“SPEAKING ABOUT the modes of conveyance in China,” says a writer who has spent, the most of his life in the Flowery Kingdom, “one soon gets used to being carried around in a sedan chair, which is far more comfortable and expeditious than a hack. These chairs are made of rattan wicker work and remind you very much of those little Chinese puzzle boxes, made of colored straws so cleverly put together that you cannot discover where they are joined together””all of which is very suggestive of a clever puzzle, for those sedan chairs will close up so as to make a covered box when it rains, and yet the closest examination will not detect where the pieces are joined. To illustrate the puzzle you are asked to cut the sedan chair Into the fewest possible pieces, which will fit together and form a perfect square, so that the men will appear to be carrying a closed box.
In that odd little cutting puzzle, where it was required to divide the sedan chair into the fewest number of pieces which could he fitted together so as to form a perfect square, the following line shows how several of our clever puzzlists perform the feat in only two pieces:
3.
Students of concealed geography are given an opportunity to find the locality from whence Barnum was once compelled to lead an obstinate elephant which had taken a dislike to railroading.
Barnum brought Jumbo from “Boonton.”
4.
What is the difference between a spendthrift and a pillow? One is hard up, the other is soft down!
Which is the most difficult river to cross? The Arno, because there Arno boats there!
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