At the commencement of the present war, between France and Great
Britain, a serjeant in the recruiting service of the latter power, asked
a tall countryman of Yorkshire, what bounty he would take to engage in
his Majesty’s service? the countryman replied that he was his man, if he
would for the first half inch of his stature give him a halfpenny, (one
cent.) a penny for the second, for the third, two pence, and counting at
that rate, till he had finished his measure; the bargain being struck,
and the countryman measuring six feet in length, the calculation was
carried on for some time, until the serjeant thought proper to drown the
affair in a bowl of punch. I find, upon calculation, that the
countryman’s bounty, allowing five dollars to a cubic inch, would
(including fractions, which of theselves come to an enormous amount)
have been equal in value to 27,364,368,033,632 globes of solid silver,
each globe measuring as large as the earth.
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+For the New-York Weekly Magazine.+
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