A few years ago a little book came into my possession, from the library of the late Lewis Carroll, entitled The Fashionable Chinese Puzzle.  It contains three hundred and twenty-three Tangram designs, mostly nondescript geometrical figures, to be constructed from the seven pieces.  It was “Published by J. and E. Wallis, 42 Skinner Street, and J. Wallis, Jun., Marine Library, Sidmouth” (South Devon).  There is no date, but the following note fixes the time of publication pretty closely:  “This ingenious contrivance has for some time past been the favourite amusement of the ex-Emperor Napoleon, who, being now in a debilitated state and living very retired, passes many hours a day in thus exercising his patience and ingenuity.”  The reader will find, as did the great exile, that much amusement, not wholly uninstructive, may be derived from forming the designs of others.  He will find many of the illustrations to this article quite easy to build up, and some rather difficult.  Every picture may thus be regarded as a puzzle.

But it is another pastime altogether to create new and original designs of a pictorial character, and it is surprising what extraordinary scope the Tangrams afford for producing pictures of real life—­angular and often grotesque, it is true, but full of character.  I give an example of a recumbent figure (2) that is particularly graceful, and only needs some slight reduction of its angularities to produce an entirely satisfactory outline.

As I have referred to the author of Alice in Wonderland, I give also my designs of the March Hare (3) and the Hatter (4).  I also give an attempt at Napoleon (5), and a very excellent Red Indian with his Squaw by Mr. Loyd (6 and 7).  A large number of other designs will be found in an article by me in The Strand Magazine for November, 1908.

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On the appearance of this magazine article, the late Sir James Murray, the eminent philologist, tried, with that amazing industry that characterized all his work, to trace the word “tangram” to its source.  At length he wrote as follows:—­“One of my sons is a professor in the Anglo-Chinese college at Tientsin.  Through him, his colleagues, and his students, I was able to make inquiries as to the alleged Tan among Chinese scholars.  Our Chinese professor here (Oxford) also took an interest in the matter and obtained information from the secretary of the Chinese Legation in London, who is a very eminent representative of the Chinese literati.”

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