SIBTHORPIAN PROBLEMS.
Colonel Sibthorp presents his compliments to his dear friend and fellow, PUNCH, and seeing in the Times of Wednesday last a long account of the extraordinary arithmetical powers of a new calculating machine, invented by Mr. Wertheimber, he is desirous of asking the inventor, through the ubiquitous pages of PUNCH, whether his, Mr. W.’s apparatus—which, as his friend George Robins would say, is a lot which seems to be worthy only of the great Bidder—(he thinks he had him there)—whether this automatical American, or steam calculator, could solve for him the following queries:—
If the House of Commons be divided by Colonel Sibthorp on the Corn Laws, how much will it add to his credit?
How many times will a joke of Colonel Sibthorp’s go into the London newspapers?
Extract the root of Mr. Roebuck’s family tree, and say whether it would come out in anything but vulgar fractions.
Required the difference between political and imperial measures, and state whether the former belong to dry or superficial.
If thirty-six be six square, what is St. James’s-square?—and if the first circles be resident there, say whether this may not be considered as an approximation to the quadrature of the circle.
State the contents of the House of Commons upon the next motion of Sir Robert Peel, and whether the malcontents will be greater or less.
Required the capacities in feet between a biped, a quadruped, and a centipede, and say whether the foot of Mr. Joseph Hume, being just as broad as it is long, may not be considered as a square foot.
Express, in harmonious numbers, the proportion between the rhyme and the reason of Mr. Benjamin D’Israeli’s revolutionary epic, and say whether this is not a question of inverse ratio.