and the cloisters on t’other side?”
Old Euclid came, and he frown’d a frown,
And he dash’d the harp and the garland down;
Then he led the bard, with a stately march,
O’er my second’s long and cellar’d arch;—
“And see,” said the sage, “how every ass
Over the sacred stream must pass!”
The youth was mournful, the youth was mute,
He sigh’d for his laurel, he sobb’d for his lute;—
The youth took comfort, the youth took snuff,
And follow’d the lead of that teacher gruff;
And he sits, ever since, in my whole’s kind lap,
In a silken gown and a trencher cap.
Solution
Upright and honest is my first;
My second you may see
Upon the frozen lake or stream;
My whole is equity.
Solution
Never wearied, see us stand,
A glittering and a stately band—
Of sturdy stuff, but graceful form,
In summer cold, in winter warm;
From hottest duty never swerving,
Night and day our place preserving;
Each serving to a different use,
Not to be changed without abuse.
And, pray, mark well another fact—
In unison we never act,
Except, as on occasion dread,
We watch the ashes of the dead;
When we are ranged, as you may see
As awful sentries, one, two, three.
Solution
My first, though naught, with others is a fruit,
My next is vital to both man and brute.
It should be dear to all who hate the devil,
For it is ever the reverse of evil.
My all, when whole, is eloquent of peace,
Divided it invokes to life that will not cease.
Solution
Guess at my first, ’tis easy to discover,
Covered with rings, and whiskered like a dandy.
Wrapped up in furs, ’tis often on the housetop,
Oft in the chimney!
See where my second, scorning to be hidden,
Stands at the head of quite a band of others,
Like a virago, straddling with feet apart,
And arms akimbo.
Surely my next is happy in its office,
Parting the lovelocks on Neæra’s forehead;
Setting the golden lines wherewith she angles
For the unwary.
If by my whole at any time you pass, you
Tread on the dust of holy saints and martyrs,
Holy the place, may holy thoughts attend you,
Peacefully dreaming!
Solution
Offspring of nature and of art, I stand
Chief ’midst the monuments of every land;
I may not lengthen life, but I
For centuries forbid to die.
The greatest truth in me you meet
Is but deception most complete.
Unchanged I last the changing crowds among,
And as I older grow, I grow too young.
Solution
Pronounced as one letter, and written with three,
Two letters there are, and two only in me;
I’m double, I’m single, I’m black, blue, and gray,
I’m read from both ends, and the same either way.
Solution
My first is false as false can be;
My next old ladies wear;
My whole’s my first, as you will see,
As false, I do declare.
Solution
When whole I am indeed a thing
To puzzle you a bit;
Though parts of me are hard, at Bridge
The others make a hit;
Or you may make a car of some,
And fix a head to it.
Solution
A word of nine letters explains
How to mitigate bodily pains;
The five vowels are there,
And four consonants share
This function for medical brains.
Solution
My second guides my first and third
For pleasure, trade, and war;
My first and second by my third
Are oft transported far.
But when my first my third doth pull,
’Tis then his lot is worst;
And should my second lack my whole,
He’s apt to leave my first.
Solution
It is a ...... fact that neither ......
nor ...... grow ..
.....
Solution
DRWNDRRDNWRD.
Insert the missing letters, and so form a
perfect palindrome, which reads alike from either
end.
Solution
The schoolboy likes me well,
For healthful sport I bring,
Yet I can harm create,
Though such a little thing:
Connubial bliss is form’d by me;
My nature is equality.
Solution
What person’s name is doubly evil?
The answer may be given in a line that rhymes.
Solution
I’m a district near London;
If made wrong, I come undone;
O’er sweet strings I swift run,
Or appear with the bright sun,
And though by me fights were won,
I can greet you every one.
Solution
I am my first when seen with you,
My next is always bad.
A rogue in grain much harm may do
And make the farmer mad.
Solution
When winter comes with frost and cold,
My first is welcome, as of old;
And though its grip may make you thinner,
It helps to cook your Christmas dinner.
Let me but hear my next rejoice
At early dawn with cheerful voice,
I haste to find, with eager pleasure,
Some specimen of hidden treasure.
A traveller my whole may find
Far from his English kith and kind;
Though some at home, to England’s shame,
Are this in fact, if not in name.
