The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1880-07-29
4 Mathematical Mystery.

Every man who has intrlsted to j
woman the work Of manufacturing Q
shirt has had painful experience of ha1
inability to comprehend the importance
OF accurate measurement. Mr.. Smith
for example, permits Mrs. Smith
make o new shirt, to be modelled pre
cisely after an old one, which measures
say, fifteen inches round the neck
When the new garment is completed
Mr.. Smith finds that it chokes him, and
he calls his wife's attention to the faek
She declares that it measures precisely
the same as the model, and, appealil1
to tape-measure in proof Of the asse
tion, finds that the new shirt measurl
only thirteen inches around the nec
In these circumstances male sht
maker would confess that he had ~
q mistake. Not so, Mrs. Smith. SD
exclalms, with every appearance OF tn
umph, "There what did I tell you 3
One is almost exactly the same size =
the other. There isn't two inches q
difference between them" Nothing
could more forcibly illustrate womanl
total incapacity to grasp the importanoe
OF accurate measurements. A being
who believes That thirteen-inch bari
will fit fifteen-inch -neckswith as Itucll
accuracy as if the band were two inches
longer is born without any sense of the
value of linear measure. As rule,
women decline to recognize the authori-
ty Of yard-stick, measuring-tapes, and
other standards, and place pathetic
faith in their personal fingers and
thumbs. They have constructed for
their own use certain tables which pre-
tended that the upper joint of the thumb
is exactly an inch in length, and
that the width of three fingers is an
inch and half. These are the only
measures which they will use when seek
ing to ascertain the length of piece of
piping cord, or the width of skirt
breadth. 1t is needless to say TINT they
are thus led into constant error. The
female fingers and thumbs are not con-
slant quantities, so far as their length
and breadth arc concerned, and to make
them standards of measurement is as
absurd as it would be to assume that the
human foot is always twelve inches in
length, whether it be the New York or
the Chicago foot. What is very odd is
the fact in the department of cookery,
women make an elaborate pretense Of
their regard for careful measurement.
They have rules for finding the exact
quantity of each article that enters into
the composition of any particular dish.
For instance, their cooking liturgies
prescribe that in making cake one must
take cup of flour, six cups of butter,
two dozen eggs, three cups Of salt, tea
spoonful of indigo, tablespoonful of
starch, and three cups of molasses. But
do they ever follow this rule? 1t is no.
torious that they pay no attention to it,
When woman undertakes to make cake
she takes what she calls "enough "
-four, and to this she adds "a little in-
digo, starch, and salt, and stirs into it
about as much butter and molasses "as
is needed" Of course, the result is al
ways unforeseen. It may turn out that
the compound thus made is cake, and it
may prove to be rice pudding. The
woman herself has not the least idea
what it will be. With the printed rule
for cake manufacture lying before her,
one would suppose that it would be i'm
possible for her to produce anything but
cake, but in actual practice she utterly
scouts the rule, and makes her mysteri-
GUS compound by the light of nature,
and humbly trusts that it will not come
out Of the oven as sausage or boiled
ham.-Ne,v York Times.