"I see ye're a new mimber, sir, an' not used to the ways of the metropolis. I'll show you the entrance to the House."

ov

We went in at the doores, an' there was the biggest and beautifullest place that ever me eyes beheld, wid a roof an' stained windas like a church, an' images all along wan side, which the peeler towld me was the works of Ayrton, a celebrated sculpther. But it turned out to be a mistake, for he's now drinkin brandy-and-water beside me in the smoking-room, an' he's called the "Aydile oy the people," a name I don't understhan, but it's clear it don't mane an idol, from what I know. The constable showed me through the side doore an' towld me to folla me nose up the lobby. I took his advice an' that brought me to a grate place full ov people standin about wid their hats on. "Sure," says I to meself, "this is the House ov Commons." But another polishman comes up to me an' says—

66

Member, sir ?"

"I am; is this the House ?"

"No sir, this is the lobby; the entrance to the House is through that doorway."

I felt very quare at the sthrangeness ov the place, an' observin there was glasses an' bottles on a counter at wan side ov the house, I stepped up an' called for a dhrop ov the crather.

"Ov the what, sir ?" says the man. "The crather," says I.

"Och," says he, "what part do ye come from ?"

66

Rashkillen," says I.

"Yer Mr. Barney Geoghegan," says he. "Yer right," says I.

"Thin welcome to the house, sir," says he. "I read ov your succhess with rapther. I'm Tully O'More's nevvy," says he. "Will ye take it nate or hot ?"

"I'll thry it nate first," says I.

So we dhrank to the good of Ould Ireland, an' says Tully O'More's nevvy, "Ye might dhrink up all the whiskey we have in London to that same toast in this place, an sure it'll projuce no effect on the hardhearted Sassenachs."

"Well," says I, takin a second reviver, "I'm about to give a notis that will shake the cowards in their shues." Wid that says I, "Where's the house ?" an' puttin my hat on wan side ov me head and me shillelagh undher me arm, I sauntered up to the doore the polishman had shown me. There was two little spalpeens in clerical

dress sittin on both sides in two things like large coal scuttles turned up on ind. Wan ov them jumps up an' says

"Where are you going, sir?"

"Intil the House ov Commons," says I. "You can't go in, sir. Only members are admitted," says he.

"I'm a mimber," says I.

They both laughed, an' says the other"Come, sir, we can't let you stop the way. Stand aside if you please, or I'll hand you over to the police. You must be drunk."

On that word I stepped back two paces, an' with a whirra an' a shout, I sazed me shillelagh, which was in me han' at the time, an' I screeched out

"I'm a mimber for Rashkillen to the House ov Commons ov the United Kingdom ov Grate Britan an' Ireland. I'm for Civil and Religious Liberty, Home Rule, an' Denominashunal Educashun; an' by the powers, if you two little skulking blaguards don't get out ov the doore an' let me intil the house I'll brake ivery bone ov yer bodies."

Iv'ry wan in the lobby turned round an' shouted "Silence !"-it's more partikler they are about silence outside than they are inside the house-and three peelers came forward. There was about to be a gineral shindy, for Tully O'More's nevvy stood to me with a soda-wather bottle, when a pleasant-looking jintleman stepped up to me an' said, "Are you Mr. Barney Geoghegan, the new mimber for Rashkillen ?" "Thrue for ye," said I, "I'm the very man. An' me refused enthrance to the very place I was sent to by me consthituents.' "Oh! it's all the constables. Father O'Swill.

Own

right," says he, winkin to "I've heard ov you from I'm a counthryman ov yer

I

"I'd know it by yer spache," says "An though I'm not ov yer way of thinkin, I'll take ye in an' inthrojuce ye, an' put ye up till the ways ov the house."

"Would ye mind givin me yer name ?"

says I.

Maguire," says he, "What!" says I; "the pathriot ov Cork ?"

"The same," says he.

"Well," says I, "yer well known to be the gratest man in the House ov Commons, an' the lader of the pathriotic party; and I'm proud ov yer acquaintance, Mister

Maguire. Will ye join me in a dhrap for the sake ov ould Ireland ?"

It's about the worst whiskey that ever I tasted they sell at the counther. It's too near the officers of excise to be a natheral element. Says I when we'd collogued

"I'm goin' to give notis of a moshun in favor ov Home Rule, an' if ye'll show me the Spaker, it's till him his riverence towld me to addhress meself."

"All right," says Mister Maguire, wid a twinkle in his eye; "but ye must first ov all take the oaths an' yer sate, an' for that purpose I'll get Sir Kilmoy O'Clocker to accompany ye to the table. They're at prayers now," says he.

