their
names, and I take this opportunity of saying that this is the last time
I shall put on record the names of competitors who give no sort of clue
to the process by which their answers were obtained. In guessing a
conundrum, or in catching a flea, we do not expect the breathless victor
to give us afterwards, in cold blood, a history of the mental or
muscular efforts by which he achieved success; but a mathematical
calculation is another thing. The names of this "mute inglorious" band
are COMMON SENSE, D. E. R., DOUGLAS, E. L., ELLEN, I. M. T., J. M. C.,
JOSEPH, KNOT I, LUCY, MEEK, M. F. C., PYRAMUS, SHAH, VERITAS.

Of the eighty-two answers with which the working, or some approach to
it, is supplied, one is wrong: seventeen have given solutions which are
(from one cause or another) practically valueless: the remaining
sixty-four I shall try to arrange in a Class-list, according to the
varying degrees of shortness and neatness to which they seem to have
attained.

The solitary wrong answer is from NELL. To be thus "alone in the crowd"
is a distinction--a painful one, no doubt, but still a distinction. I am
sorry for you, my dear young lady, and I seem to hear your tearful
exclamation, when you read these lines, "Ah! This is the knell of all my
hopes!" Why, oh why, did you assume that the 4th and 5th bags weighed 4
lbs. each? And why did you not test your answers? However, please try
again: and please don't change your _nom-de-plume_: let us have NELL in
the First Class next time!

The seventeen whose solutions are practically valueless are ARDMORE, A
READY RECKONER, ARTHUR, BOG-LARK, BOG-OAK, BRIDGET, FIRST ATTEMPT, J. L.
C., M. E. T., ROSE, ROWENA, SEA-BREEZE, SYLVIA, THISTLEDOWN,
THREE-FIFTHS ASLEEP, VENDREDI, and WINIFRED. BOG-LARK tries it by a sort
of "rule of false," assuming experimentally that Nos. 1, 2, weigh 6 lbs.
each, and having thus produced 17-1/2, instead of 16, as the weight of
1, 3, and 5, she removes "the superfluous pound and a half," but does
not explain how she knows from which to take it. THREE-FIFTHS ASLEEP
says that (when in that peculiar state) "it seemed perfectly clear" to
her that, "3 out of the 5 sacks being weighed twice over, 3/5 of 45 =
27, must be the total weight of the 5 sacks." As to which I can only
say, with the Captain, "it beats me entirely!" WINIFRED, on the plea
that "one must have a starting-point," assumes (what I fear is a mere
guess) that No. 1 weighed 5-1/2 lbs. The