SOME CUBIOSITIEB OF MODERN ARITHMETIC.

Timaru Herald, Volume L, Issue 4822, 19 April 1890, Page 4

SOME CUBIOSITIEB OF MODERN ARITHMETIC.

In an article on" Misty Arithmetic, " the Dai!;/ Graphic sayß : — Savages are often hauled over the coals for their misty ideas of arithmetic, but we need not go so far as Australia or TimbHctoofor foggy counting. There is a good deal of arithmetic still extant, even among tb« civilised, which is of an extremely primitive character. Ono of the forms of primitive arithmetic still lingers around that palladium of oar commercial prosperity, tho British standard yard. For instance, you buy a penny reel of. cotton ' warranted 100 yardu,' and when you get home and unwind it, you find that it just stretches across tho room. This gives youths remarkable result that your room is nearly 100 yards across, though you had never suspected it before, and your rent, which had always appeared high, is clearly ehown to be a mare cong. Ths fireplace, you now see, is et least 30yds wide, and your easy chair 20yds by 15 ; you hare 12,000 oubic yards of piano, and 5 acres of writing desk, while even your waistcoat is some ten yards m diameter, so that you find a man of much greater substance than you thought for. Thero certainly has been somo primitive arithmetic Bomewhorc to give this marvellous result ; but, whether it hangs round tho cotton or your previous ideas of space you, of course, cannot determine. Primitivo arithmetic alio lingers about many of our ordinary operations. Take the building of a house, for ciarnple. Builders are men who con calculate with alacrity nnrf ulieerfulnoes ; their readiness m Ugurtc, indeed, betoken* a high stage of civilisation. Yet their calcuUtions huve usually tho primitive element of being entirely wrong, iinforo you build, your builder tells you not only to a. pound but to an odd farthing whnt the houoa will cost, and he will, moreover, willingly bind hime^lf to hi» flgurm by as many signatures, bonds, and penalties ai you like ; but when his bill comet m, it bear* no perceivable roJatioa wbatWjr to the original eitimute. That

this is the resnlt of an extremely primitive arithmetic is fully evinced by the fact that it at once arouses all the " aavogo" m you, and you feel that you could drink hiß gore at a draught. All his little errors of calculation he conceals under one comprehensive term ' extras.' If you want more misty arithmetic, take your market-basket on your arm, and go shopping m s>_- cheap neighbourhood on a Saturday.

Great Bensation was caused m a Parisian block of buildings lately by BCreams proceeding from the room occupied by & milliner named Marie Sautareau. The police were informed of tho shrill vociferations, and opening Marie's door they found her m a primitive ooßtume tied to the leg of a bedstead, her body being painted a jet black, streaked^here and there with white, and only a portion of her face retaining its pristine colour. The girl related that three men whom she knew came to •cc her, and after they had been with her some time high words arose. The men asked her what she was working at now, as her millinery labours Beemed to bo at a standstill. She replied rather saucily that she was engaged m teaching oanary-birds to talk. No sooner where these words out of her month when the trio seized her, shouting, "We will teach you how to make canaries talk !" and having torn off her olothes, they smeared her all over with a mixture ef milk, grease, beeswax, and molasses. They then dried her before a fire, and finally emptied the contents of a big jar of ink over her body. The rascals afterwards tied her to the bedpost and began to jeer at her, saying, " Now you o»n show yourself at a fair ! You are a splendid zebra !" Two of the perpetrators of the out> ra&e have been arrested, and have been condemned to terms of imprisonment, with fines.