An Ingenious Cipher

Somo ycars a;r says the Detroit Free l'ress, the irienda of a Parisian thief adopted a deoidedly unique mcthfd of carrying on a clandestino correspondence withhlm while he was awaiting trial. One day the jailer was visited by the prisoner's betrothed, who asked him to give her lover an envelope. This upon being opened was f ound to contain siinply a small lock of herhair. around whioh was folded a leaf of a book. The jailer di.l not consider it worth his while to doliver this souvenir to the culprit, and, Üierefore, threw it aside. A day or two later a similar inclosure was handed in at the prison gate and shared the fate of its predecessors. In the course of a week another was left by the same person. This aroused the suspicion of the governor of the prison, to whom had been detailed the circumstances. He determined to investígate the meaning and accordingly first examined the printed leaf. This he fouud was torn from a novel and contained twenty-six hnes on eaen side. lic then turned his attention to the haiV and discovered that there were twentysix pieees of unequal lenoth. This pr.zzled hito for ówhilej asnd then suddenly jumping to thi: io:'' it there must be spme connectijn betwean the number of the príñtefl unes and the number of hairs, he 1 Ad each of the ! ter the line of the pa?e they i spectively reached, beginning with the shortest Mair, nt top oí the leaf. After changing them about several times he discoverod that each hair pointed to a different letter, and the combraation thus produced formed a slang sentence, by nieans of which the prisoner was given to understand thr.t his friends had aseertained the day on which hc was to be taken to court and were determined to make a bold attempt to rescue him as soon as he made his appearance. Takinrj the cue, the govemor adopted every precaution to frústrate the welllaid plans of the outsiders; the attempt was made and, as a natural consequence, the conspirators soon found themselves in the same condition as the one for whom they had planned the rescue.