of children with
nothing but facts and figures; which process the President very forcibly
remarked, had made them (the section) the men they were.
'MR. SLUG then stated some curious calculations respecting the dogs'-meat
barrows of London. He found that the total number of small carts and
barrows engaged in dispensing provision to the cats and dogs of the
metropolis was, one thousand seven hundred and forty-three. The average
number of skewers delivered daily with the provender, by each dogs'-meat
cart or barrow, was thirty-six. Now, multiplying the number of skewers
so delivered by the number of barrows, a total of sixty-two thousand
seven hundred and forty-eight skewers daily would be obtained. Allowing
that, of these sixty-two thousand seven hundred and forty-eight skewers,
the odd two thousand seven hundred and forty-eight were accidentally
devoured with the meat, by the most voracious of the animals supplied, it
followed that sixty thousand skewers per day, or the enormous number of
twenty-one millions nine hundred thousand skewers annually, were wasted
in the kennels and dustholes of London; which, if collected and
warehoused, would in ten years' time afford a mass of timber more than
sufficient for the construction of a first-rate vessel of war for the use
of her Majesty's navy, to be called "The Royal Skewer," and to become
under that name the terror of all the enemies of this island.
'MR. X. LEDBRAIN read a very ingenious communication, from which it
appeared that the total number of legs belonging to the manufacturing
population of one great town in Yorkshire was, in round numbers, forty
thousand, while the total number of chair and stool legs in their houses
was only thirty thousand, which, upon the very favourable average of
three legs to a seat, yielded only ten thousand seats in all. From this
calculation it would appear,--not taking wooden or cork legs into the
account, but allowing two legs to every person,--that ten thousand
individuals (one-half of the whole population) were either destitute of
any rest for their legs at all, or passed the whole of their leisure time
in sitting upon boxes.
'SECTION D.--MECHANICAL SCIENCE.
COACH-HOUSE, ORIGINAL PIG.
_President_--Mr. Carter. _Vice-Presidents_--Mr. Truck and Mr. Waghorn.
'PROFESSOR QUEERSPECK exhibited an elegant model of a portable railway,
neatly mounted in a green case, for the waistcoat pocket. By attaching
this beautiful instrum
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