AN AUSTRALIAN “CALCULATING BOY.”

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 142, 27 November 1895, Page 3

AN AUSTRALIAN “CALCULATING BOY.”

Ernest Wyatt, an urchin engaged to appear under Mr Philip Stuart’s management in Melbourne, performed such feats in the way of memory and calcula' tion as sent a select party away fairly wondering whether by some subtle process of mesmerism they had not been hypnotised into believing they saw the impossible. That a child barely over seven years, blindfolded, could repeat without the slightest error, and as many times as required, some 500 figures set down at random on a blackboard ; that he could instantaneously solve the most intricate arithmetical problems, was in itself enough to astonish everybody; but all this was as nothing to the fact that during the whole time he kept up a play of badinage which argued the possession of a natural if somewhat forward humour. As a sample of the many feats performed a lengthy addition sum was set dowu on the blackboard and repeated to him once. Instantaneously the answer was given, and when some live minutes later a gentleman chosen from the audience added up the total and challenged a single figure, the boy answered pertly that he was right, and the gentleman, after another lengthy calculation, had to admit his own mistake. Then the boy without hesitation repeated every figure in the sum backwards, and extending this process to the 500 figures set down an hour beforehand, also repeated them with wonderful rapidity and without a single mistake. Such problems as “If a ship takes 37 days 8 hours and 4 minutes to come to Melbourne from England, and her propeller revolves 94 revolutions in the minute, how many revolutions are there P” he simply solved with an offhandedness that was almost contemptuous. —Argus.