ARITHMETICAL TWIGS.
BOBBERS’ FAMILY TREE. I have been reading the notice of how the Egyptian expedition of the Metropolitan Museum of Art has dug up the tomb of a half-forgotten Egyptian Queen named Maryet-Ameu {writes a correspondent in the Daily Mail). Alas, they were not the first to find her; the tomb had been ransacked by robbers 3000 years ago. I began to wonder idly what had become of these robbers, who had been at their nefarious trade when King David was reigning in Jerusalem, 300 years before Romulus founded Rome, 1800 years before Julius Caesar came to Britain; 26 centuriek before Columbus discovered the continent whence came the next disturbers of the royal tomb) and yet at a time when the Pyramids were- already as old as Stonehenge is to-day. Had they become the ancestors of the Forty Thieves? I began to calculate how many law-breakers might, trace their descent to these ruffians.
Suppose they had but two children each, and went on increasing in that proportion through the hundred generations that make up .3000 years. How many cat-burglars of 1929 might trace their descent to one of these enterprising bandits of 1072, n.c. I sat down and began to work it out. And then- I got a shock. My patriarchal thief seemed to increase as the sands of the seashore (but do not the wicked flourish as the green bay tree?). . His family had mounted up by to-day to the alarming figure of about 1.267.652.000. This seemed a lot. . Referring' to Whitaker’s Almanack I found that the present population of the world is 1.849.500.000. How many worlds like ours would it take to accommodate the family of this one thief? Once more I - settled down to calculation, and it worked out at about 68,541,850,000,000,000,000.
By this time I had 'begun to feel a deep sympathy with the unfortunate police. . But then a more comforting thought struck me. Perhaps the police of Egypt, whose ways with, the transgressor were abrupt and efficient, had met our malefactor (still happily childless) on his way from his “ crib ’’ and—“off with his head! ” •
Yes, since the whole of the Milky Way does not seem to he populated with our ticket-of-leave men, it must surely have been so.
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Bibliographic details
Otago Daily Times, Issue 20960, 25 February 1930, Page 18
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374ARITHMETICAL TWIGS. Otago Daily Times, Issue 20960, 25 February 1930, Page 18
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