Even You Can Learn Statistics and

Analytics: An Easy to Understand

Guide, 4th Edition David M. Levine
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/even-you-can-learn-statistics-and-analytics-an-easy-t
o-understand-guide-4th-edition-david-m-levine/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Even You Can Learn Statistics and Analytics: An Easy to

Understand Guide 4th Edition David Levine

https://ebookmass.com/product/even-you-can-learn-statistics-and-
analytics-an-easy-to-understand-guide-4th-edition-david-levine/

Medical Statistics From Scratch : An Introduction for

Health Professionals, 4th Edition David Bowers

https://ebookmass.com/product/medical-statistics-from-scratch-an-
introduction-for-health-professionals-4th-edition-david-bowers/

Engineering Your Future An Australian Guide 4th Edition

David Dowli

https://ebookmass.com/product/engineering-your-future-an-
australian-guide-4th-edition-david-dowli/

Medical Statistics from Scratch 4th Edition David

Bowers

https://ebookmass.com/product/medical-statistics-from-
scratch-4th-edition-david-bowers/
ABCs of Electronics: An Easy Guide to Electronics
Engineering Farzin Asadi

https://ebookmass.com/product/abcs-of-electronics-an-easy-guide-
to-electronics-engineering-farzin-asadi/

Introductory statistics 4TH REVISED EDITION Edition

Sheldon M. Ross

https://ebookmass.com/product/introductory-statistics-4th-
revised-edition-edition-sheldon-m-ross/

Learn Azure Synapse Data Explorer: A guide to building

real-time analytics solutions to unlock log and
telemetry data Rocha

https://ebookmass.com/product/learn-azure-synapse-data-explorer-
a-guide-to-building-real-time-analytics-solutions-to-unlock-log-
and-telemetry-data-rocha/

Pitch Like Hollywood: What You Can Learn from the High-
Stakes Film Industry Peter Desberg

https://ebookmass.com/product/pitch-like-hollywood-what-you-can-
learn-from-the-high-stakes-film-industry-peter-desberg/

Speak Easy English For Traveling: Learn common English

words and phrases when traveling to an English speaking
country Christopher Hill

https://ebookmass.com/product/speak-easy-english-for-traveling-
learn-common-english-words-and-phrases-when-traveling-to-an-
english-speaking-country-christopher-hill/
About This eBook
ePUB is an open, industry-standard format for eBooks. However,
support of ePUB and its many features varies across reading devices
and applications. Use your device or app settings to customize the
presentation to your liking. Settings that you can customize often
include font, font size, single or double column, landscape or
portrait mode, and figures that you can click or tap to enlarge. For
additional information about the settings and features on your
reading device or app, visit the device manufacturer’s Web site.
Many titles include programming code or configuration examples. To
optimize the presentation of these elements, view the eBook in
single-column, landscape mode and adjust the font size to the
smallest setting. In addition to presenting code and configurations in
the reflowable text format, we have included images of the code
that mimic the presentation found in the print book; therefore,
where the reflowable format may compromise the presentation of
the code listing, you will see a “Click here to view code image” link.
Click the link to view the print-fidelity code image. To return to the
previous page viewed, click the Back button on your device or app.
Even You Can Learn Statistics
and Analytics
Fourth Edition

An Easy to Understand Guide to

Statistics and Analytics

David M. Levine
David F. Stephan

Boston • Columbus • New York • San Francisco •

Amsterdam • Cape Town
 Dubai • London • Madrid • Milan • Munich • Paris •
Montreal • Toronto • Delhi • Mexico City
São Paulo • Sidney • Hong Kong • Seoul • Singapore •
Taipei • Tokyo
Editor-in-Chief: Mark L. Taub
Acquisitions Editor: Kim Spenceley
Development Editor: Chris Zahn
Managing Editor: Sandra Schroeder
Project Editor: Mandie Frank
Production Manager: Remya Divakaran/codeMantra
Copy Editor: Kitty Wilson
Indexer: Timothy Wright
Proofreader: Donna Mulder
Designer: Chuti Prasertsith
Compositor: codeMantra
Copyright © 2022 Pearson Education, Inc.
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to
distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those
designations appear in this book, and the publisher was aware of a
trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial
capital letters or in all capitals.
The authors and publisher have taken care in the preparation of this
book, but make no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and
assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. No liability is
assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection with
or arising out of the use of the information or programs contained
herein.
For information about buying this title in bulk quantities, or for
special sales opportunities (which may include electronic versions;
custom cover designs; and content particular to your business,
training goals, marketing focus, or branding interests), please
contact our corporate sales department at
corpsales@pearsoned.com or (800) 382-3419.
For government sales inquiries, please contact
governmentsales@pearsoned.com.
For questions about sales outside the U.S., please contact
intlcs@pearson.com.
Visit us on the Web: informit.com/aw
All rights reserved. This publication is protected by copyright, and
permission must be obtained from the publisher prior to any
prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or
transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or likewise. For information regarding
permissions, request forms, and the appropriate contacts within the
Pearson Education Global Rights & Permissions Department, please
visit www.pearson.com/permissions.
No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the
information contained herein. Although every precaution has been
taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author
assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Nor is any liability
assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information
contained herein.
ScoutAutomatedPrintCode