Then he inthrojuced me to Sir Kilmoy, an' when prayers was over they took me till the bar ov the house as they called it, but sorra a gill ov spirits is iver to be found there as I have larned to me disgust. The House was lit widout lamps and was crowded wid jintlemen all wearin their hats, an' not a faymale to be seen. There was an ould gintleman wid a wig on, sittin directly opposite the doore in a sate wid a grate thing like an umbrella over it; and two other jintleman in the same costume at a thable in front ov him; an before the thable a grate goulden mace in a gun-rack ov the same metal.

Whin the ceremony was completed, Mister Maguire whispered in me ear, "Ye'll now follow me to a sate, an' whin ye sit down put yer hat on."

I sat down next him on a sate which was butifully cushioned, an' as soft as the moss on Drumcarn, an' thin as directhed I put on me hat. There was a buzz of conversashun in the House at the time an' some laughin. Thinks I, if they're laughin at me, they're mighty misthaken, and I'll give them a touch of Irish assurance, so I stood up an' said loud enough to be heard all over the place

"Misther Spaker!"- but the words was not well out ov me mouth whin the whole company roared at me like a herd ov mad bulls

ov me shillelagh an' shouted at the top ov me voice

"Is it ordher ye want," says I, "for I'll soon interjuice it to ye!" but again the whole place was filled with shoutins to that extint you couldn't hear yer own words. "Ordher, ordher! Chair, chair!"

Me frind at me side sazed me coat-tails, an' pulled me down on the sate, an' afther possessin himself ov me shillelagh, which I was about to bring down on the head of a jintleman who was shoutin " Chair, chair!" and who had mighty little hair for the size ov his brains, named the member for Waterford, says to me— Kape still, I tell ye. Ye've made a misthake. Ye must always on risin to addhress the Spaker take off yer hat. Ye'll have to apologize."

66

The Spaker said in a slow, clear voice"I must inform the Honorable Member that he is not in order in addressing the chair with his hat on; and I hope he will not consider it one of his duties as a representative to bring a shillelagh into this House and emphasize his remarks with flourishes not strictly rhetorical."

At that there was a roar of laughter, an' bein willin to adhere to the ways of the place, I took off me hat, an' got up again on me legs, an' says I—

"Misther Spaker, I axe yer pardin, but I'm unbeknownst to the rules ov the House. I hereby give notis that at an airly day I shall call the attenshun ov the House to the subjec of the relashuns of Ireland to Grate Brittan an' move resolushuns thereon." Ye see I'd got it as pat as could be from Father O'Swill.

The laughter was ten times worse than before, an' the little Spaker nearly rowled. off the chair. I was beginnin to feel for me shillelagh whin up jumps a man right forenenst the Spaker, an' standin' at the table, looks roun the house, wid his eyes very angry and very wild, an' says he, pointin at me with his right ear

"And I beg to give notice on behalf of the Government that if that motion is brought forward by the Honorable Gentleman, the Government will consider it its duty to treat it as one involving a question of confidence in the Ministry." (Here there were loud cries of "Oh! oh!") "Yes, I repeat it, as involving confidence in the Ministry, and we shall be governed by the result accordingly."

Misther Maguire explained to me that

the jintleman was in the habit ov givin these notises afther any moshun he didn't like, an' 'twas a sign of the importance attached to me weight an' standin' to have me proposal made a critical question. So

afthir doin me duty, I went out to exchange congratulashuns wid Tully O'More's nevvy, who, betwane you an' me, is the only honest pathriot, barrin meself, in the Parliment Houses. [From St. Paul's.

SURELY figures owe us whatever little of romance is to be got out of them. Have they not been associated from our earliest childhood with the taste of tears and slatepencil? Have they not been the invariable cause of one's income being insufficient to meet one's expenditure? Have they not tyrannized over our tastes and enjoyments? And has not the sole reason of that gap which, at every year's end, prevents some of us, in spite of the most laudable intentions, from making both ends meet, been the obstinate persistence of two and two in their sullen refusal to make any more than four? I am rejoiced to learn that Pythagoras, who said something civil about all the other numbers, had a very poor opinion of figure two. I am delighted to know that he regarded this disreputable figure as the symbol of disorder, of division, of confusion, and inequality; as a hopelessly depraved number of evil augury, as an exceeding bad principle-nay, as the very Old Bad Principle himself. I've no patience with figure two, nor with the way in which it gets held up to public esteem in connection with what is supposed to be the very satisfactory proposition that two and two make four. I can not regard it in that light. Whatever is good for any thing ought to improve and increase; and if this boasted pair of twos had any genuine enterprise at all about them they would have made at least six by this time-in which case I might without difficulty have learned what a balance meant in my banker's book. As it is, they have not merely wasted their opportunities, but done me a personal injury. Besides, it is my opinion that three and one make four in a manner quite as successful, and very much less obtrusive.

