A logic puzzle by Lewis Carroll, July 2, 1893. What conclusion can be drawn from these premises?

1. All who neither dance on tight-ropes nor eat penny-buns are old.
2. Pigs that are liable to giddiness are treated with respect.
3. A wise balloonist takes an umbrella with him.
4. No one ought to lunch in public who looks ridiculous and eats penny-buns.
5. Young creatures who go up in balloons are liable to giddiness.
6. Fat creatures who look ridiculous may lunch in public, provided that they do not dance on tight-ropes.
7. No wise creatures dance on tight-ropes if liable to giddiness.
8. A pig looks ridiculous carrying an umbrella.
9. All who do not dance on tight-ropes and who are treated with respect are fat.

Otto Wurzburg, first prize, eighth tourney, Pittsburgh Gazette-Times, June 10, 1917. White to mate in two.

Stephen Barr observes that a pitched roof receives less rain per unit area than level ground does. This seems to mean that rain that falls at a slant will be less wetting than rain that falls vertically. Why isn’t this so?

From the U.K. Schools Mathematical Challenge, a multiple-choice competition for students ages 11-14:

Humphrey the horse at full stretch is hard to match. But that is just what you have to do: move one match to make another horse just like (i.e. congruent to) Humphrey. Which match must you move?

A ladder is leaning against a tree. On the center rung is a pussycat. She must be a very determined pussycat, because she remains on that rung as we draw the foot of the ladder away from the tree until the ladder is lying flat on the ground. What path does the pussycat describe as she undergoes this indignity?

By Karl Fabel, from Weltspiegel, 1946. White adds a pawn and mates in two moves.

University of Toronto math professor Ed Barbeau can take a rectangular piece of paper and, using only a pair of scissors, produce the object pictured above. How?

By Sam Loyd. White to mate in two moves.

A riddle from 1655:

What is likest to a cat in a hole?

A cat out of a hole.

See Poser.

Here is a class of a dozen boys, who, being called up to give their names were photographed by the instantaneous process just as each one was commencing to pronounce his own name. The twelve names were Oom, Alden, Eastman, Alfred, Arthur, Luke, Fletcher, Matthew, Theodore, Richard, Shirmer, and Hisswald. Now it would not seem possible to be able to give the correct name to each of the twelve boys, but if you practice the list over to each one, you will find it not a difficult task to locate the proper name for every one of the boys.