There is a strange man in existence who, by the
laws of chance, must in all probability- have spent half his life-time in studying -arithmetical coincidences, and has at last been rewarded with find- ing such a one as he might have hunted for through -half a =cen- tury without discovering. The Pall Mall Gazette publishes the observations of a correspondent on a pair of triple coincidences, -which may (very unlikely) become one of quadruple coincidences, between the figures of dates affecting the life of Louis.Philippe and the same dates for the life of Louis Napoleon:— Louis PHILIPPE L01318 NAPOLEON
ascended the Throne in proclaimed-Emperor in ; 1830 1830 1830 4852 .1862 1852 1 o
o 7 1 t) 1
7 .8 8 S l~ 0 2 9
d'° 7 41 13 3 MI C3?
1 .8 33 1 &
" 0 T 2 r'5 8 g 6
1848 1848 1848 1869 1869 1869 in which year he abdicated. in which year
Here the treble coincidences that are certain is that the date of the birth, of the wife's birth, and of the marriage of each monarch when added in a vertical column to the last figure of the
date of his coming to the throne produce the same answer for each addition, though of course a different answer for the two monarchs. The fourth coincidence, not yet verified, and of course in the highest degree improbable, which it suggests, is that the date so obtained in 'the Emperor's case should be the date of a similar event to that which this process gave in Louis Philippe's case. If that high impro- bability should happen, mathematicians would certainly assert that it-was mathematically much more likely than not that there was a remora' for this arithmetical coincidence,—though what reason- it would be difficult for the greatest wisdom to•oonjeeterre.
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