One Cent

1920

An ingenious professor of mathematics, according to the Omaha News, has figured out that 1 cent, invested at the beginning of the Christian era (1,919 years ago) at a rate of interest equal to the Government Liberty bonds, that is, 4¼ per cent, with interest compounded to date, would make 100,000 globes of solid gold, each the weight of the earth.

The earth weighs six and twenty-one ciphers tons. But the 1 cent with its accumulations, reduced to a minimum weight in gold at the rate of $20 in the ounce, would, he says, make 100,000 planets of the earth's weight!

The moral is: Save the pennies!

Early Calculator — Lifesaver for Schoolboys?

1900

In one of the statistical divisions of the Department of Agriculture in Washington may be seen a machine resembling a typewriter, which multiplies and divides with unerring accuracy and with great rapidity.

Give its operator a multiplicand of six figures and a multiplier as large, and he will write them out as upon a typewriter; then he turns a handle a few times, and before the onlooker knows what is going on, the product is written out before him. The machine performs examples in division with equal ease.

Does any one of our young readers fancy that he sees in this invention an emancipation of boys of the twentieth century from the vexation of the multiplication table? Alas! that is too much for him to hope. Nobody seems to have devised a machine for adding common fractions of different denominators, although many a young schoolboy has concluded that this is one of the "long-felt wants" of the day.


Intemperance in France

Those who assert that wine-growing countries are largely exempt from the evils of intemperance need not point to France in proof of their assertion. The habitual use of wine often creates the craving which seeks for such stronger stimulants as absinthe or vermouth.

Of about three thousand prisoners in the department of the Seine, in which Paris is situated, it is officially stated, more than two thousand were drunkards. The number of suicides induced by habits of intemperance is said to have more than doubled in recent years. Alcoholism is also largely responsible for the fact that thirty-four per cent of the young men conscripted for the army are sent back as unfit; and in the cities of Normandy, where hard cider is the common beverage, the proportion rejected is much larger. It rises in Caen to fifty per cent; and in Havre three-fourths of the conscripts are rejected.


Vested Interest in Getting It Right

Senator Vest recently sent a newspaper item to be read to the House. The secretary had the wrong side of the clipping, and instead of an editorial on the money question, began: "Ridiculous! We are giving away these goods at half price!" "The other side!" cried Mr. Vest.

That the much vaunted common sense of the American people has another side is forcibly illustrated by recent sales of a good-luck box. This precious humbug is a little wooden case, containing a worthless three-starred ring, worth in all about five cents. But within the past three months many thousands of persons have paid ninety-nine cents apiece for it, expecting it to bring good luck. In this and similar instances the notice might appropriately made: "Ridiculous! We are giving ourselves away for nothing!"

—Youth's Companion.

Proctor the Astronomer

1874

Ten years ago, the name of Richard Anthony Proctor was absolutely unknown; five years later, it was familiar in scientific circles in London, but comparatively unheard of outside; and today it is familiar as household words to every educated man in England, and to many thousands in this country.

Yet, the man who in so brief a space has conquered fame, and attracted the respectful admiration of astronomers in both hemispheres, is only thirty-six years old now, and did not begin to study astronomy till he had passed his five-and-twentieth year. Barely eight summers have flown since his maiden work appeared, and in the interval he has contributed a score of volumes to the library of science, some of them profound, many of them entirely original, and all of them thoroughly elevating and purely philosophic in tone.

In addition to these works, Mr. Proctor has written constantly and voluminously in most of the leading English periodicals, and has fought successfully more than one brilliant and stoutly contested battle with some of the oldest and ablest savans in Europe. Notably was this the case in his memorable struggle with the venerable Astronomer Royal of England, Sir George Airy, who had achieved a world-wide reputation, and had published seven or eight of the nine quarto volumes of his Astronomical Observations, before his young antagonist was born.

The dispute in question arose out of the widely divergent views set forth, upon the one hand, by Airy, and, upon the other, by Proctor, as to the manner in which the approaching Transit of Venus might be utilized to the best advantage. Sir George Airy, having originally, by an unfortunate choice, adopted the approximate process in dealing with the abstruse calculations involved in the working out of this delicate problem, had been strongly advised by Mr. Proctor, so far back as 1869, to adopt by preference the exact process. Delisle's method having been selected by Airy for the Transit of Venus in 1874, his keen-eyed critic at once pointed out that Halley's method was in every way to be preferred, whereas in regard to the next Transit — that of 1882 — Delisle's would be better than Halley's.

He farther insisted, from the first, that the Astronomer Royal, in his selection of points of observation in Hindostan, had overlooked many of the most desirable. And the young astronomer was right in both instances, as is shown by the fact that the leading astronomers of England at their last meeting, in session at the Board of Visitation of Greenwich Observatory, were unanimous in urging the Government to adopt the suggestions made by Proctor four years before.

This is but one out of many similar instances which might be cited of the extraordinary courage, keenness of perception and farsightedness of this the youngest, and, in some respects, the most brilliant, of living astronomers. — Scribner's Magazine.

Busy Stork Brings Fourteen More to Virginia

1909

Busy Stork Brings 14

DANVILLE, Virginia — Two sets of triplets, three pairs of twins and two single babies, born to seven families in the same neighborhood on the same day, is the unprecedented record of Schoolfield, a suburb of Danville, in one day.

Mrs. John W. Yancy gave birth to triplets, two of which are living; Mrs. Jacob C. Brown, triplets, two of which are living; Mrs. J. W. Barber, twins, girl and boy; Mrs. Jane Anderson, twins, both boys; Mrs. P. P. Gridder, twins, boy and girl, and two other women, daughters.


99 Candles on a Cake

WHITTIER, California — Ninety-nine candles, indicating the age of a charming Quaker, Mrs. Lydia Sharpless, blazed on the birthday cake which graced the center of a large table set in the dining room of the Friends' Church. Seventy-five of her descendants were present to offer congratulations to the lady, who clings to dress, manner and speech of the Friends of other days, but keeps informed as to events and movements of the present. She was born in Middletown, Ohio, but have lived in this city for many years.


Please, Mr. Comet, Don't You Kill Us

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island — Frank E. Seagrave, a Providence astronomer, whose calculations relative to Halley's comet have attracted widespread attention, announces that the correction of a slight error in the calculations of the comet has developed the discovery that on May 19, 1910, the comet will reach the same plane as the earth in its orbit. It is thereby determined that the tail of the comet will sweep across the plane instead of clearing it. The earth and comet will meet on the same plane, but not in the same path. There will be a distance at the nearest point of 13,000,000 miles between the two.


16,000,000 Cents Coined

WASHINGTON, D.C. — With a total value of $929,269, there were 16,91,875 pieces of coin executed at the mints of the United States during September. Almost 16,000,000 1-cent pieces were turned out.


If a man is honest, you can always tell it by the way he doesn't talk about it.