Omaha daily bee., 1883-07-24
CIVIL SERVICE EXAM.
Some IF the PGGTS Candidates for
WatChmGn Must Answer,
Baby camels and Eight Sheet Fosters
Samuel J. Tilden and Susan B. nm
thony--Pickaninnies and Wa.
termelons--Hour and
Minute Hands.
Morning journal.

Morning journal.
The first candidate who came to til.
civil service examination forcustom hous.
watchmen and letter carriers yesterdai
was an old man of ninoty-fi five years. II,
carried a primer under his arm, n Wei.
ster's spell 'ng-book in his coat pocket, d
first part % arithmetic, a second part oI
geography and n tenth part of bookkeep.
ing were in n newspaper bundle which Ia
held in his hand. He hobbled into the
elevator on the Park Row side of the
p~ostofice, apd went up to the fourth
floor, repeating the multiplication table
and mumbling over the tributaries TO the
Amazon as he rode.
The second candidate was n blind man
led by a dog. After him came two trav-
elers in linen busters, who had just ar
rived from Arizona. They said that they
were passing by the postofice casually,
when they saw a placard announcing that
there was a civil service examination 60
ing on upstairs, AS they were 'taking
in" everything in the city they though
they might as well take in a civil service
examination. A tramp came next. He
gave his tomato can to n confederate on
the sidewalk. He mopped his brow with
his coat tail. He got a paper collar from
al Italian who was passing by with a bag
of rags. Then he inquired carefully of
the man in charge of the elevator about
its safety. Assured that it was perfectly
safe he stepped inside and sat down. He
remarked upon Getting out that if the ele-
vator had given way and he had been in
..,ol L., mould 1n,,, n,,l IL
for 800. 600. The tramp gave his address
on his examination paper, which was an
admirable one, as the Eighth Precinct
Police Station and, requested that his
letters be forwarded with the direction,
eff not called for in ten days, send to
Blackwells Island" He told the exami-
ner that he had slept in the City Hall
Park for the last two years and would
like a berth in the Custom House for a
change. The reason he passed the best
examination of all the candidates is
believed to be because he spends all his
time in the Astar Library. Some of the
people who came up to the examination
had their coats buttoned tightly over
dictionaries and various textbooks, and
their cuffs annotated with comments on
the questions which might probably be
asked. Nearly all the candidates examin-
ed were intelligentand respectable looking
men. About fifty presented themselves.
The inquisition lasted from o o'clock in
the morning until 3 in the afternoon.
Many of the candidates got through be-
fore moor while a few had answered all
the questions they might within five
minutes, their knowledge being limited.
All sat at desks with the printed exami-
nation papers, before them. The ques-
tons were 1880. The problems in arith-
metic began with fractions and gradually
arrived Mt such complicated questions as
these:
Assume that n camel in F%orepaugh's
circus at the age of two years brings
forth n baby camel, advertised in n triple
sheet poster with four kinds of ink, and
continues yearly to do the same, and
that every one of her products brings
forth a calf at the age of two years, and
yearly afterwards in like manner, how
many would spring from the camel and
produce in eighty years and how
many eight sheet : posters would it
take to bill every square mile of n circus
route with them during the same timer
A newspaper interviewer asked Samuel
Tilden how old he was. The Sage of
Greystone answered: If you take away
20 from my years and divide the re-
mainder by $50 the quotient will be one-
third the age of Thomas Jefferson, but if
you add four to the age of Susan b.
Anthony and multiply the whole by three
times the age of Seneca, and then sub
tract seven from the age of Methuselah,
you will have my age. What was the
age of Samuel Tilden and how much
older was he than Susan b. Anthony?
Barren Island is a mile and a half in
circumference. Three street commits
sioners start together to walk around it
and in the same direction. Commissioner
Coleman walks five miles an hour, Com
missioner Stephen b. French, eight; and
Chief Clerk Michael j. Morrison, three
miles a day; when will they come aside
of each other again, and when will Chief
Clerk Morrison overtake the other two if
he walks six months2
If Fiddler" Neary should run at the
rate of twenty-three miles an hour, pur-
sued by William E. Harding at a speed of
one barley-corn a minute-supposing that
tile TWO sHoulu SCarU simultaneously NJ
Hoboken a hundred yards apart at what
point on the road to Fort Lee would
Harding overtake Neary?
If nine colored preachers and three
colored sisters" eat . forty seven water
melons in four hours and five sisters
and three preachers eat t%wenty-nine
watermelons of like size in five hours,
how Imany pickaninnies may eat 800
w~atermelons in eight days, osfuming that
twenty Buys can get outside of as many
melons as four preachers and six sisters
and that the watermelons are from
Georgia.
If the hour hand and the minute hand
of a clock start out at the same time, as.
Stunning that they go from New York
toward New Haven, how far will the hour
hand be when the minute hand gets te
New Rochelle?
The questions in history were more
concise. The following are a few OF
them:
Who was the man with the iron mask
Who wrote the letters of Junius?
Give the birthplace of Homer.
Give the burial place of Virgil,
What were the causes of the Chin Lii
rebellion in China, 1000 years before