A Railway Muddle.
The plan represents a portion of the line of the London, Clodville, and
Mudford Railway Company. It is a single line with a loop. There is only
room for eight wagons, or seven wagons and an engine, between B an...
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The "t" Card Puzzle.
An entertaining little puzzle with cards is to take the nine cards of a
suit, from ace to nine inclusive, and arrange them in the form of the
letter "T," as shown in the illustration, so that the pips in the
ho...
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The New Year's Eve Suppers.
The proprietor of a small London cafe has given me some interesting
figures. He says that the ladies who come alone to his place for
refreshment spend each on an average eighteenpence, that the
unaccompanied me...
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Plates And Coins.
Place twelve plates, as shown, on a round table, with a penny or orange
in every plate. Start from any plate you like and, always going in one
direction round the table, take up one penny, pass it over two othe...
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The Mouse-trap Puzzle.
[Illustration
6 20 2 19
13 21
7 5
3 18
17 8
15 11
14 16
1 9
10 4 1...
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The Kennel Puzzle.
A man has twenty-five dog kennels all communicating with each other by
doorways, as shown in the illustration. He wishes to arrange his twenty
dogs so that they shall form a knight's string from dog No. 1 to do...
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The Sheepfold.
It is a curious fact that the answers always given to some of the
best-known puzzles that appear in every little book of fireside
recreations that has been published for the last fifty or a hundred
years are ei...
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Under The Mistletoe Bough
"At the party was a widower who has but lately come into these parts," says the record; "and, to be sure, he was an exceedingly melancholy man, for he did sit away from the company during t...
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The Hymn-board Poser.
The worthy vicar of Chumpley St. Winifred is in great distress. A little
church difficulty has arisen that all the combined intelligence of the
parish seems unable to surmount. What this difficulty is I will st...
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St. George And The Dragon.
Here is a little puzzle on a reduced chessboard of forty-nine squares.
St. George wishes to kill the dragon. Killing dragons was a well-known
pastime of his, and, being a knight, it was only natural that he sho...
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The Game Of Kayles
Nearly all of our most popular games are of very ancient origin, though in many cases they have been considerably developed and improved. Kayles—derived from the French word quilles—w...
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Tasting The Plum Puddings
"Everybody, as I suppose, knows well that the number of different Christmas plum puddings that you taste...
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Heads Or Tails.
Crooks, an inveterate gambler, at Goodwood recently said to a friend,
"I'll bet you half the money in my pocket on the toss of a coin--heads I
win, tails I lose." The coin was tossed and the money handed over. ...
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The Host's Puzzle
Perhaps no puzzle of the whole collection caused more jollity or was found more entertaining than that produced by the Host of the "Tabard," who accompanied the party all the way. He called the ...
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The Baskets Of Plums.
This is the form in which I first introduced the question of magic
squares with prime numbers. I will here warn the reader that there is a
little trap.
A fruit merchant had nine baskets. Every basket contained ...
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The Three Sheep.
A farmer had three sheep and an arrangement of sixteen pens, divided off
by hurdles in the manner indicated in the illustration. In how many
different ways could he place those sheep, each in a separate pen, so...
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Bridging The Ditch
I now did truly think that at last was I a free man, but I had quite forgot that I must yet cross a deep ditch before I might get right away. This ditch was 10 feet wide, and I durst not attempt to jump i...
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The Magic Knight's Tour.
Here is a problem that has never yet been solved, nor has its
impossibility been demonstrated. Play the knight once to every square of
the chessboard in a complete tour, numbering the squares in the order
visit...
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The Five Dominoes.
Here is a new little puzzle that is not difficult, but will probably be
found entertaining by my readers. It will be seen that the five dominoes
are so arranged in proper sequence (that is, with 1 against 1, 2 ...
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Average Speed.
In a recent motor ride it was found that we had gone at the rate of ten
miles an hour, but we did the return journey over the same route, owing
to the roads being more clear of traffic, at fifteen miles an hour...
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