The most romantic of all numbers is figure nine, because it can't be multiplied away or got rid of anyhow. Whatever you do, it is as sure to turn up again as was the body of Eugene Aram's victim. NEW SERIES.-VOL. XVI., No. 3.

One remarkable property of this figure (said to have been first discovered by W. Green, who died in 1794) is, that all through the multiplication table the product of nine comes to nine. Multiply by what you like and it gives the same result. Begin with twice nine, 18; add the digits together, and 1 and 8 make 9. Three times nine are 27; and 2 and 7 make 9. So it goes on, up to eleven times nine, which gives 99. Very good; add the digits; 9 and 9 are 18, and 8 and I are 9. Going on to any extent, it is impossible to get rid of figure 9. Take a couple of instances at random. Three hundred and thirty-nine times nine are 3051; add up the figures and they give 9. Five thousand and seventy-one times nine are 45639; the sum of these digits is 27; and 2 and 7 are 9.

M. de Maivan found out another queer thing about this number—namely, that if you take any row of figures, and reversing their order, make a substraction sum of it, the total is sure to be 9. For example: Take 5071

Reverse the figures 1705

3366=18, and 1+8=9.

The same result is obtained if you raise the numbers so changed to their squares or cubes. Starting with 62, begin the sum over again. By reversing the digits we get 26, which, substracted from 62, leaves 36, or 3+6=9. The squares of 26 and 62 are, respectively, 676 and 3844. Subtract one from the other and you get 3168=18, and 1+8=9. So with the cubes of 26 and 62, which are 17576 and 238328. Subtracted, they leave 220752 18, and 1+8=9.

The powerfully be-nine influence of this figure is exemplified in another way. Write down any number, as, for example, 7549132, substract therefrom the sum of its digits, and no matter what figures you start with, the digits of the product will always come to 9.

24

7549132=sum of digits 31.

31

7549101=sum of digits 27, and 2+7=9. A very good puzzle has been based on this principle, as follows: Get another person to write down a horizontal row of fig ures, as many as he likes, without letting you see what he is about from beginning to end of the whole performance. He is then to reckon up the sum of the digits, and subtract that from his row of figures. When he has done this, bid him cross out any figure he pleases from the product, and tell you how much the figures add up, without the crossed-out figure. From the numbers so given you will be able to tell what figure he has crossed out, by only bearing in mind the fact learned above namely, that if no figure at all had been crossed out, the result would necessarily be 9 or a multiple of 9. Hence you will see that the crossed-out figure must needs be the one required to bring the sum given to the next multiple of 9. Supposing, for instance, he gives his result at 37, you may be sure that he has robbed the product of 8, that being the figure needed to restore the total to the next multiple of 9-namely, 45. His sum would stand as under:

405678237=sum of digits 42.

42

405678195=37.

There is only one case in which you can be at fault, and that is in the event of a multiple of 9 being returned to you as a product. Of course, then, you will know that either a 9 or a o must have been struck out. Had the 9 been struck out in the above instance, the result would have been 36: had it been the o, the product would have been 45. Both being multiples of 9, it would be impossible to tell with certainty whether the missing figure were 9 or 0; but a good guess may generally be formed, because, if the figures appear suspiciously low in proportion to the time taken to tot up the sum, you may speculate that your product has most likely sustained the loss of the highest number.

That is a clever Persian story about Mohammed Ali and the camels, and though it will be familiar to many of my readers, they will scarcely be sorry to be reminded of it. A Persian died, leaving seventeen camels to be divided among his three sons in the following proportions: the eldest to have half, the second a third, and the

youngest a ninth. Of course, camels can't be divided into fractions, so, in despair, the brothers submitted their difficulty to Mohammed Ali. "Nothing easier!" camel to make eighteen, and now divide said the wise Ali: "I'll lend you another them yourselves." The consequence was, half of a camel more than he was entitled each brother got from one-eighth to one

to, and Ali received his camel back again; second six, and the third two. the eldest brother getting nine camels, the

Johann August Musæus, one of the last century, in his story of Libussa, makes most popular German story-writers of the the Lady of Bohemia put forth the following problem to her three lovers, offering her hand and throne as the prize for a correct solution. "I have here in my basket," said the Lady Libussa, “a gift of plums for each of you, picked from my garden. One of you shall have half and and one more, and the third shall again one more, the second shall again have half have half and three more. This will empNow tell me how many ty my basket. plums are in it ?" The first knight made a random guess at three-score.