ISBN-13: 978-013-765476-5
ISBN-10: 0-13-765476-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021947626
Pearson’s Commitment to Diversity,
Equity, and Inclusion
Pearson is dedicated to creating bias-free content that reflects the
diversity of all learners. We embrace the many dimensions of
diversity, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender,
socioeconomic status, ability, age, sexual orientation, and religious
or political beliefs.

Education is a powerful force for equity and change in our world. It

has the potential to deliver opportunities that improve lives and
enable economic mobility. As we work with authors to create content
for every product and service, we acknowledge our responsibility to
demonstrate inclusivity and incorporate diverse scholarship so that
everyone can achieve their potential through learning. As the world’s
leading learning company, we have a duty to help drive change and
live up to our purpose to help more people create a better life for
themselves and to create a better world.

Our ambition is to purposefully contribute to a world where:

Everyone has an equitable and lifelong opportunity to succeed
through learning.
Our educational products and services are inclusive and
represent the rich diversity of learners.
Our educational content accurately reflects the histories and
experiences of the learners we serve.
Our educational content prompts deeper discussions with
learners and motivates them to expand their own learning (and
worldview).
While we work hard to present unbiased content, we want to hear
from you about any concerns or needs with this Pearson product so
that we can investigate and address them.
Please contact us with concerns about any potential bias at
https://www.pearson.com/report-bias.html.
Credits
Cover ZinetroN/Shutterstock

Unnumbered Figure 3-1 – Unnumbered

Microsoft Corporation
Figure 3-3
Unnumbered Figure 5-1 – Unnumbered
Figure 5-3
Figure 6-2

Figure 6-3
Figure 8-2 – Figure 8-5
Unnumbered Figure 8-1

Unnumbered Figure 8-2

Figure 9-1 – Figure 9-3
Figure 9-5

Figure 9-6

Figure 10-3
Figure 11-1

Figure 12-1 – Figure 12-3

Figure 12-5 – Figure 12-7

 Cover ZinetroN/Shutterstock

Figure E-1 – Figure E-5

Unnumbered Figure E-1

Unnumbered Figure E-2

JMP Statistical
Figure 13-5
Discovery LLC

Figure 13-6

Microsoft and/or its respective suppliers make no representations

about the suitability of the information contained in the documents
and related graphics published as part of the services for any
purpose all such documents and related graphics are provided “s is”
without warranty of any kind. Microsoft and/or its respective
suppliers hereby disclaim all warranties and conditions with regard to
this information, including all warranties and conditions of
merchantability, whether express, implied or statutory, fitness for a
particular purpose, title and non-infringement. In no event shall
Microsoft and/or its respective suppliers be liable for any special,
indirect or consequential damages or any damages whatsoever
resulting from loss of use, data or profits, whether in an action of
contract, negligence or other tortious action, arising out of or in
connection with the use or performance of information available
from the services.

The documents and related graphics contained herein could include

technical inaccuracies or typographical errors. Changes are
periodically added to the information herein. Microsoft and/or its
respective suppliers may make improvements and/or changes in the
product(s) and/or the program(s) described herein at any time.
Partial screen shots may be viewed in full within the software version
specified.
Microsoft® Windows®, and Microsoft Office® are registered
trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation in the U.S.A. and other
countries. This book is not sponsored or endorsed by or affiliated
with the Microsoft Corporation.
To our wives and our children, and in loving memory of our parents
Table of Contents
Introduction The Even You Can Learn Statistics
and Analytics Owner’s Manual

Chapter 1 Fundamentals of Statistics

1.1 The First Three Words of Statistics
1.2 The Fourth and Fifth Words
1.3 The Branches of Statistics
1.4 Sources of Data
1.5 Sampling Concepts
1.6 Sample Selection Methods

Chapter 2 Presenting Data in Tables and Charts

2.1 Presenting Categorical Variables
2.2 Presenting Numerical Variables
2.3 “Bad” Charts

Chapter 3 Descriptive Statistics

3.1 Measures of Central Tendency
3.2 Measures of Position
3.3 Measures of Variation
3.4 Shape of Distributions

Chapter 4 Probability
4.1 Events
4.2 More Definitions
4.3 Some Rules of Probability
4.4 Assigning Probabilities

Chapter 5 Probability Distributions

5.1 Probability Distributions for Discrete Variables
5.2 The Binomial and Poisson Probability Distributions
5.3 Continuous Probability Distributions and the Normal
Distribution
5.4 The Normal Probability Plot

