The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-03-23
A MATHEMATlCAL PRODIGY.
The wonderful Things That Piedmont
shepherd Can Do.

There landed in New York on the
18th, from the French steamer Cham
pagne, the remarkable natural mathe-
matician, Jacques Inaudi, the son OF
shepherd near Onorato, in Piedmont,
now about six and twenty years OLD,
who for some two years past mas been
the study and the wonder of the learned
men of France and other European
countries, where he has long been exhi-
biting his great powers of calculation
and memory. He began life as shep-
herd boy nearly 90 years ago; then came
before the public in Italy and southern
France as q "little Savoyard"-his
brother playing hand organ and Jacque
exhibiting a marmot of the mountains
and picking up the sous in his pictur-
esqUe hat. This led him to display his
arithmetic in cabarets and inns, and soon
threw him into the hands of Snowman,
who put him on exhibition as Light
ming calculator" and finally took him to
Paris in $780, He next came under the
eye of the psychologist Breca, who exam
ined him dozen years since, and report
ed: Is He has big, misshaped head, a
quick eye and intelligent features. full
of animation. Though IS years old he
cannot yet read and write (1SSD; he
carries figures in his head without
writing them down; he is neither shy
nor sly.n The people had called him
"the boy with two BRAINS" because a
soft tissue, two inches wide, runs from
the back of his head to his forehead, and
seems to divide the inner parts.
By and by he came under the observa-
ton of the late DR.. Chacrot, who report
ed: "His face is slightly symmetric,
and his skull plainly plagiocephalic"-
that is, crooked, like those creatures
whose nose and mouth are not in the
same line of beauty. He has now at
tanned his full height, snort but COM
pact-five feet four inches-with regu-
lar features, straight nose, an i'm
mensely high and broad forehead, black
hair and mustache, aud agreeable man
ners. He has long since learned to read
and write, talks sensibly, and plays cards
and billiards we'll. He has begun his
American campaign at Roster & Bial's
in New York, and gives employment to
three assistants, writing on four black
boards, when his answers are coming
forth. He stands with his back to the
boards, and performs in his head sums
in fractions, square and cube root, etc,
and long multiplications and divisions
quite appalling to think of. Two years
since in Paris NJ. Binet tried him with
sums of "a figures, then of 36, and finally
of 50 figures, beyond which he could
not then go.
= A problem is given to him orally, or
written down-in either case he -reads or
repeats it audibly; then says Begun, u
and mutters rapidly and indistinctly.
Nothing can then disturb his calcula-
tions; conversation, even if he takes
part in it, does not turn him aside; he
soon says, II have done it," and gives
the true answer. For one thing, he
gave in ID seconds, the correct number
Of seconds in 10 years, months. 81
days and hours; in few minutes
took the cube root of a number of 10
figures. He can Instantly repeat a num-
Der containing "a figures, forward and
backward, and can also run the figures
through beginning at the middle and
reciting both ways-a feat impossible
to most.