THE CONQUERING CROSSWORD

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 102, 2 May 1925, Page 14

THE CONQUERING CROSSWORD

ITS VOGL'E EVERYWHERE. I I On<-e a thing starts there is no knowI ins where it will en.l. Out of mysterious i America, at which the world looks and of which it. wes so little that matters, there came, some months ago, the crossword craze. In some of the lesser known weekly magazines there have been puzzle's for year?. What it was that : j determined the -udrien burst of interest i ; recently no one will ever know. But the . ! fact rc-'mains that to-day in New York i j public libraries the dictionaries are practically chained to their places, like . j the Bible's in mediaeval Kngland. Every . J day long queues wa:t their turn, and for l j a time the crowding and jostling became .I so gTeat that many libraries parsed . j by-laws, by which any member of a '. I queue who "acklrcSEMl a:;y other member lon the subject of their respective places. J automatically forfeited his right of ■ entry for \l-.~: day. Kor has it ended here.- The schools I have taken up the craze anJ applied it ,' to educational purposes. and a wellI known professor of logic has announced i his intention of using the cross-word , jas a class exercise, being convinced of j its value as a logical training. J When cross-words traversed the I Atlantic to Britain, they immediately j ] followed the same general course. The newspaper* which have not yet sue- . cumbed to their vogue could be counted ; upon one's hand—almost upon one's ! thumbs. Making their way into the j schools, they have appeared in Latin. ' (Jreek, and French. Some of the weekly newspapers have also printed cross- ! words in .foreign languages. One inU-rPstinf; departure, peculiar ■ (for the presenti to Kngland. is the I literary ur "highbrow"' cross-word as I such. The clues, instead of approximating to dictionary definitions, are given in terms of t-ome recondite literary ■ allusion. Thus the word "necromancy"— ; the art of interpreting dreams—was : clued in one puzzle as follows: A food i controller won his liberty because of his proficiency in n:e. The unfortunate solver had to connect "Food Controller" with Pharaoh's ' Joseph, to remember why the latter won his freedom, and to find a word in eleven I letters that expressed the nature ot his accomplishment. Unexpectedly enough., the paper which printed this puzzle arnoum-ed tha; it hail received a ho-n of attempted solutions from all parts of the world. In London enterprising booksellers put . upon stock dictionaries, a new and topical paper cover, labelled "cross-word dictionary." and their astute window dressing is rewarded with huge sale=. : The British Museum has had to announce that solvers in search of dictionaries will no longer be admitted to its rending room. I'ndcr the pressure of the craze, thai scholastic Holy of Holies was becoming for the first time ! in its history unpleasantly crowded.