Chapter 6 Sampling Distributions and Confidence

Intervals
6.1 Foundational Concepts
6.2 Sampling Error and Confidence Intervals
6.3 Confidence Interval Estimate for the Mean Using the t
Distribution (σ Unknown)
6.4 Confidence Interval Estimation for Categorical Variables
6.5 Confidence Interval Estimation When Normality Cannot
Be Assumed

Chapter 7 Fundamentals of Hypothesis Testing

7.1 The Null and Alternative Hypotheses
7.2 Hypothesis Testing Issues
7.3 Decision-Making Risks
7.4 Performing Hypothesis Testing
7.5 Types of Hypothesis Tests

Chapter 8 Hypothesis Testing: Z and t Tests

8.1 Test for the Difference Between Two Proportions
8.2 Test for the Difference Between the Means of Two
Independent Groups
8.3 The Paired t Test

Chapter 9 Hypothesis Testing: Chi-Square Tests

and the One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)
9.1 Chi-Square Test for Two-Way Tables
9.2 One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA): Testing for the
Differences Among the Means of More Than Two Groups

Chapter 10 Simple Linear Regression

10.1 Basics of Regression Analysis
10.2 Developing a Simple Linear Regression Model
10.3 Measures of Variation
10.4 Inferences About the Slope
10.5 Common Mistakes When Using Regression Analysis

Chapter 11 Multiple Regression

11.1 The Multiple Regression Model
11.2 Coefficient of Multiple Determination
11.3 The Overall F Test
11.4 Residual Analysis for the Multiple Regression Model
11.5 Inferences Concerning the Population Regression
Coefficients

Chapter 12 Introduction to Analytics

12.1 Basic Concepts
12.2 Descriptive Analytics
12.3 Typical Descriptive Analytics Visualizations

Chapter 13 Predictive Analytics

 13.1 Predictive Analytics Methods
13.2 More About Predictive Models
13.3 Tree Induction
13.4 Clustering
13.5 Association Analysis

Appendix A Microsoft Excel Operation and

Configuration
A.1 Conventions for Keystroke and Mouse Operations
A.2 Microsoft Excel Technical Configuration

Appendix B Review of Arithmetic and Algebra

Assessment Quiz
Symbols
Answers to Quiz

Appendix C Statistical Tables

Appendix D Spreadsheet Tips

Chart Tips
Function Tips

Appendix E Advanced Techniques

Advanced How-To Tips
Analysis ToolPak Tips

Appendix F Documentation for Downloadable Files

F.1 Downloadable Data Files
F.2 Downloadable Spreadsheet Solution Files

Index
Acknowledgments
We would especially like to thank the staff at Pearson: Kim
Spenceley for making this fourth edition a reality, Kitty Wilson for her
copy editing, Lori Lyons and Mandie Frank for their work in the
production of this text.

We have sought to make the contents of this book as clear, accurate,

and error-free as possible. We invite you to make suggestions or ask
questions about the content if you think we have fallen short of our
goals in any way. Please email your comments to
authors@davidlevinestatistics.com and include the hashtag
#EYCLSA4 in the subject line of your message.
About the Authors
David M. Levine and David F. Stephan are part of a writing team
known for their series of business statistics textbooks that include
Basic Business Statistics, Business Statistics: A First Course, and
Statistics for Managers Using Microsoft Excel. In long teaching
careers at Baruch College, both were known for their classroom
innovations, with Levine being honored with a Presidential
Excellence Award for Distinguished Teaching Award and Stephan
granted the privilege to design and develop the College’s first
computer-based classroom. Both are active members of the Data,
Analytics and Statistics Instruction SIG of the Decision Sciences
Institute.

Levine is Professor Emeritus of Information Systems at Baruch

College. He is nationally recognized innovator in business statistics
education and is also the coauthor of Applied Statistics for Engineers
and Scientists Using Microsoft Excel and Minitab. Levine is also the
author or coauthor of four books about statistical quality
management: Statistics for Six Sigma Green Belts and Champions,
Six Sigma for Green Belts and Champions, Design for Six Sigma for
Green Belts and Champions, and Quality Management, 3rd Edition.
He has published articles in various journals, including
Psychometrika, The American Statistician, Communications in
Statistics, Multivariate Behavioral Research, Journal of Systems
Management, Quality Progress, and The American Anthropologist,
and has given numerous talks at American Statistical Association,
Decision Sciences Institute, and Making Statistics More Effective in
Schools of Business conferences.
During his more than 20 years at Baruch College, Stephan devised
techniques for teaching computer applications such as Microsoft
Excel in a business context and developed future-forward courses
that explored the effects of emerging digital technologies. He also
served as the associate director of a U.S. Department of Education
FIPSE project that successfully integrated interactive media into
classroom instruction for the humanities.. Stephan is also the
developer of PHStat, the statistics add-in for Microsoft Excel
distributed by Pearson Education.
Introduction
The Even You Can Learn Statistics and
Analytics Owner’s Manual
In today’s world, understanding statistics and analytics is more
important than ever before. Even You Can Learn Statistics and
Analytics: An Easy to Understand Guide to Statistics and Analytics
teaches you the basic concepts that provide you with the knowledge
to apply statistics and analytics in your life. You will also learn the
most commonly used statistical methods and have the opportunity
to practice those methods while using Microsoft Excel.
Please read the rest of this introduction so that you can become
familiar with the distinctive features of this book. To download files
that support your learning of statistics, visit the website for this book
at www.informit.com.

