t an
ear were 75 per cent. _of those who had lost an eye_; and so on. Of
course, on this supposition, the percentages must all be multiplied
together. This she has done correctly, but I can give her no honours,
as I do not think the question will fairly bear her interpretation,
THREE SCORE AND TEN makes it "19 and 3/8ths." Her solution has given
me--I will not say "many anxious days and sleepless nights," for I wish
to be strictly truthful, but--some trouble in making any sense at all of
it. She makes the number of "pensioners wounded once" to be 310 ("per
cent.," I suppose!): dividing by 4, she gets 77 and a half as "average
percentage:" again dividing by 4, she gets 19 and 3/8ths as "percentage
wounded four times." Does she suppose wounds of different kinds to
"absorb" each other, so to speak? Then, no doubt, the _data_ are
equivalent to 77 pensioners with one wound each, and a half-pensioner
with a half-wound. And does she then suppose these concentrated wounds
to be _transferable_, so that 3/4ths of these unfortunates can obtain
perfect health by handing over their wounds to the remaining 1/4th?
Granting these suppositions, her answer is right; or rather, _if_ the
question had been "A road is covered with one inch of gravel, along 77
and a half per cent. of it. How much of it could be covered 4 inches
deep with the same material?" her answer _would_ have been right. But
alas, that _wasn't_ the question! DELTA makes some most amazing
assumptions: "let every one who has not lost an eye have lost an ear,"
"let every one who has not lost both eyes and ears have lost an arm."
Her ideas of a battle-field are grim indeed. Fancy a warrior who would
continue fighting after losing both eyes, both ears, and both arms! This
is a case which she (or "it?") evidently considers _possible_.

Next come eight writers who have made the unwarrantable assumption that,
because 70 per cent. have lost an eye, _therefore_ 30 per cent. have
_not_ lost one, so that they have _both_ eyes. This is illogical. If you
give me a bag containing 100 sovereigns, and if in an hour I come to you
(my face _not_ beaming with gratitude nearly so much as when I received
the bag) to say "I am sorry to tell you that 70 of these sovereigns are
bad," do I thereby guarantee the other 30 to be good? Perhaps I have not
tested them yet. The sides of this illogical octagon are as follows, in
alphabetical order:--ALGERNON BRAY, DINAH MITE, G. S. C., JANE E., J. D.
W.,