ill not
competition in city affairs bring equally good results to the
taxpayer?

25. Give an example you have recently heard of hasty generalization;
explain its weakness.

26. Give an example of your own of the _post hoc_ fallacy.

27. Give an example of false reasoning based on assuming a complex fact
to be simple.

28. Criticize the reasoning in the following extracts:

a. [Dispatch to a daily paper.] Haverhill, March 30, 1911. Opponents
of commission form of government are deriving no little satisfaction
from the development of testimony borne out by figures taken from
the auditing department of the city of Haverhill that this method
of administering municipal affairs has proved thus far to be a
costly experiment there.... The total amount of bonds issued during
the past twenty-seven months, covering the period of operation of
commission form of government, was $576,000; the present borrowing
capacity of the city is only approximately $35,000; that the city's
bonded debt has increased from $441,264 to $1,181,314 in the past
five years; the net bonded debt has more than doubled within three
years; that the assessed valuation has increased $5,000,000; and the
tax rate has been raised from $17.40 to $19 in five years. The
borrowing capacity of $341,696 on January 1, 1906, has decreased to
$95,000 on January 1, 1911.... Commission form of government went
into effect in Haverhill on the first Monday in January, 1909.

b. From an article in a magazine, opposing the plan of the
postmaster-general to increase the postage on the advertising
sections of magazines: consider especially the word "censorship":

We see two grave objections to the postmaster-general's plan. First,
it requires a censorship to determine what periodicals are
"magazines" whose advertising pages are to be taxed, and what are
the educational and religious periodicals which are to continue to
enjoy what the President calls a "subsidy." Such a censorship would
be a new feature in postal administration, and it would seem to be a
thing very difficult to work out on any fair basis.

29. In a newspaper report of an inquiry made by the director of the
Columbia University gymnasium into the effects of smoking, the following
sentences occur:

In scholarship the nonsmokers had the distinct advantage. The
smokers averaged eighty per cen