THE ASTRONOMER ON HIS TRAVELS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2807, 23 March 1882, Page 3

THE ASTRONOMER ON HIS TRAVELS.

Mr Proctor, whose lectures on astronomy will be remembered with pleasure by many of our readers, has recently started in London a weekly publication called. “Knowledge” _an illustrated magazine of science, plainly worded—exactly- described. In the nnmber for December 16, he commences a series of papers on betting and mathematics, and he thus pleasantly discourses about a New Zealand betting man ;—“ A curious instance of the loss of all sense of honor, or even of honesty, which betting begets occurred to me when I was in New Zealank. A bookmaker —‘by profession,’ as he said —as genial and good-natured a man as one would care to meet, and _ with a strong sense of right and justice outside betting, had learned somehow that ten horses can come in—apart from dead heats—in 3,628,000 different ways. This curious piece of information seemed to him an admirable way of getting money from the inexperienced. So ho began to wager about it. endeavoring—though it will be_ seen he failed—to win money by wagering on a certainty, be early came across a man as ’cute as himself, and a shade ’cuter (a brigand, brigand 6t demi), who worded the question on which the wager turns, thus: ‘ln how many ways can ten horses he placed?’ Of course this is a very different thing. Only the first three horses can be placed, and the sets of three which can be made out of ten horses number only ten times nine times eight, or 720 (there are only 120 actual sets of three, but each: set can be placed in six different ways). My genial, but (whatever he thought himself) not quite honest friend, submitted the matter to me. Not noticing at first the technical use of the word .‘placed,’ I told him there were 3,628,000 different arrangements. He rejoiced as though the money wagered was already in his pocket. When this was corrected and I told him his opponent bad certainly won, as the question would be understood by betting . men, he was at first depressed ; but, presently recovering, he said —‘ Ah ! well, I shall win more out of this little trick, now I see through it, than I lose this time.”