THE PACE OF MIND.
[To THE EDITOli OF THE " BRECTATOR."1
Sra,—I have read with much interest your article bearing the above heading in the Spectator of February 13th, and especially the part relating to the quickness with which Inaudi told the day of the week on which a date some years hence would fall. I do not, of course, know what method he used, but I should not think that it was by calculating from the corresponding day in the current year, as you seem to imagine. The problem is by no means a new one, and many of your readers will remember the old lines, "At Dover dwells John Brown, Esquire;" while pupils of Mr. William Stokes will recollect his method for use in the current year. There does exist, however, one method, which can be termed practically instantaneous, for performing the feat of Inaudi for any year of the Christian era, and which was elaborated and published some few years ago by my father, Mr. William Relton, of Liverpool. I am now somewhat out of practice in the rapid using of it, but can still give the result more quickly than that result can be checked by De Morgan's "Book of Almanacs," and the time occupied varies from ten to twenty-five seconds. I do not know what the term " instantaneous " is meant to convey in the record of the Inaudi feats, and it would be curious to know
precisely how many seconds elapsed between the last syllable of the query and the first syllable of the answer.—I am, Sir, &c., FREDERIC RELTON.
255 King's Road, Chelsea, February 16th.
Previous page
