EVERY COLLECTION of tricks and puzzles gives the famous old missing vowel inscription: P R S V R Y P R F C T M N V R K P T H S P R C P T S T N, which is to be found over the entrance to an ancient monastery in England, it is stated that the inscription was originally painted in red and black, and that the red letters, which were all Es. Had faded out, which makes it quite an interesting problem to restore the missing vowels. Many years ago I visited the monastery, and after a careful examination of the inscription became satisfied that the same was purposely intended to be in the nature of a secret cipher, especially as several complete books of a religious nature were published with all of the vowels omitted.
To the left of the entrance there is a large memorial window, which is shown as a specimen of early workmanship in colored glass, but so far as I am aware, no history or explanation regarding it has ever been offered. As fitting, however, to the inscription over the door and in view of their having originally been ten of these windows, I ask our puzzlists to look upon the accompanying illustration of the window in the light of a remarkable charade puzzle, in which one of the “precepts ten” is cleverly concealed.
Our clever puzzlists who were familiar with the ancient couplet:
“Persevere ye perfect men, Ever keep these precepts ten,”
found no difficulty in reading one of the “precepts ten” so shown in the window. It is translated to be C on T in U in hole in S, which may he read: “Continue in holiness.”
2. A REBUS.
Ever running on my race,
Never staying at one place.
Through the world I make my tour,
Everywhere at the same hour.
If you please to spell my name,
Reversed or forward ‘tis the same?
Cypher Ans. 14, 15, 15, 14.
NOON
4. A REBUS.
My first might well be called a squeeze.
My next may be defined a nod;
My whole a sham, or cheap alloy
Resembling that for which we plod.
Cipher Ans. 16, 9, 14, 3, 8, 2, 5, 3, 11.
PINCHBECK
5. A REBUS.
My first is a part of the day,
My last a conductor of light.
My whole to take measure of time,
Is useful by day and by night.
Hour glass.
6.
I am a word of three letters, signifying to spoil or injure. Reversed I am an animal. Transposed, I am a part of the human frame.
Mar, Arm, Ram.
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