"No," replied the lady. "But if there were as many more, half as many more, and a third as many more as there are now in the basket, with five more added to that, the number would by so much exceed threescore as it now falls short of it."

The second knight, getting awfully bewildered, speculated, wildly on forty-five.

"Not so," said this royal ready reckoner. "But if there were a third as many more, half as many more, and a sixth as many more as there are now, there would be in my basket as many more than forty-five as there now are under that number."

Prince Wladomir then decided the number of plums to be thirty; and by so doing obtained this invaluable housekeeper for his wife. The Lady Libussa thereupon counted him out fifteen plums and one more, when there remained fourteen. To the second knight, she gave seven and one more, and six remained. To the first knight, she gave half of these and three more; and the basket was empty. The discarded lovers went off with their heads exceedingly giddy, and their mouths full of plums.

Double Position, or the Rule of False, by which problems of this sort are worked,

ought to demolish the commonplace about two wrongs not making a right. Two wrongs do make a right, figure-atively speaking, at all events. Starting with two willfully false numbers, you work each out to its natural conclusion. Then, taking the sum of your iniquities as compared with the falsehoods with which you started, you have only to multiply them crosswise to get terms which will bring you straight to the truth. To be more precise, after the cross multiplication, if the errors are alike—that is, both greater or both less than the number you want-take their difference for a divisor, and the difference of their products for a dividend. If unlike, take their sum for a divisor, and the sum of their products for a dividend. The quotient will be the answer. This is good arithmetic, and, for those who can receive it, not bad philosophy. There is an enormous self-righting power about error, and if we could only manage the cross-multiplication properly, we might get some surprising results.

The number 37 has this strange peculiarity: multiplied by 3 or any multiple of 3 up to 27, it gives three figures all alike. Thus, three times 37 will be III. Twice three times (6 times) 37 will be 222; three times three times (9 times) 37 gives three threes; four times three times (12 times) 37, three fours; and so on.

I will wind up for the present with a rather barefaced story of how a Dublin

chambermaid is said to have got twelve commercial travelers into eleven bedrooms, and yet to have given each a sepaHere we have the eleven bedrate room.

rooms:

I 2 3 4 56789 ΙΟ II

"Now," said she, "if two of you gen-tlemen will go into No. 1 bedroom, and wait there a few minutes, I'll find a spare room for one of you as soon as I've shown the others to their rooms."

Well, now, having thus bestowed two gentlemen in No. 1, she put the third in No. 2, the fourth in No. 3, the fifth in No. 4, the sixth in No. 5, the seventh in No. 6, the eighth in No. 7, the ninth in No. 8, the tenth in No. 9, and the eleventh in No. 10. She then came back to No. 1, where you will remember she had left the twelfth gentleman along with the first, and said: "I've now accommodated all the rest, and have still a room to spare, so if one of you will please step into No. 11, you will find it empty." Thus the twelfth man got his bedroom. Of course, there is a hole in the saucepan somewhere; but I leave the reader to determine exactly where the fallacy is, with just a warning to think twice before deciding as to which, if any, of the travelers was the odd man out." [From Chambers's Journal..

THE subject of the antiquity of man has of late years attracted considerable attention, and the terms palæolithic and neolithic have become nearly as familiar as those of the stone and iron age of former years. For preconceived opinions on this point, and the apparent doubtful evidence of the association of the human species with those of the extinct mammalia, strengthened the belief of the of man appearance

only after the great physical changes had brought about their disappearance. Hence arose, partly from want of careful observation, much controversy on the subject, and, although maintained by some, the opinion has been confirmed by the rëexamination of several of the cases cited, as

well as by recent discoveries, that the remains of men lie entombed in earlier graves than those where

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. Among those who carefully investigated and prominently brought the subject forward were Mr. Prestwich and the late Dr. Falconer, after their examination of the discoveries near Abbeville by M. Boucher de Perthes and of the Brixham cave; the facts of the contemporaneity of the works of man with the remains of extinct mammals were still contested by Elie de Beaumont and others; but the opinions of Mr. Prestwich were corroborated by

"Phil. Trans." 1860, Pt. II. p. 277..