+-+-+ ||| +-+-+ ||| +-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | | || | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | || || | +-+-+-+-+-+-+ | || +-+-+ | | | +-+-+ In the illustration we have a somewhat curious target designed by an e...
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 dur...
The puzzle of making a complete tour of the chessboard with the queen in the fewest possible moves (in which squares may be visited more than once) was first given by the late Sam...
My dungeon did not lie beneath the moat, but was in one of the most high parts of the castle. So stout was the door, and so well locked and secured withal, that escape that way was...
We possess three square boards. The surface of the first contains five square feet more than the second, and the second contains five square feet more than the third. Can you give...
The following puzzle has an added interest from the circumstance that a correct solution of it secured for a certain young Chinaman the hand of his charming bride. The wealthiest m...
[Illustration 6 20 2 19 13 21 7 5 3 18 17 8 15 11 14 16 1 9 10 4 12 ] This is a modern version, with a difference, of an old puzzle of the same name. Number twenty-one cards, 1, 2,...
A facetious individual who was taking a long walk in the country came upon a yokel sitting on a stile. As the gentleman was not quite sure of his road, he thought he would make inq...
The dominions of a certain Eastern monarch formed a perfectly square tract of country. It happened that the king one day discovered that his four sons were not only plotting agains...
The above diagram is the plan of an underground railway. The fare is uniform for any distance, so long as you do not go twice along any portion of the line during the same journey....
Two ladies went into a shop where, through some curious eccentricity, no change was given, and made purchases amounting together to less than five shillings. "Do you know," said on...
Marmaduke: "Do you know, dear, that in seven years' time our combined ages will be sixty-three years?" Mary: "Is that really so? And yet it is a fact that when you were my present...
Chaucer records the painful fact that the harmony of the pilgrimage was broken on occasions by the quarrels between the Friar and the Sompnour. At one stage the latter threatened t...
My friend Captain Potham Hall, the renowned hunter of big game, says there is nothing more exhilarating than a brush with a herd--a pack--a team--a flock--a swarm (it has taken me...
The Monk that went with the party was a great lover of sport. "Greyhounds he had as swift as fowl of flight: Of riding and of hunting for the hare Was all his love, for no cost wou...
The only way out of the yard that I now was in was to descend a few stairs that led up into the centre (A) of an underground maze, through the winding of which I must pass before I...
The illustration, by a British artist, is a sketch of Jack climbing the beanstalk. Now, the artist has made a serious blunder in this drawing. Can you find out what it is?
"It was a sheer stroke of luck on your part, Hawkhurst," he added. "Here is a much easier puzzle, because it is capable of more systematic analysis; yet it may just happen that you...
If we take the ribbon by the ends and pull it out straight, we have the number 0588235294117647. This number has the peculiarity that, if we multiply it by any one of the numbers,...
[Illustration: +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | | | | | | | | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | | | | | | | | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | | | | | | | | | +---+---+...
In a game of chess between Mr. Black and Mr. White, Black was in difficulties, and as usual was obliged to catch a train. So he proposed that White should complete the game in his...
Some years ago a man told me he had spent one hundred English silver coins in Christmas-boxes, giving every person the same amount, and it cost him exactly L1, 10s. 1d. Can you tel...
An antiquary possessed a number of curious old links, which he took to a blacksmith, and told him to join together to form one straight piece of chain, with the sole condition that...
I set out the other day to ride in a motor-car from Acrefield to Butterford, but by mistake I took the road going _via_ Cheesebury, which is nearer Acrefield than Butterford, and i...
In a cricket match, Dingley Dell v. All Muggleton, the latter had the first innings. Mr. Dumkins and Mr. Podder were at the wickets, when the wary Dumkins made a splendid late cut,...
A correspondent, who is apparently much interested in campanology, asks me how he is to construct what he calls a "true and correct" peal for four bells. He says that every possibl...
When I paid a visit to Peckham recently I found everybody asking, "What has happened to Sam Solders, the plumber?" He seemed to be in a bad way, and his wife was seriously anxious...
Our observation of little things is frequently defective, and our memories very liable to lapse. A certain judge recently remarked in a case that he had no recollection whatever of...
There once lived in a small town in New Castile a noted miser named Don Manuel Rodriguez. His love of money was only equalled by a strong passion for arithmetical problems. These p...
"What do you think of these?" The Professor brought from his capacious pockets a number of frogs, snails, lizards, and other creatures of Japanese manufacture—very grotesque in for...