FAMILY FUN

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 10, 7 March 1907, Page 38

FAMILY FUN

Among the recreations (says the ' Aye Maria ') to which earlier generations gave more- time and attention than does the present one, the literary puzzle deserves notice. The following, familiar perhaps to cur older readers, may interest the young -folk. A complete sentence, hidden in the following formula, has frequently proved a poser even for clever people :—: — C C SI.Noting that S I spells 'is ' backward," and that the C C's are above, or on, the S I, we get : 'The sea- - son is , backward.' This plan of substituting actual position for\such words as 'once,' 'over,' 'under,' etc, . is often followed in the literary puzzle. An old-time instance is — Stand take to taking. I you throw my, ! which is read : ' I understand you undertake to overthrow my undertaking.' - There is a story to the eSect that the clerks' in the New York Post Office were once at a loss to discover the proper destination of a letter addressed simply— Wood - - ' John -. Mas§. Finally, an exceptionally bright solved the , riddle, and forwarded the letter to John Underwood,' Andover, Massachdsetts. A simple kaleidoscope may be made by any boy or girl by taking a. straight -lamp, chimney— an argand one is best — and. painting the outside of it black. If you make a pinihole in a piece of paper and hold it at one end and look at it through the other, it will appear as a number of circles of. light. It is the cy- ■ lindrical surface that reflects and causes this. If new you fasten two pieces of glass" at one end of the chimney, placing between them beads and bright colored bits of glass so that they -may move as you turn the chimney, you will have as good a kaleido-scdpv-as you would care to buy.