THE LISTS.
"Grmcum eel—non potest legi." Moxn•tsu SATING. THE introduction into the House of Commons of Lieutenant Daummoxn's calculations, has played sad havoc with the brains of the Opposition members. Mr. CROKER was the first that took them up. He discovered, by dint of hard study, that in six Cases the addition of the number of houses and amount of taxes gave the same results as the more complicated proofs of Lieute- nant DRUMMOND; and having thus discovered, by means of Lieutenant DRUMMOND'S list, that his own guess method would, in half a dozen of instances, give an approximate answer, he bounded to the very Irish conclusion, that the empirical was the correct, and the scientific was the incorrect process. He has been mum- bling at the list on several occasions since that notable display, and always with the same success. When the aged lady in the tale wishes to persuade her offspring that she is still young enough for a second partner, the wicked youngsters present her with a musket-bullet, and promise, if she succeed in cracking that nut, they will yield to her reasoning. The method of Lieutenant DRUMMOND has proved to MT. CROKER what the bullet proved to the old woman,—with this difference, that the latter, in breaking her only stump, resigned the struggle in despair; while the for- mer has gone' on losing tooth after tooth, with the most happy unconsciousness of his misfortune, and exclaiming at each suc- ceeding crash, "Sec what a clever fellow I am ! I told you I'd get at the kernel."
Mr. CROKER'S method of addition (a rule in which the ex-Se- cretary is moderately skilled) has been discarded by Mr. FREDE- RICK POLLOCK. Mr. Ponnoex would have us proceed by multi- plicationtowards our object. He told the House, on Monday, that he had bestowed uncommon pains on the subject ; and, what was specially curious, no doubt, his results and Lieutenant Dnummoxn's
results were not the same. Mr. CROKER is a wrangler from Trinity College, Dublin; Mr. PoLnocs. was a Wrangler of Tri- mity- College, Cambridge. It is edifying to pause over the rich and varied accomplishments of the great men that are sent forth from time to time by these mighty mothers. Mr. Crtoxha is mas- ter' of 'silty& addition, and Mr. FREDERICK POLLOCK can multiply two figiires. into two, without once turning to Professor LESLIE'S -tablet After Mr. POLLOCK had proved, by numerous and well-selected :specimens, his deep knowledge of figures, Mr. WARBURTON ex- pressed his fears that the subject was about to be treated too ma- 'thematically! The Monks could not read Greek, and hence they concluded, that whatever they could not read must be Greek. After the same fashion of reasoning, the Members of the House
°Mormons, not understanding mathematics, look upon all ques- tions which they do not understand to be of necessity mathe- matical.
Mr. Pou.ocx's illustration 'of his method of compound ratios was as ingenious as the rest of his argument. Is there ever a man in all Mincing Lane would know how to ascertain the relative values of a bale of cotton, a hogshead of sugar, and a bag of' pimento? Multiply each by its price, and extract the square root of the pro-
duct. There is a rule of practice for you! The introduction of the square root, we may remark, was an afterthought of Mr. Por.Locx ; for it only came out (suggested by some goodnatureit friend ?) on a second attempt to explain what to the Commons as to himself was equally inexplicable. The problem submitted to Lieutenant DRUMMOND was not a very easy one. At the first view, the method recommended by
Mr. POLLOCK was likely to suggest itself, but a second thought must have shown its inapplicability. It is true, that by extracting the square root of the several products, we get rid of the absurdity in which we would otherwise be landed,—namely, that the sum of all the parts is not equal to the whole ; but there is still another difficulty to surmount. The compound ratio process gives us, ap- proximately, the positive value of one borough; now what was sought of Lieutenant DRUMMOND to determine, was the relative values of 86 boroughs. The process by which he sought to ascertain this, contains, it may be, one step that is not absolutely necessary ; and had he
borne in mind the nature of the substance that fills the skulls of Parliament men, he might have simplified the process by omitting that step. If we seek for an expression which shall give the value of any one of a series of numbers relatively to the whole, we must have recourse to a fraction, of which the number in question is the numerator and the sum of all the numbers the denominator. In estimating the relative values of the 110 boroughs submitted to him, Lieutenant DRUMMOND accordingly proceeded to add together the whole number of houses in one sum, and the whole amount of as- sessed taxes in another; and by this means obtained two denomi- nators, to the one of which the houses, and to the other the as- sessed taxes in the several boroughs, formed a series of numerators. He might have been content with the sums, but he took the averages in preference. Instead of two integers, he had now two fractions, one of which expressed the relative value of the borough in respect of houses, the other its relative value in respect of taxes. The sum of these would evidently give the relative value in both denominations. Having therefore converted the two vulgar frac- tions into their corresponding decimals, he added the latter, and the table was finished.
If the houses and taxes had been in every case equal or correla- tive, the process here described would not have been effected by the number of boroughs taken; but, irregular as these are, every additional borough affected the relation of the two deno- minators more or less. When, therefore, Lieutenant DRUMMOND took successively 100 and 110 boroughs, two series, slightly dif- fering from each other, were naturally obtained. The question is, was that difference so great as to alter the Schedules ? And the answer is—it was not. When Mr. CROKER talked, therefore, of numerous differences between the list framed from 100 boroughs and that framed from 110 boroughs, the whole case made out was merely this—in the one, Mr. CROKER, walked out before Sir CHARLES WETHERELL ; in the other, Sir CHARLES went before Mr. CROKER. All that Lieutenant DRUMMOND and the Country aimed at, was to get rid of both of them. In strict rule, all the boroughs in England ought to have been taken; but had the whole been taken, the Schedules would still have been undisturbed, though the differences of which Mr. CROKER complained would have been greatly increased in number. Lieutenant DRUMMOND took as many boroughs as were necessary to determine the Schedules, and this was all that was required.
Colonel D.A.VIES, on Monday night, reviving an argument of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S, contended that the true way to estimate the value of a borough was by the 10/. voters it could turn out. Pro hac vice, that rule would have been the best ; but for permanent pur- poses it was by no means so good as that which has been adopted. The object of the Bill is not to exclude populous boroughs, merely because they are poor. A rising population gives earnest of future wealth. We have no doubt that the privilege attached to a lot, house will create a demand for 10/. houses. In this view of the case, it is better policy to give a member to a town which has 500 houses and only 100 voters, than to a town which has 200 houses and 150 voters.
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