The 25 most beautiful words

A press cutting from an American newspaper from 1911  found in an old lexicon. It reads:

A contest to decide the twenty-five most beautiful words in the English language, conducted by the West Fifty-seventh street Branch of the Y. M. C. A., this week was won by John Shea, a lawyer, of 416 Broadway. The prize was a flexible leather standard student's dictionary. Twenty-one of the twenty-five words submitted by Mr. Shea were accepted. "The words accepted are melody, splendor, adoration, eloquence, virtue, innocence, modesty, faith, joy, honor, radiance, nobility, sympathy, heaven, love, divine, hope, harmony, happiness, purity and liberty. Three of the words rejected were grace, justice and truth. 

This story seems to have been syndicated as another paper of the time explains that 'grace' and 'justice' were stricken out because of the harshness of the 'g' in grace and the 'j' in  justice and the word truth was eliminated because of its metallic sound.100 years later in a less religion centred world it would be a different list - love and happiness, heaven, hope and liberty might still make it…(also truth and justice might be allowed back.) However melody, splendor, adoration, eloquence, virtue, innocence, modesty, faith, honor, radiance, nobility, sympathy,divine,  harmony and purity might not..

Puzzling Palindrome

From 100 Interesting Puzzles and Problems by Zodiastar (London 1939) this palindromic puzzle:

A word that is spelt exactly the same forwards as backwards is known as a 'palindrome.' Two examples are refer and tenet. Below is set out an excerpt from a story - there are eight words missing in it. All are palindromes. Can you supply them?

He got out his ---- box and looked through his valuables. There were two photos of his sister, one named ---, the other ------. He gazed at them affectionately. One was married to an official in the land where ----- have ruled for centuries: the other to a man of high ----- rank. Just at that moment he heard someone calling him by name'---' they cried. He rushed out of the window and looked towards the ----- crossing. There, lying bound to the tracks was a man with a --- in his mouth.'

Answers (there are probably others) Ada, Deed, Shahs, civic, Hannah, Bob, gag, level

Another thornier problem - "A certain sum of money when written down in pounds, shillings and pence, uses exactly the same  figures in the same oder as when written in farthings...
Answer £12 12s 8d which equals 12128 farthings. Simples.