Mathematics Is Always Optional!

Never mastered higher mathematics—or generally fearful of math?
Not to worry, because in Even You Can Learn Statistics and
Analytics, you will find that every concept is explained in plain
English, without the use of higher mathematics or mathematical
symbols. However, if you are interested in the mathematical
foundations behind statistics, Even You Can Learn Statistics and
Analytics includes Equation Blackboards, stand-alone sections
that present the equations behind statistical methods and
complement the main material.
Learning with the Concept-Interpretation
Approach
Even You Can Learn Statistics and Analytics uses a Concept-
Interpretation approach to help you learn statistics and analytics:
A CONCEPT, a plain language definition that uses no
complicated mathematical terms.
An INTERPRETATION, that fully explains the concept and its
importance to statistics. When necessary, these sections also
include common misconceptions about the concept as well as
the common errors people can make when trying to apply the
concept.

For simpler concepts, an EXAMPLES section lists real-life examples

or applications of the statistical concepts. For more involved
concepts, WORKED-OUT PROBLEMS provide complete solutions
to statistical problems—including actual spreadsheet results—that
illustrate how you can apply the concepts to other problems.

Practicing Statistics While You Learn Statistics

To help you learn statistics, you should always review the worked-
out problems that appear in this book. As you review them, you can
practice what you have just learned by using the optional
SPREADSHEET SOLUTION sections.

Spreadsheet Solution sections enable you to use Microsoft Excel as

you learn statistics. If you don’t want to practice your spreadsheet
skills, you can examine the spreadsheet results that appear
throughout the book. Many spreadsheet results are available as files
that you can download for free through the InformIT website,
www.informit.com. Please visit the website for this book at
www.informit.com to access these bonus materials.

Spreadsheet program users will also benefit from Appendix D and

Appendix E, which help teach you more about spreadsheets as you
learn statistics.

And if technical issues or instructions have ever confounded your

using Microsoft Excel in the past, check out Appendix A, which
details the technical configuration issues you might face and explains
the conventions used in all technical instructions that appear in this
book.

In-Chapter Aids
As you read a chapter, look for the following icons for extra help:

Important Point icons highlight key definitions and explanations.

File icons identify the downloadable files that enable you to examine
the data in selected problems.

Interested in the mathematical foundations of statistics? Then look

for the Interested in Math? icons throughout the book. But
remember, you can skip any or all of the math sections without
losing any comprehension of the statistical methods presented,
because math is always optional in this book!
End-of-Chapter Features
At the end of most chapters of Even You Can Learn Statistics and
Analytics, you can find the following features, which you can review
to reinforce your learning.

Important Equations
The Important Equations sections present all of the important
equations discussed in the chapter. You can use these lists for
reference and later study even if you have skipped over the Equation
Blackboards and “interested in math” passages.

One-Minute Summaries
Each One-Minute Summary is a quick review of the significant
topics in the chapter in outline form. When appropriate, the
summaries also help guide you to make the right decisions about
applying statistics to the data you seek to analyze.
Test Yourself
The Test Yourself sections offer a set of short-answer questions
and problems that enable you to review and test yourself (with
answers provided) to see how much you have retained of the
concepts presented in a chapter.

Summary
Even You Can Learn Statistics and Analytics can help you whether
you are taking a formal course in data analysis, brushing up on your
knowledge of statistics for a specific analysis, or need to learn about
analytics. If you have questions about this book, feel free to contact
the authors via email at authors@davidlevinestatistics.com and
include the hashtag #EYCLSA4 in the subject line of your email.
Chapter 1
Fundamentals of Statistics

1.1 The First Three Words of Statistics

1.2 The Fourth and Fifth Words
1.3 The Branches of Statistics
1.4 Sources of Data
1.5 Sampling Concepts
1.6 Sample Selection Methods
One-Minute Summary
Test Yourself

Every day, people use numbers to describe or analyze our world:

