The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-05-12
ONE OF DEWErS OFFICERS.
STORIES OF LIEUT.. COMMANDER
NORRIS OF THE BOSTON.

Lieutenant Commander John A. Norris.
executive officer Of the cruiser Boston of
| Commodore Dewey's victorious squadron,
is one Of the navy's mathematlcians, and
his attachments have led his brother off,
GERS to dub him Euclid" Before his
present assignment ne was professor of
niathemati tics at the Naval Academy and at
other periods of short duty he has been
called upon by the department to unravel
photographic and Astronomical problems
of the most involved description. His home
in Washington contains a collection of
queer things discovered in his explorations
Of The inner mysteries of the science, of
| quantity. Among them are intricate mu-
steal compositions evolved out of the re-
| lation and arrangement of numbers, alge-
! braic sophIstries without end, geometric
| oddities puzzhng tricks with cards, and
singular games of solitaire. Several of
the last have been made known to army
| and navy mon, and are frequently the
means OF relieving the tedum of an idle
| hour He has also calculated the odds
| against player and In favor of the bank
in several games of chance. This was
| done some years ago at the instance Of
/ two young friends and came about in a
| queer way.
The young men had purchased a roulette
| table from which they derived much
4 harmless amusement. and Mr.. Norris and
/ his family often Joined them in a game
Systems were invented by the players with
| the design of winning steadily from the
bank, but, ike oil games of chance, the
| ODDS in favor of the latter were apparently
| too great to 90 overcome even temporarily
! At last howevCi, one of the young men
hit upon a scheme which broke the bank
time after time. 1t was quite elaborate
md called for a number of cross plays
! but it invariably paid the player eight
| pieces more than he wagered, If one of the
| thlrty-slx numbers called, or one
| piece of zero or double zero turned up. No
| matter where the little ball fell on the
| numbered disk, the results were always
the samoa gain of eight or one. The
! system was given TO the lieutenant com
| mander who reduced II to mathematical
/ shape and proved its correctness and irfal-
\ libility. The hearts of the two young
friends bounded with joy and their ava
| rice grew apace Tney had never gambled
but now they resolved TO plunge into a vor-
tex Of play They dreamed of untold
millions, and Monte Carlo arose promi-
nently in the foreground Of their rosy Wis
| ions.
Would we be permitted to play the
system there?" asked one of the young
| men anxiously
Certainly" replied Mr. Norris, who
had visited Monaco while on the Europe
an squadron.
but suppose the managers discover ii
Is impossible for the system to lose?'
| put in the second.
1 In that case they would probably offer
you considerable sum to quit"
About how much, do you thlnk?"
| Possibly 100000, IL not more"
That settled 1t. The two young friends
determined to pack up at once and go.
But one of them. more cautious than the
other submitted the system to a profess
sional gambler.
"Its all right" said he with a smile.
| Except for one thing"
(which is-?" began the Young man
vague fears assalling him
That you have been playing the game
altogether wrong" was the hope-crushing
reply.
The young men remained at washing
ton, where one of them subsequently, es-
! tablished small comic weekly and pub
| lished the odds against the players of
! gambling games, calculated by the officer
| as a warning TO all wooers of the god
dess of chance.
Like the late Lewis Carroll" the OK
| AOAu hldtHStudllCldn VINO wrote Alice in
| Wonderland" Lieutenant Commander
Norris has a fecund and extravagantly
Ctroll Imagination which is the antithesis OF
/ that profundity popularity supposed TO
! characterize the mathematical mind. He
is clever writer, and contributed much
| to the success of the comic weekly by a
series of stories of the Imagination. Some
| of them attracted considerable attention
9nd were widely copied. He wrote over
| f11a ekee tfgr ..Fs -
| he adopted to indicate the fictitious char
acter of the subject and circumstances of
which he treated; yet so graphic and con-
| Vinclng was his manner of dealing with
| them that many readers accepted his
! takes as fact, and the young editor found
1t advisable to correct the misunders tand-
ing in subsequent numbers
One of the stories that awakened much
! interest in Washington was related of an
astute cat. the pet of a family that in the
furry of quick preparations for a Florida
! trip forgot to provide for the animal and
| departed, leaving her imprisoned i'm their
! Corcoran street home. The day after their
| departure nelghbors heard the wild yowls
| of the cat and saw her scratching and
tearing at the gratings of the basement
| windows. Efforts were made to release
| her, but the house was securely barred
| and no one was willing to assume the re-
| sponsibility of breaking into &C. Thus for
several days the cat kept the neighbor-
| hood in agitation.
! One morning the fire engine came DASH
| ing up in response TO an alarm sent in
| from a call box in a private house. As
| there were no exterior evidences of fire a
| moment was spent in looking for the house
! whence the call had come To the sur
! prise of the neighbors IL was found to Be
| that in which the cat was imprisoned. The
| doors were forthwith burst OPEN and the
| dremen distributed themselves over the
house, but found not the slightest trace
! OF fire, nor was there any person in the
building. The only occupant was the cat
/ which, weak and emaciated. crawled out
of the door and hurried away to the garb-
| age cans In the rear alley
Presently up drove a physician, and then
| came a. policeman and a messenger boy.
all in response to a call which had been
received at the telegraph station simulta-
neously with the alarm of fire. They were
as amazed and puzzled as the fremen at
] finding no one in the house. The author