INTELLECT SHARPENERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22125, 1 December 1933, Page 2

INTELLECT SHARPENERS

Written for the Otago Daily Times. By T. L, Beiton. SUFFICIENT TIME IS ALLOWED. A man is driving at 12 miles per hour along a road which runs alongside a railway. A train going 36 railed per hour passes him at a distance of two mUes short of the next railway station. The process of slowing down to a stop and speeding up again after starting causes the train to lose three minutes. The train also stands at the platform for a certain number of minutes waiting while the passengers obtain dinner. The man stops at the store opposite the station to purchase some tobacco, then continues his journey by the same road alongside the railway. He reaches his home four miles farther on three minutes before the train passes him. Can the reader now say how long a passenger takes to obtain dinner, and how long a man takes to purchase some tobacco and fill his pipe, if it be admitted by way of facilitating the problem that one delay is five times as long as the other? FOR VALUE RECEIVED. Three swaggers meet on a country road and proceed to lunch together. Joseph has tea, sugar, and matches, which he values at sevenpence halfpenny. Peter has a loaf of bread stolen from a box at a gate where a settler has his supplies left by a delivery cart, and he values this at sixpence. Paul has no provisions, but has tobacco of the value of nincpence. These commodities are shared equally by the three men. Now, let it be supposed that they have some money and that they are willing to make the amount of each man’s contribution the same by means of adjusting payments. These conditions are inserted liere solely for the purpose of opening an academic discussion, and not with any theories regarding truth or facts. Then, will readers please determine what payments are necessary to produce this condition of equal shares? ANAGRAM. In the alleged poem given below the five spaces are to be filled with words composed of the same five letters. Please, Mr Bookseller, show me a book Of such as children adore, Because It Is somebody’s birthday to-day, The she expects Is a present, I say. Something to her attention away, Janet Is really four. Will they seem If she knows them quite well Because she has heard them before? Not If she thinks that the pictures are right, What If her Pngers are not very white, Black as a - or a very dark nignt, Janet Is only four. IN A PORTRAIT GALLERY. Sir Alured was taking an unwelcome visitor round the portrait gallery, and his small daughter, Bessie, accompanied them. They stopped before the portrait of a beautiful lady, and the question was asked, Who is she? To which Sir Alured, replied coldly, She is the grand-daughter of that lady whose portrait I have shown you, who was my father’s grand-mother, and she is my father’s first cousin. But at this point Bessie added that the picture was that of her grand-mother. Which is the correct statement, that of Sir Alured or of his irrepressible daughter?

WHO WROTE THE LETTERS?

Five ladies are staying at a tourist resort, and since their arrival a month ago they have received 43 letters from friends and relatives in Wellington. Alice and Brenda have received 23, Brenda and Constance 20, Constance and Dorothy 16, Dorothy and Edith 11. With reference to the friends who are corresponding with them, the number of letters written by Phillip and Norman together are to those written by Malcolm as 5 is to 3, and the total posted by these three men is 32. Richard has Written three letters more than Stephen. Malcolm has written the largest number and Phillip the second largest. One of the ladies is the wife of one of the men, and their practice is to write to one another every Sunday. Readers are now asked to say which man is writing to which woman, and which is the married pair. SYNOPSIS FOR A DETECTIVE STORY. A burglary was committed in a certain city, and a man who was strongly suspected of being concerned in it was arrested coming out of the telegraph office at a seaside suburb. He had nothing on him when searched, and it was supposed that he had hidden the stolen property at this seaside resort, because he had no other apparent reason for his visit to this place. The police obtained copies of the telegrams despatched from the office, and among them was the following: “Fork wags tell fact.” The detectives in charge of the case deciphered this message, and as a result were able to find where the jewellery had been hidden. The readers now have all the evidence before them. SOLUTIONS OF LAST WEEK’S PROBLEMS. COUNTRY VISITORS. At the end of five days when ninety nleals had been taken by the party. ONE FOR THE ARMCHAIR. The distance between “A ” and “C ” is one hundred miles, the reduced speed being for half the distance. A PECULIAR NUMBER. The number is 1234567 0, the point of the question being that the second multiplier must always be a nine. A QUESTION OF SIZE. As the area of the triangular section was only 311 acres, there was no sale, but the cost of fencing one boundary of 20 chains and half of the division line of 25 chains would be £4l ss. A DIFFICULT PUZZLE. Five pounds is the largest sum that could be placed upon the board under the imposed conditions. The “trap” was that if the largest-value counters had been placed on every cell that the stipulations allowed, some of the cells would perforce be vacant, causing a reduced total sum.