4 out of 5 people don’t want their personal data collected

or shared without consent. Invisibly.com reports that in a
survey of 1,247 people, 82% of respondents supported measures
that would prevent companies and devices from collecting or
sharing their data, and 68% of respondents said that data privacy
is important to them.
Learn more, earn more: Education leads to higher wages,
lower unemployment. A 2020 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
 report noted that workers aged 25 and over who have less
education than a high school diploma had the highest
unemployment rate (5.4%) and lowest median weekly earnings
($592) in 2019. Workers with graduate degrees had the lowest
unemployment rates and highest earnings.
Streaming media device market to hit USD 24 billion by
2026. Market Research Future, a leading market research firm,
expects the size of the streaming media device market to grow to
$24 billion by 2026, growing at a compound annual growth rate
of 17.6% from the 2020 market size.
You can make better sense of the numbers you encounter if you
learn to understand statistics. Statistics, a branch of mathematics,
uses procedures that enable you to correctly analyze the numbers.
These procedures, or statistical methods, transform numbers into
useful information that you can use when making decisions about
the numbers. Statistical methods can also tell you the known risks
associated with making a decision as well as help you make more
consistent judgments about the numbers.

Learning statistics or analytics requires you to reflect on the

significance and the importance of the results to the decision-making
process you face. This statistical interpretation means knowing when
to ignore results because they are misleading, are produced by
incorrect methods, or just restate the obvious, as in “100% of the
authors of this book are named ‘David.’ ”
In this chapter, you begin by learning five basic words—population,
sample, variable, parameter, and statistic (singular)—that identify
the fundamental concepts of statistics. These five words, and the
other concepts that this chapter introduces, help you understand the
statistical methods that later chapters discuss.
 1.1 The First Three Words of
Statistics
You’ve already learned that statistics is about analyzing things.
Although numbers was the word used to represent things in the
opening of this chapter, the first three words of statistics, population,
sample, and variable, help you to better identify what you analyze
with statistics.

Population
Concept All the members of a group about which you want to reach
a conclusion.

Examples All U.S. citizens who are currently registered to vote, all
patients treated at a particular hospital last year, the entire set of
individuals who accessed a website on a particular day.

Sample
Concept The part of the population selected for analysis.

Examples The registered voters selected to participate in a recent

survey concerning their intention to vote in the next election, the
patients selected to fill out a patient satisfaction questionnaire, 100
boxes of cereal selected from a factory’s production line, 500
individuals who accessed a website on a particular day.

Variable
Concept A characteristic of an item or an individual that will be
analyzed using statistics.
Examples Age, the party affiliation of a registered voter, the
household income of the citizens who live in a specific geographical
area, the publishing category of a book (hardcover, trade paperback,
mass-market paperback, textbook), the number of cell phones in a
household.

Interpretation Although people often say that they are analyzing

their data, they are, more precisely, analyzing their variables.
Variables are either categorical—variables that contain non-
numerical data, data not intended for mathematical calculations—or
numerical, variables whose data represent a counted or measured
quantity. The following table presents more information about the
two types of variables, including the two subtypes of numerical
variables.

Categorical Variables Numerical Variables

Co The values of these The values of these variables

nce variables are selected from involve a counted or
pt an established list of measured value.
categories.

Su None Discrete values are counts of

bty things.
pes
Continuous values are
measures, and any value can
theoretically occur, limited
only by the precision of the
measuring process.

Ex Wears glasses, a variable The number of people living

am that has the categories in a household, a discrete
ple “yes” and “no.” numerical variable.
s
 Academic major, a variable The time it takes for someone
that might have the to commute to work, a
categories “English,” continuous numerical
“Math,” “Science,” and variable.
“History,” among others.

You should distinguish a variable, such as age, from its value for an
individual item, such as 21. An observation is the set of values for
an individual item in the sample. For example, a sample that
contains the variables first name, age, and employed might include
the three observations Avery, 33, yes; Jamie, 27, yes; and Peyton,
45, no.

By convention, when you organize data in tabular form, you place

the values for a variable to be analyzed in a column. Therefore,
some people refer to a variable as a column of data. Likewise, some
people call an observation a row of data.

Every variable should have an operational definition, a universally

accepted meaning that is understood by all working with the
variable. For example, in a previous example the variable employed
was defined to have yes and no as its values and age was defined as
whole years. Without operational definitions, confusion can occur. A
famous example of such confusion was a survey that asked about
sex, to which a number of survey takers answered yes and not male
or female, as the survey writer had intended.
 1.2 The Fourth and Fifth Words
After you know what you are analyzing, or, using the words of
Section 1.1, after you have identified the variables from the
population or sample under study, you can define the parameters
and statistics that your analysis will determine.

Parameter
Concept A numerical measure that describes a variable
(characteristic) from a population.

Examples The percentage of all registered voters who intend to

vote in the next election, the percentage of all patients who are very
satisfied with the care they received, the mean time that all visitors
spent on a website during a particular day.

