TheCodeBreakers
reads Remember Death. Why Leeson had it carved there no one, perhaps,
will ever know, but his motive may well have been that of the ancient
Egyptians who first used cryptography in their sepulchral inscriptions: to
stay passersby and bring the dead to life in their memory.
More obscure are the motives that led several people to encipher
entries in church registers, though the conjectures can be tantalizing. At
Cleator, Cumberland, England, someone used the very simple cipher
ae ioulmnr 123456789
with the rest of the plaintext letters left unenciphered to record in Latin
the baptism on January 1, 1645, of Janet Barne, daughter of William
Barne, curate of the parish. The mother's name is not given. Could the
encipherer have been Barne himself? And if so, was he perhaps hiding an
illegitimate birth? The same system was used in the fee-book for the
parish of Iver near Uxbridge, England, to note on January 17, 1767, the
marriage of 188 b58y48
annaabi.ee 
