Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 May 1894 — Could You Buy Nails This Way? WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE BUILD A FIRE UNDER THIS DONKEY?-N. Y. World. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Could You Buy Nails This Way?

WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE BUILD A FIRE UNDER THIS DONKEY ?-N. Y. World.

An old farmer came to town last week and told a merchant he wanted some nails. The merchant told him he would sell him forty pounds of twenty-pennies to the dollar, thirtyfive pounds of twelve-pennies to the dollar and thirty pounds of ten-pen-nies to the dollar. The farmer told the merchant he would take a dollar’s worth of the three kinds, and wanted twice as many tens as twelves, and twice as many twelves as twenties. The merchant figured all over two sheets of paper and then failed to work the sum. He then said to the farmer: “If you will work the sum I will give you the old nails.” So the farmer took the pencil, solved the problem for the merchant, weighed up the nails, threw them on his back and went home laughing.— [Jackson (Ga.) Herald. Music teachers in Hamburg, Germany, are paid twenty-one cents an hour.