Statistic
Concept A numerical measure that describes a variable
(characteristic) of a sample (part of a population).

Examples The percentage of registered voters in a sample who

intend to vote in the next election, the percentage of patients in a
sample who are very satisfied with the care they received, the mean
time that a sample of visitors spent on a website during a particular
day.

Interpretation Calculating statistics for a sample is the most

common activity because collecting population data is impractical in
many actual decision-making situations.
 1.3 The Branches of Statistics
You can use parameters and statistics either to describe your
variables or to reach conclusions about your data. These two uses
define the two branches of statistics: descriptive statistics and
inferential statistics.

Descriptive Statistics
Concept The branch of statistics that focuses on collecting,
summarizing, and presenting a set of data.

Examples The mean age of citizens who live in a certain

geographical area, the mean length of all books about statistics, the
variation in the time that visitors spent visiting a website.

Interpretation You are most likely to be familiar with this branch of

statistics because many examples arise in everyday life. Descriptive
statistics serves as the basis for analysis and discussion in fields as
diverse as securities trading, the social sciences, government, the
health sciences, and professional sports. Descriptive methods can
seem deceptively easy to apply because they are often easily
accessible in calculating and computing devices. However, this ease
does not mean that descriptive methods are without their pitfalls, as
Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 explain.

Inferential Statistics
Concept The branch of statistics that analyzes sample data to reach
conclusions about a population.

Example A survey that sampled 1,264 women found that 45% of

those polled considered friends or family their most trusted shopping
advisers, and only 7% considered advertising their most trusted
shopping adviser. By using methods discussed in Section 6.4, you
can use these statistics to draw conclusions about the population of
all women.

Interpretation When you use inferential statistics, you start with a

hypothesis and look to see whether the data are consistent with that
hypothesis. This deeper level of analysis means that inferential
statistical methods can be easily misapplied or misconstrued and
that many inferential methods require a calculating or computing
device. (Chapters 6 through 9 discuss some of the inferential
methods that you will most commonly encounter.)

1.4 Sources of Data

You begin every statistical analysis by identifying the source of the
data that you will use for data collection. Among the important
sources of data are published sources, experiments, and
surveys.

Published Sources
Concept Data available in print or in electronic form, including data
found on Internet websites. Primary data sources are those
published by the individual or group that collected the data.
Secondary data sources are those compiled from primary sources.

Example Many U.S. federal agencies, including the Census Bureau,

publish primary data sources that are available at the data.gov
website. Industry-specific groups and business news organizations
commonly publish online or in-print secondary source data compiled
by business organizations and government agencies.

Interpretation You should always consider the possible bias of the

publisher and whether the data contain all the necessary and
relevant variables when using published sources. This is especially
true of sources found through Internet search engines.

Experiments
Concept A study that examines the effect on a variable of varying
the value(s) of another variable or variables while keeping all other
things equal. A typical experiment contains both a treatment group
and a control group. The treatment group consists of those
individuals or things that receive the treatment(s) being studied. The
control group consists of those individuals or things that do not
receive the treatment(s) being studied.

Example Pharmaceutical companies use experiments to determine

whether a new drug is effective. A group of patients who have many
similar characteristics is divided into two subgroups. Members of one
group, the treatment group, receive the new drug. Members of the
other group, the control group, often receive a placebo, a substance
that has no medical effect. After a time period, statistics that
describe each group are compared.

Interpretation Proper experiments are either single-blind or

double-blind. A study is a single-blind experiment if only the
researcher conducting the study knows the identities of the
members of the treatment and control groups. If neither the
researcher nor study participants know who is in the treatment
group and who is in the control group, the study is a double-blind
experiment.

When conducting experiments that involve placebos, researchers

also have to consider the placebo effect—that is, whether people in
the control group will improve because they believe they are getting
a real substance that is intended to produce a positive result. When
a control group shows as much improvement as the treatment
group, a researcher can conclude that the placebo effect is a
significant factor in the improvements of both groups.
Surveys
Concept A process that uses questionnaires or similar means to
gather values for the responses from a set of participants.

Examples The decennial U.S. census mail-in form, a poll of likely

voters, a website instant poll or “question of the day.”

Interpretation Surveys are either informal, open to anyone who

wants to participate; targeted, directed toward a specific group of
individuals; or include people chosen at random. The type of survey
affects how the data collected can be used and interpreted.

1.5 Sampling Concepts

The Section 1.2 definition of statistic notes that calculating statistics
for a sample is the most common activity because collecting
population data is usually impractical. Because samples are so
commonly used, you need to learn the concepts that help identify all
the members of a population and that describe how samples are
formed.

Frame
Concept The list of all items in the population from which the
sample will be selected.

Examples Voter registration lists, municipal real estate records,

customer or human resources databases, directories.

