Theory
With the column cipher we lay our plain text in columns, and then use a column key, and recontruct the colums. If we use an order of column 3, 1, 4, 2 and 0, with a message of "whichwristwatchesareswisswristwatches", we get:
31420 ----- which wrist watch esare swiss wrist watch es
We now rearrange the columns back in order:
0 1 2 3 4 ['h', 'h', 'c', 'w', 'i'] ['t', 'r', 's', 'w', 'i'] ['h', 'a', 'c', 'w', 't'] ['e', 's', 'r', 'e', 'a'] ['s', 'w', 's', 's', 'i'] ['t', 'r', 's', 'w', 'i'] ['h', 'a', 'c', 'w', 't'] [' ', 's', ' ', 'e', ' ']
The result is then:
Cipher: hthesth hraswrascscrssc wwweswweiitaiit