COMIC ARITHMETIC
Arithmetic is the art or science of computing bj numbers. It is national, political, military, and commercial. It is of the highest importance to the community ; because it pre-eminently teaches us to take care of Number I. Our ministers succeed according to their knowledge of the science of numbers. Witness the skilful management of majorities of the lower house. He who understands the true art of Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication^ and Division, as here laid down, will not be considered a mere cipher in tlie world; but will, in all probability, make a considerable /^wre ; and in the figurative words of Horace, be "Dives agris dives positis in foenore nummis." Let us, therefore, under the guidance and protection of that god of honest men, the light-heeled and light-fingered Mercury, be diligent so to add to our store by subtracting from the stores of others, that we may add to our importance. Let us so multiply our resources, by encouraging dimsion among our contemporaries, that we may see their reduction in the perfection of our own practice.
Arithmetic is the art or science of computing
bj numbers. It is national, political, military,
and commercial. It is of the highest importance
to the community ; because it pre-eminently
teaches us to take care of Number I. Our ministers
succeed according to their knowledge of the
science of numbers. Witness the skilful management
of majorities of the lower house.
He who understands the true art of Addition,
Subtraction, Multiplication^ and Division, as here
laid down, will not be considered a mere cipher in
tlie world; but will, in all probability, make a
considerable /^wre ; and in the figurative words of
Horace, be "Dives agris dives positis in foenore
nummis."
Let us, therefore, under the guidance and protection
of that god of honest men, the light-heeled
and light-fingered Mercury, be diligent so to add
to our store by subtracting from the stores of
others, that we may add to our importance. Let
us so multiply our resources, by encouraging dimsion
among our contemporaries, that we may see
their reduction in the perfection of our own practice.
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SOLID MEASURE. 143<br />
while Language, like the science itself, is all<br />
my eye.*<br />
Thick-heads, block-heads, bumble-heads, or<br />
basket-heads, which used in former days to be<br />
symbols of obesity, and gave rise to the maxim,<br />
" Great head, little wit," are now the indications of<br />
intellectual superiority.<br />
" The bigger the head the<br />
greater the genius," as the mushroom said to the<br />
cucumber ; and to have a head as big as a baker's<br />
basket, or the bustle of a lady mayoress, is perfection.<br />
To fumble these heads is the business of the<br />
Feelosophers ; so called from feel, to fumble, os,<br />
a bone, and pher, far from the truth.<br />
This science<br />
being at our fingers' ends, a great advantage is<br />
felt<br />
in all the transactions of life, as the most tender<br />
ideas may be expressed with mathematical certainty,<br />
numerically, figuratively, and arithmetically, as<br />
follows :<br />
* Sir "Walter Scott, in one of his walks, found a turnip, resembling<br />
in some degree the bumble-head of a Scotch feelosopher. He<br />
made a cast of it, and sent it to the Phrenological Society of<br />
Edinburgh, who pronounced a long dissertation upon it, and gave<br />
the moral and intellectual qualities with extraordinary correctness.
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