(_Translated from the last number of the Revue Encyclopedique. By a
Correspondent_.)

(_For the Mirror_.)


A boy, seven years of age, whose name is Vincent Zuccaro, has excited
the public attention at Palermo for some time past. This child, born of
poor and uneducated parents, possesses an extraordinary talent for
calculation; his mind seizes, as it were, by instinct, all the varied
combinations of numbers, which he unravels with equal facility. The
various reports which had been spread throughout the city, respecting
his talents, appeared so incredible, that a public meeting of literary
men was expressly convened, for the purpose of examining his
pretensions. The meeting was held on the 30th of January last, at the
Academy _Del Buon Gusto_, and consisted of upwards of four hundred
persons, among whom were observed some of the most distinguished
literati and influential persons of the city. Two Professors of
Mathematics were stationed near the child, to prevent collusion or
fraud, and to take minutes of the questions proposed, with the answers
returned. A great number of questions were proposed, which Vincent
Zuccaro answered with a facility that excited general admiration. We
shall only extract two of the most simple, as some of the questions
would be hardly intelligible to general readers:

Question 1.--A ship set sail at noon from Naples to Palermo (the
distance between the two cities being 180 miles), and sailed at the rate
of ten miles an hour; another ship set off at the same time, to sail
from Palermo to Naples, at the rate of seven miles per hour: at what
time did the ships meet each other, and what was the distance sailed by