Part 18

“Girls” and “Boys.”

At a school examination, the inspector set the girls to write an essay on “Boys” and the boys to write one on “Girls.”

The following was handed in by a girl of 12:--

“The boy is not an animal, yet they can be heard to a considerable distance. When a boy hollers he opens his big mouth like frogs, but girls hold their tongues till they are spoken to, and then they answer respectable, and tell just how it was. A boy thinks himself clever because he can wade where it is deep, but God made the dry land for every living thing, and rested on the seventh day. When the boy grows up he is called a husband, and then he stops wading and stays out at nights, but the grew up girl is a widow and keeps house.”

One of the boys sent in:--

“Girls are very stuck up and dignified in their manners and behaveyour. They make fun of boys, and then turn round and love them. Girls are the only people that have their own way every time. Girls is of several thousand kinds, and sometimes one girl can be like several 1000 girls if she wants anything. I don’t beleive they ever killed a cat or anything. They look out every nite and say, “Oh, ain’t the moon lovely!” Thir is one thing I have not told, and that is they always now their lessons bettern boys. This is all I now about girls, and father says the less I now the better for me.”

73. The sum of the squares of two consecutive numbers is 1105. What are the numbers?

A PROBLEM FOR PLUMBERS.

74. A requires a tank in size capable of holding the quantity of water that would be caught from the roof of his house in a fall of 3 inches of rain. The roof (commonly called a “hip-roof”) is at an angle of 45 degrees to the wall plates. The length of house is 30 ft., breadth 24 ft., and length of ridge to roof 6 ft. But the eaves of the iron used for the roofing were so large as to increase its (the roof’s) dimensions by 3 inches all round, and the spouting added another 3 inches all round. Find the number of gallons the tank would require to contain; also dimensions of tank to be made so that its height must exceed its diameter by no more than 12 inches?

“The ’embers of a dying year”--November, December.

TO TELL THE COMPASS BY A WATCH.

Hold the watch face-downwards above your head with the hour hand pointing towards the sun, and half-way between the hour hand and the figure XII will be the North.

75. Divide 100 into two parts, so that a quarter of one exceeds one-third of the other by 11.

STRANGE BUT TRUE.

76. Two persons were born at the same place at the same moment of time; after an age of 50 years they both died also at the same place and at the same instant, yet one had lived 100 days more than the other. How was this remarkable event achieved?

ASTRONOMICAL.

77. The planet Jupiter is five times further from the sun than our earth, and 1331 times larger. Assuming that the diameter of the earth is 7912 miles, find Jupiter’s diameter, circumference and area.

AN UNSOLVED PROBLEM.

One of the commercial questions of the day which remains to this time unsettled, is whether the fact of a gentleman having NO TIN may not have something to do with the answer he invariably sends of NOT IN when anyone calls on him with a bill.

78. Find nine numbers in arithmetical progression--common difference 3--whose sum is equal to 5670, and arrange in a square, each side containing three different numbers, so that, when added vertically, horizontally or diagonally, the sum of each three numbers will amount to 1890.

79. I have a box. The pieces forming the sides are 5 ft long, and those forming the ends are 4 ft. broad. The box, when measured externally all round, measures 18 ft 4 in., and when measured all round internally, measures 17 ft 8 in. How can this be?

Teacher: “Who was it that supported the world on his shoulders?” Bright Pupil: “It was Atlas, ma’am.” Teacher: “And who supported Atlas?” Bright Pupil: “The book don’t say, but I s’pose it was his wife.”

ON BOTH SIDES OF A DOOR IN A MELBOURNE OFFICE.

THE MAN WHO FORGETS THE DOOR.

Oh, there’s an individual who ev’rywhere abounds, Thro’ trains and shops and offices he makes his busy rounds, And in and out for ever he is going o’er and o’er, To keep somebody after him attending to the door!

In sultry summer, when to catch a cooling breeze we’ve tried, And carefully have opened every door and window wide, ’Tis then you may be certain as he vanishes from sight, He’ll die but that he’ll shut the door--and close it very tight!

But when the winds of winter come, with cold and biting breath, Oh, then it is the awful wretch is tickled ’most to death! His sense of pleasure reaches to a point that is sublime; He never fails to leave the door wide open every time!

80. A man agrees to work for £8 a year and a suit of clothes. He left at the end of seven months, and received £2 13s. 4d. and his clothes. What is the value of the suit?