> Childe was a prolific letter writer, sending short, clear missives to friends and supporters or even the Lunacy Board about his case and his well-being. Many

> Childe was a prolific letter writer, sending short, clear missives to friends and supporters or even the Lunacy Board about his case and his well-being. Many of these letters also had strange notes on the reverse or in enclosures written in cypher. Childe claimed they were a mere amusement, a bit of nonsense. Childe’s father sent the cyphers to polymath Charles Babbage with the hope he could decipher them. It was these letters, rather than the medical testimony, that were decisive in Childe’s case. These decrypted letters seemed to prove what the doctors insisted all along. What a fascinating way to deal with a monomania! And not even a Wikipedia article.