Solution
It was to-morrow, and
It will be yesterday;
Now it is near at hand
What is it? Who can say?
Solution
My first doth fill with light his father’s eyes,
The second shadows all the mother’s brow;
My whole all men, all women, girls and boys,
Have had, and long to lose, and lost for ever now;
But know not, nor can know, when it was lost, and how.
Solution
Complete, though not of human race,
A soul in me may dwell;
Behead, I held a higher place,
Until, like man, I fell.
Again behead, and in the song
Of Burns I’m all your own;
Behead once more, it would be wrong
To find me out when known.
Solution
With head good for naught,
And with tail always drunk,
You know well what to say
Of the worth of my trunk.
First cut off my tail,
I am Greek, and I’m not;
Then cut off my head,
And some Latin you’ve got.
Lopping both you know best
What remains, as I said,
For I really am you
If I lose tail and head!
Solution
One guiding eye I need
In running through the gaps;
My tail, as on I speed,
Is caught in many traps.
Solution
In the ’seventies no one was more popular
at Simpson’s Chess Room in the Strand than
the gentle and brilliant subject of these lines,
a clever water-colourist. The charade is by
his friend, the well-known problem composer.
Both have passed away, but they are not
forgotten by those who had the happiness to
know them:—
Of all the birds that ever sought a mate,
My first is to but one appropriate,
So speak the word! nor silence shyly woo.
To find my next, go! wander in the Zoo!
My whole is a magician of the squares,
But Art, with Chess, his best affections shares,
So this, indeed, to him may be a law
When winning’s hopeless, grandly still to draw.
Solution
Though poor and humble was my birth
I sit enthroned on high;
My footsteps far above the earth,
My canopy the sky.
O’er toiling subjects thus in state
I bear despotic sway;
Yet on them hand and foot I wait
At break and close of day.
Solution
I am not of flesh and blood,
Yet have I many a bone;
No limbs, except one leg,
And can’t stand on that alone.
My friends are many, and dwell
In all lands of the human race;
But they poke my poor nose into the mud,
And shamefully spatter my face.
Thrust me into each other’s ribs,
Stick me in gutter and rut;
I have never a window, and never a door,
Yet I often open and shut.
Solution
Before the crown descended on
The head of England’s Queen,
Four Kings upon that royal throne
Of the same name had been.
Now if the signs which marked their name
Be joined unto a beast,
We have a food on which the same
(A quadruped) will feast.
Solution
I am pretty, and useful in various ways,
Though I tempt some poor mortals to shorten their days;
Behead me, and then in my place will appear
What youngsters admire every day in the year;
Behead me once more, and without any doubt,
You must be what is left if you don’t find it out.
Solution
My first, when skilfully performed
(Its doer by applauses warmed),
Bespeaks both skill and vigour.
When with my whole, so soft and light,
I saw my second gay bedight,
She made a splendid figure.
Solution
The man who ..... the common
.....
Above the ..... chaste,
..... as he may, the world declares
Is not a man of taste.
And though my sympathy he shares,
No ..... on him I waste!
Solution
When a monk in old times, unexpectedly heated,
Endangered the peace of his soul,
To atone for my second my first he repeated
Quite ten times a day on my whole.
Solution
An insect small and fell
Makes a weird sound,
If, as its name you spell,
You turn it round.
One letter cast, and still
Shift what remains,
Another insect will
Reward your pains.
Solution
Where head and body duly meet
I am as slender as a bee;
Whether I stand on head or feet
My figure shows its symmetry.
But when my head is cut away
The metamorphosis is strange;
Though both of them unaltered stay,
Body and head to nothing change.
Solution
First is in coast, second in ghost,
Third must be reckoned part of second;
Fourth in boat, fifth in float,
Sixth you will find within your mind.
Seventh in blue, eighth in true,
These letters tell a fruit that they spell.
Solution
The hunter and his steed are known
My first to see.
Though men may call my next a stone,
Wood it may be.
My whole, an exile from his home,
Is doomed from place to place to roam.
Solution
My first expresses power to do,
My next that it is done.
To be my whole belongs to few,
And perfectly to none.
Solution
In my first, as in a shell,
All the sweetest sounds may dwell;
In my second, shells abound
That can catch no sort of sound;
In my whole securely rest
Those who neither jeer nor jest.
