The suburban citizen., 1901-06-22
FIGURE LIKE LIGHTNING
REMARKABLE FEATs THAT PUZZLE
MATHEMATlclANs.


English Laborer From Age OF Seven Was
Marvel, and American Boy whose
Powers in the Same Direction Were
Equally Incompre hensible.
Some sceptical persons who wit
messed Inaudl's extraordinary perform
ances in mental arithmetic at the Lon
don HippodrOme a short time ago, ex-
pressed an uneasy feeling that they
might probably have been duped after
all; that the wonderful sums in addi-
ton, subtraction, division and extrac-
tlon of root which were proposed to
him from the audience, and which he
seemed toperform with such ease and
expedition, to say nothing of his re-
peating without error the long rows of
figures written on blackboard behind
his back, might have been all carefully
arranged and learned beforehand.
Their scepticism, however, was en-
tlrely groundless. Inaudi first gave
evidence Of his curious aptitude for
mentally manipulating figures when
he was six years old. At the age Of
seven he could multiply with five
figures correctly. And for some years
after this he relieved the tedium Of
his lonely life as a Pledmontese shep
herd boy by sedulously cultivOting this
extraordinary faculty. Ana he is by
no means the only instance on record
of a boy Of little or no education being
able to do sums which might puzzle
senior wrangler, and whose ineXplica.
bic powers have certainly afforded a
further puzzle to the professional psy.
chologist.
A farm lnborer from Derbyshire
named Jebediah Buxton, who was ex.
amlned before the Royal Society in
1854, was possessed Of a very similar
power. Although his grandfather was
vicar and his father schoolmaster Of
the parish in which he was born, yet
Jedediah, either from natural inca
pacity or from preoccupatlol with his
arithmetical pursuits, never even ac-
quired the rudiments OF learning
either could not or would not so much
as learn to write, and was content to
work as a farm laborer to the end Of
his days. But at very early age he
appears to have had an intutive per-
ceptlon of the relative proportions OF
numbers, and to this subject he de-
voted the whole Of his attention. His
method was so much his own that he
seems to have been quite unacquainted
with the common rules. On one occa-
sion, having been required to multiply
456 by 379, and having done 1t as
quickly as one Of his examiners could
do it in the ordinary way, he was
asked to work the sum audibly, in or
der that his method might be discov-
cred. 1t then appeared, curiously
enough, that he went to work in a very
roundabout way. First he multiplied
the 4J6 by 8, which produced 22S0;
this he again multiplied by 20, and
found the product to be 45,600 OF
course he might much more readily
have achieved this result by simply
adding two noughts to the multipla-
cand. This he evidently did not
know. However, he next went on to
multiply the number he had now ar
rived at by 3, which gave him the sum
of the multiplacant multiplied by 300,
and it then remained for him to multi
ply it by the remaining rs. This he
effected by the awkward process of
multiplying by 10 the 22S0, which was
the product obtained by his first multi
plication of 456 by 5. The product thus
obtained he then added to the 136,SOO,
which was the sum Of 456 multiplied
by 300. This produced l71O00 as the
sum of 456 multiplied by $40. 1t re-
nained for him, therefore, to multiply
the original number again by and
add the sum of 1t to 171.000, and by
this certainly rather cumbrous process
he found the product Of 45G multiplied
by S78 to be 17236S.
Jedediah had no more general knowl-
edge than any average peasant boy Of
ten years of age, and showed no mem
cry for anything but figures He was
sometimes asked when he returned
from church If he could repeat the text
or any part Of the sermon, but he
could never remember a single SEN
tence. In one matter only, excepting
his figures, did he ever show the slight
est interest, but his desire to see the
King and the royal family was strong
enough to induce him, when forty
seven years of age, to walk to London
for that purpose. He was entertained
by the editor of the Gentleman's Mag
azlne at st. Johns Gate, and exhib-
tied to the Royal Society, the men,
bars Of which he afterward referred
to as ''the yolk of Siety Court" Dur
ing his stay in London he was taken to
Drury Lane Theatre to see "Richard
ILL.," but neither the novelty nor the
splendor of the show, nor the exhibit
ton of passion, made any visible i'm
preston on him, and be occupied him
self IN counting the number Of words
which Garrick uttered during the per-
Torrance. The Gentleman's Magazine
for June, 1854, informed the public
that Jedediah had returned to the
place Of his birth without regretting
anything which he had left behind him
In London, cheerfully returning to his