FAMILY FUN

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 8, 21 February 1907, Page 38

FAMILY FUN

They say my first is very bright, And what they say is true ;v; v But only in my second can My first be seen toy you. My second would, without my . first Seem far from 'being bright: My whole is what the .working-man Welcomes with great delight. Answer, — Sunday.

The trick of telling a person's age has ' frequently been given in concrete JEjprm ; but the- mathematical principle has -been left to the ingenuity of the lis- ' tener. It is simple. In',^vhat year and month was a person" born ? Ask , your question so .that you receive a reply, placing the month in the -hundred column and the year, in the tens and units columns. Thus, say 'the person addressed was born in August, 1857 :— Name the month of birth (August), 8; double it, 16-; add 5, 21-; multiply by 50, 1050 ; add the year of birth (that is 57),- 1107 ; deduct - 365, • making '742; add 115, making 857. The answer'- gives Bin the place of hundreds and signifies' the eighth "month, August -, the tens and units give 57, signifying the year of- birth in' 'the century. The ' principle is as plain as if is interesting. 'The' 8, has been Jraised to the hundred jcolumn by the multiplications of 2 , and 50.. " And ' as to the year of birth, the questioner has been deceived -by an addition of 5, .which being" subsequently multiplied .by 5& equals 250. Thereafter" he innocently adds the years of. his birth, from which -jail that. remains to be deducted is the- added 250. . JT'bis is done, unsuspectingly, by "the arbitrary deduction of 365 and subsequent addition of115, leaving the net deduction of 250 as required. „