Solution
My first, though of the feathered kind
Is never known to fly;
My next all who improve their mind
Seize as it passes by.
My whole may much occasion find
To make the truthful lie.
Solution
Divide a piece of beef or pork
Without the aid of knife and fork;
It gives a shelf, rejoined with skill,
Where you may set this if you will.
Strike off instead the end, its place
Is plain as nose upon your face.
Cut this asunder in your mind,
And what is first put now behind;
Part of our foot you thus discover,
And in a measure all is over.
Solution
Seen as a whole, my form is now
Akin to strife and malice;
Split, it may grace a princely brow,
Or crown the curls of Alice.
Recast my letters, and I tell
That nourishment is lacking;
Stir them afresh until they spell
The needle’s help in tacking.
Solution
If I write with my first in my second
My whole you can never find out;
Add a letter, and all will be reckoned
A patron of water devout.
Solution
After officers’ mess, when cigars were well
alight, the old conundrum was propounded,
“What is most like a cornet of horse?” A
sharp sub. was ready with the reply, “A
hornet, of course”; it was presently capped by
this variant which occurred to a married captain,
“a corset of horn”; and yet another reading
was suggested by the deaf old colonel, “How
much did you say the ..............”
Can you complete this?
Solution
Loss of love between us
Never can be nice;
Yet we live where Venus
Changes us to ice.
Solution
Tell me, my sweet,
Why are your feet
Like fairy tales?
Solution
Our parson ....... every man who has leisure
To study ....... windows, the glory of fanes;
And ....... of devoting his income to pleasure,
Our ....... old dean spends his money on panes.
Solution
Though much attached to merriment,
Or crime for a variety,
To prison I am never sent,
But sparkle in society.
Solution
Without my first and second’s aid
No pudding worth its sauce is made.
Take on my third, my fourth I am,
My fifth includes myself and Sam.
My whole describes the royal fiddler Nero,
And shows him as an unheroic hero.
Solution
What geographical names are buried in these
lines?
He has my R. N. as a monogram
I am her stupid sister.
The calmest man is sometimes made irate.
Solution
My first’s a fruit of foreign clime,
Sweet to the taste, in price not dear;
My second does my first produce,
And yet my whole my first doth bear.
Solution
A thing of beauty, scattered by a breath,
My firm embrace is harbinger of death;
Not made by hands, a work of wondrous art,
Complete and perfected in every part;
Crush me to-day with all-determined care,
Then look to-morrow, and I shall be there!
Solution
Six letters in my name are found,
Though only three we see and sound;
The shepherd by the running river
May hear me where the rushes quiver;
And should a stroke my whole divide,
Leaving but half on either side,
These, backward read, will surely tell
What many a toper loves too well.
Solution
Upon a battle-field of learned men
Hundred and fifty were by none divided.
“Now,” said the bishop, “add two-thirds of ten
And so you’ll guess the riddle just as I did.”
Solution
Though the stations of mortals are many
And the last is the head of his race;
Yet he, just as often as any,
Is won by my first’s fell embrace;
Yet we most of us apt are to fall,
When our heads cease our hearts to control,
Let us hope that not one of us all
May be e’er in the state of my whole.
Solution
My whole is no matter,
And light as the air,
Yet it is good on the platter,
And excellent fare.
Curtail and transpose,
And a lady you see,
Who will flatter and pose,
And with many do me.
Solution
My first, for ages out of mind,
All men have always worn behind;
And yet alike by sea and land
They carry it upon their hand.
My second, carefully matured,
Is never ill but often cured.
My whole, within unchanging lines
Black men and white alike confines.
Solution
“We westand fall.”
Solution
My second is pressed tightly round
To guard from any ill;
And when preparing to engage,
Men find it useful still.
My first against attraction set
Will neutralise its power;
Aided by it, with bargains, some
May spend a happy hour.
You find my whole by careful search
Which must not be forsaken;
It stands before what comes beyond,
Which may from it be taken.
Solution
George Thompson, the zealous anti-slavery
advocate, was asked to go into Parliament, the
better to press his point and cause. When he
hesitated a friend produced, as a conclusive
reason, this anagram, spelt with the letters of
his name—“O go, the negro’s M.P.!”
Scorned by the meek and humble mind,
And often by the vain possessed,
Heard by the deaf, seen by the blind,
I give the troubled spirit rest.
Solution