Read Ebook: Comic Arithmetic by Leigh Percival Crowquill Alfred Illustrator

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Ebook has 324 lines and 35909 words, and 7 pages

DIVISION.

Do not think I write in jest, Though something in derision, Look east and west, and north and south, There's nothing but Division.

The State, with Whigs and Radicals, Is split up and divided, The Church, with hungry pluralists, Is getting quite lop-sided.

A split is in the methodists, The jumpers and the shakers, A split is with the baptists too, A split is in the quakers.

The Jews have split like gentile dogs, And some are trying daily To send Mahomet to the hogs, In spite of Mahommed Ali.

The law is split, and fees are down To stop the rise of lawyers, And costs are cut, oh! quite in half, Just like a log by sawyers.

Numbers, that is the multitude, are to be divided, in a variety of ways,--by mob orators, or by mob-sneaks, or by parliamentary flounderers, or by mystifying pulpit demagogues.

The divisors should generally endeavour to work into their own hands, and the dividends may be compared to fleeced-sheep, plucked-geese, scraped sugar-casks, drained wine-bottles, and squeezed lemons.

LONG DIVISION.

RULE I--Teaches to work an expected legacy or an estate in reversion, or a right of entail, with a "post-obit bond," cent. per cent. on a stiff stamen.

REDUCTION.

REDUCTION ASCENDING is to stand high in your own estimation, from the convincing reason, that, as no one thinks anything of you, you ought to think something of yourself. The visit of the Queen to Edinburgh raised the baillies so high in their own estimation, that it took them three hours to get up in a morning.

REDUCTION DESCENDING.--

"Facilis descensus averni, Sed revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras Hic labor, hoc opus est."

This is the "old saw" Alderman Harmer used when he cut the city--or Lord John in his "finality" speech--cut his own fingers.

POLITICAL REDUCTION.

There have been many examples of Political Reduction both in our last and present ministry. The reduction of postage, so that it paid less than the cost, was an exceedingly business-like act. The reduction of cats'-meat in the storehouses at Plymouth, Woolwich, Portsmouth, and Chatham, from a penny to three farthings a-day, was also an example of legislative wisdom, and proved the maxim, "Sparus at the speketas letouat the bungholeas."

The reduction of paupers' food to "doubly diminutive and beautifully less" than that of the felon, is also "wisdom wonderful;" being a new way of offering a premium upon crime, at about thirty and a third per cent. It is presumed to have occurred with a view to the assistance of Old Bailey practice, and of the Poor Law Commissioners, as it promotes Coroners' inquests and saves coffins.

PROPORTION.

GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE RULE.

The theoretic proportion is, that numbers should be exactly balanced,--that one sovereign should equal six hundred lords, that six hundred lords should equal six hundred and fifty-eight commoners, and that these should represent twenty-nine millions of people. Now, as the interests of each of these estates are said in theory to be opposed to each other, and as they are all theoretically supposed to pull three opposite ways with equal force, it must follow that legislation would be at a stand still, by the first law of mechanics, viz. that action and reaction are always equal: but to prevent such a catastrophe of stagnation, and to set in motion this beautiful machine, a pivot-spring, in the shape of a prime minister, or prime mover, is superadded, and a golden supply, fly, or budget wheel, is introduced, by which the following subordinate, yet ruling principles are developed; and thus we go on from age to age, making laws one day, and unmaking them the next, for the sake of variety.

THE WORKING OF THE RULE.

It must not be forgotten that this rule is one of proportionals, as its name imports. It therefore teaches proportion in all its relations, social and political; it is the rule of our country, and seeks to develop that beautiful equality and justice, so conspicuous in all our institutions, exemplified in the following well-known legal and constitutional maxim, viz. "One man may steal a horse, but another must not look over the hedge."

On the same principle of "Proportion," the operative is to have for his share the pleasure of doing the labour; for if one man had the labour and the gains too, it would be abominable, and destructive to all the usages of society.

The laws and regulations for the conduct of our civil polity and social condition being founded on these divine principles, it is assumed as a fundamental maxim, that "great folks will be biggest," and he who has not learned that this is the ideal of true proportion, and who does not recognise it in his practical philosophy, will be compelled to knock his head against a wall to the day of his dissolution.

FRACTIONS.

BREAKING UP NO HOLIDAY,

OR A

SALE BY AUCTION, IN BLANK VERSE.

Here, Ladies, and Gentlemen, is a lot, Being the earliest that must "go to pot." I do declare, 'Tis very rare, And mighty curious, And nothing spurious, Preserved from bye-gone ages, Embalmed in sacred pages, Of ancient poetry. Who'll bid, who'll buy? Be not shy, Bid high.

INTEREST, &c.

PRINCIPLE, or PRINCIPAL, is an old term used by our forefathers in "money matters" and commercial transactions, but is now obsolete. It formerly represented capital, and raised the British merchant in the scale of nations; but it is now a maxim of trade to discard Principle as not being consistent with Interest. It is paradoxically Capital to take care of our Interest, but it seldom requires any Principle to do so.

Interest teaches us also to swear to anything and admit nothing; to prove, by the devil's rhetoric, that black is white and white black; to tamper, to shuffle, to misrepresent, to falsify, to scheme, to undervalue, to entangle, to evade, to delay, to humbug, and to cheat in virtue of the monied interest.

QUESTION AND ANSWER.

Notwithstanding the "pretty considerable declension" of mercantile integrity, the character of the British merchant, both at home and abroad, still maintains its ascendency, and there are yet thousands of "merchant princes" who fully sustain the honour and glory of our native land. This satire is launched against the "cutting" commercials of the age.

BILLS.

I AM INTERESTED.

DECIMALS.

Whatever may be said of the mode of collecting tithes, nothing can be said against the "right of tithe." The clergy are the greatest sufferers, and no consummation is more devoutly to be wished than an equitable adjustment. As things are at present, the clergy do not get half their dues, and these are obtained in a manner well calculated to keep up the idea of a certain person shearing the hogs, "great cry and little wool."

TO REDUCE MONEY WEIGHTS AND MEASURES TO DECIMALS.

TO BRING DECIMALS TO THEIR PROPER VALUE IN WHOLE NUMBERS.

PRACTICE.

The Rule of Practice is indispensable in all our operations. It is in some degree the "ultimatum" of the preceding rules, for as the proverb says, "Practice makes perfect."

Nature is said to have begun the creation of "living infinities" by this rule, for in the words of the poet,

"She tried her 'prentice hand on man, And then she made the lasses o."--BURNS.

Practice is performed by taking "aliquot parts;" to be a man of some "parts" is therefore necessary. The application of our "parts" to the science of L.S.D. with a view to their development and perfection, is the aim of the rule, and the "practice of Practice" is to show,

That the value of a thing Is just the money it will bring; For money being the common scale Of things by measure, weight and rate, In all affairs of Church and State, And both the balance and the weight, The only force, the only power, That all mankind fall down before, Which like the iron sword of kings, Is the best reason of all things; The Rule of Practice then would show, The principles on which men "grow." What makes all doctrines plain and clear? A few odd hundreds once a year. And that which was proved true before, Prove false again?--Some hundreds more.

HUDIBRAS.

GRAND CHORUS.

Hulla boys, Hulla boys, Let the "belles" ring; Hulla boys, Hulla boys, So the Whigs sing.

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