The Scrap Book. Volume 1, No. 2

How to Tell a Woman’s Age

Two Ways of Securing Certain Valuable and Closely Guarded Information Which the
Fair Sex Defies Even the Courts to Extract.

Few mysteries are at once so impenetrable and so irritating as that which surrounds a truthful woman who declines to take you into her confidence when the subject of her age is mentioned. But even women who are truthful and secretive are curious, and when a friend tells them that he can solve the mystery in spite of them they may easily fall into a certain mathematical snare.

Tell the young woman to put down the number of the month in which she was born, then to multiply it by 2, then add 5, then to multiply it by 50, then to add her age, then to add 115, then to subtract 365, and finally to tell you the amount that she has left.

The two figures to the right will tell her age, and the remainder the month of her birth. For example, the amount is 822; she is twenty-two years old, and was born in the eighth month (August).

Then there is another method.

Just hand this table to a young lady, and request her to tell you in which column or columns her age is contained, and add together the figures at the top of the columns in which her age is found, and you have the great secret. Thus, suppose her age to be seventeen, you will find that number in the first and fifth columns. Here is the magic table:

1	2	4	8	16	32
3	3	5	9	17	33
5	6	6	10	18	34
7	7	7	11	19	35
9	10	12	12	20	36
11	11	13	13	21	37
13	14	14	14	22	38
15	15	15	15	23	39
17	18	20	24	24	40
19	19	21	25	25	41
21	22	22	26	26	42
23	23	23	27	27	43
25	26	28	28	28	44
27	27	29	29	29	45
29	30	30	30	30	46
31	31	31	31	31	47
33	34	36	40	48	48
35	35	37	41	49	49
37	38	38	42	50	50
39	39	39	43	51	51
41	42	44	44	52	52
43	43	45	45	53	53
45	46	46	46	54	54
47	47	47	47	55	55
49	50	52	56	56	56
51	51	53	57	57	57
53	54	54	58	58	58
55	55	55	59	59	59
57	58	60	60	60	60
59	59	61	61	61	61
61	62	62	62	62	62
63	63	63	63	63	63