Interpretation Frames influence the results of an analysis, and

using different frames can lead to different conclusions. You should
always be careful to make sure your frame completely represents a
population; otherwise, any sample selected will be biased, and the
results generated by analyses of that sample will be inaccurate.

Sampling
Concept The process by which members of a population are
selected for a sample.

Examples Choosing every fifth voter who leaves a polling place to

interview, selecting playing cards randomly from a deck, polling
every tenth visitor who views a certain website today.

Interpretation Some sampling techniques, such as an “instant

poll” found on a web page, are naturally suspect as such techniques
do not depend on a well-defined frame. The sampling technique that
uses a well-defined frame is probability sampling.

Probability Sampling
Concept A sampling process that considers the chance of selection
of each item. Probability sampling increases your chance that the
sample will be representative of the population.

Examples The registered voters selected to participate in a recent

survey concerning their intention to vote in the next election, the
patients selected to fill out a patient-satisfaction questionnaire, 100
boxes of cereal selected from a factory’s production line.

Interpretation You should use probability sampling whenever

possible because only this type of sampling enables you to apply
inferential statistical methods to the data you collect. In contrast,
you should use nonprobability sampling, in which the chance of
occurrence of each item being selected is not known, to obtain
rough approximations of results at low cost or for small-scale, initial,
or pilot studies that will later be followed up by a more rigorous
analysis. Surveys and polls that invite the public to call in or answer
questions on a web page are examples of nonprobability sampling.

Simple Random Sampling

Concept The probability sampling process in which every individual
or item from a population has the same chance of selection as every
other individual or item. Every possible sample of a certain size has
the same chance of being selected as every other sample of that
size.

Examples Selecting a playing card from a shuffled deck or using a

statistical device such as a table of random numbers.

Interpretation Simple random sampling forms the basis for other

random sampling techniques. The word random in this phrase
requires clarification. In this phrase, random means no repeating
patterns—that is, in a given sequence, a given pattern is equally
likely (or unlikely). It does not refer to the most commonly used
meaning, “unexpected” or “unanticipated” (as in “random acts of
kindness”).

Other Probability Sampling Methods

Other, more complex, sampling methods are also used in survey
sampling. In a stratified sample, the items in the frame are first
subdivided into separate subpopulations, or strata, and a simple
random sample is selected within each of the strata. In a cluster
sample, the items in the frame are divided into several clusters so
that each cluster is representative of the entire population. A random
sampling of clusters is then taken, and all the items in each selected
cluster or a sample from each cluster are then studied.
 1.6 Sample Selection Methods
Sampling can be done either with or without replacement of the
items being selected. Almost all survey sampling is done without
replacement.

Sampling with Replacement

Concept A sampling method in which each selected item is returned
to the frame from which it was selected so that it has the same
probability of being selected again.

Example Selecting items from a fishbowl and returning each item to

it after the selection is made.

Sampling Without Replacement

Concept A sampling method in which each selected item is not
returned to the frame from which it was selected. Using this
technique, an item can be selected no more than one time.

Examples Selecting numbers in state lottery games, selecting cards

from a deck of cards during games of chance such as blackjack or
poker.

Interpretation Sampling without replacement means that an item

can be selected no more than one time. You should choose sampling
without replacement instead of sampling with replacement because
statisticians generally consider the former to produce more desirable
samples.

Spreadsheet Solution
Creating a New Worksheet and Entering
Data
To create a new worksheet into which you can enter the data
values of a variable for analysis, double-click the Blank
Workbook icon in the New panel of the opening screen. If
you have been using Excel and already have a worksheet
open, select File, then New and, in the New panel, double-
click the Blank Workbook icon.
To enter data into a specific cell of the new worksheet, move
the cell pointer to that cell. You can move the pointer by either
using the cursor keys, moving the mouse pointer, or
completing the proper touch operation. As you type an entry,
the entry appears in the formula bar area located over the top
of the worksheet. You complete your entry by pressing Tab or
Enter or by clicking the checkmark button in the formula
bar.
To save your new file, select File, then Save As and, in the
Save As dialog box, navigate to the folder where you want to
save your file. Accept or revise the filename and then click
Save. To later retrieve the file, select File, then Open and in
the Open dialog box, navigate to the folder that contains the
desired file, select the desired file from the list, and then click
Open.
 One-Minute Summary
Mastering basic vocabulary is the first step in learning statistics.
Understanding the types of statistical methods, the sources of data
used for data collection, sampling methods, and the types of
variables used in statistical analysis are also important introductory
concepts. Subsequent chapters focus on four important reasons for
learning statistics:
To present and describe information (Chapters 2 and 3)
To reach conclusions about populations based only on sample
results (Chapters 4 through 9)
To develop reliable forecasts (Chapters 10 and 11)
To use analytics to reach conclusions about large sets of data
(Chapters 12 and 13)

Test Yourself
1. The portion of the population that is selected for analysis is
called a:
a. sample
b. frame
c. parameter
d. statistic
2. A summary measure that is computed from only a sample of
the population is called a:
a. parameter
b. population
c. discrete variable
d. statistic
3. The height of an individual is an example of a:
a. discrete variable
b. continuous variable
c. categorical variable
d. constant
4. The body style of an automobile (sedan, minivan, SUV, and so
on) is an example of a:
a. discrete variable
b. continuous variable
c. categorical variable
d. constant
5. The number of credit cards in a person’s wallet is an example
of a:
a. discrete variable
b. continuous variable
c. categorical variable
d. constant
6. Statistical inference occurs when you:
a. compute descriptive statistics from a sample
b. take a complete census of a population
c. present a graph of data
d. take the results of a sample and reach conclusions about a
population
7. The human resources director of a large corporation wants to
develop a dental benefits package and decides to select 100
employees from a list of all 5,000 workers in order to study their
preferences for the various components of a potential package.
All the employees in the corporation constitute the _______.
a. sample
b. population
c. statistic
d. parameter
8. The human resources director of a large corporation wants to
develop a dental benefits package and decides to select 100
employees from a list of all 5,000 workers in order to study their
preferences for the various components of a potential package.
The 100 employees who will participate in this study constitute
the _______.
a. sample
b. population
c. statistic
d. parameter
9. Those methods that involve collecting, presenting, and
computing characteristics of a set of data in order to properly
describe the various features of the data are called:
a. statistical inference
b. the scientific method
c. sampling
d. descriptive statistics
10. Based on the results of a poll of 500 registered voters, the
conclusion that the Democratic candidate for U.S. president will
win the upcoming election is an example of:
a. inferential statistics
b. descriptive statistics
c. a parameter
d. a statistic
11. A numerical measure that is computed to describe a
characteristic of an entire population is called a:
a. parameter
b. population
c. discrete variable
d. statistic
12. You wish to compare the value of the U.S. dollar to the
English pound sterling. From a financial website, you obtain the
values of the two currencies for the past 50 years. Which
method of data collection were you using?
a. published sources
b. experimentation
c. surveying
13. Which of the following is a discrete variable?
a. The favorite flavor of ice cream of students at your local
elementary school
b. The time it takes for a certain student to walk to your local
elementary school
c. The distance between the home of a certain student and the
local elementary school
d. The number of teachers employed at your local elementary
school
14. Which of the following is a continuous variable?
a. The eye color of children eating at a fast-food chain
b. The number of employees of a branch of a fast-food chain
c. The temperature at which a hamburger is cooked at a branch
of a fast-food chain
d. The number of hamburgers sold in a day at a branch of a fast-
food chain
15. The number of cell phones in a household is an example of
a:
 a. categorical variable
b. discrete variable
c. continuous variable
d. statistic

Answer True or False:

16. The possible responses to the question “How long have you
been living at your current residence?” are values from a
continuous variable.
17. The possible responses to the question “How many times in
the past seven days have you streamed a movie or TV show
online?” are values from a discrete variable.

Fill in the Blank:

18. An insurance company evaluates many variables about a

person before deciding on an appropriate rate for automobile
insurance. The number of accidents a person has had in the
past three years is an example of a _______ variable.
19. An insurance company evaluates many variables about a
person before deciding on an appropriate rate for automobile
insurance. The distance a person drives in a day is an example
of a _______ variable.
20. An insurance company evaluates many variables about a
person before deciding on an appropriate rate for automobile
insurance. A person’s marital status is an example of a _______
variable.
21. A numerical measure that is computed from only a sample
of the population is called a ______.
22. The portion of the population that is selected for analysis is
called the ______.
 23. A college admission application includes many variables. The
number of Advanced Placement courses the student has taken is
an example of a ______ variable.
24. A college admission application includes many variables. The
gender of the student is an example of a ______ variable.
25. A college admission application includes many variables. The
distance from the student’s home to the college is an example of
a ______ variable.

Answers to Test Yourself

1. a
2. d
3. b
4. c
5. a
6. d
7. b
8. a
9. d
10. a
11. a
12. a
13. d
14. c
15. b
16. True
17. True
18. discrete
19. continuous
20. categorical
21. statistic
22. sample
23. discrete
24. categorical
25. continuous

References
1. Berenson, M. L., D. M. Levine, K. A. Szabat, and D. F.
Stephan. Basic Business Statistics: Concepts and Applications,
15th edition. Hoboken, NJ: Pearson Education, 2023.
2. Cochran, W. G. Sampling Techniques, 3rd edition. New York:
John Wiley & Sons, 1977.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
At first she thought the dog was the devil, but presently she
remembered that the devil’s time was too much occupied with Irish
affairs to permit him to steal babies in Iowa, so she followed the dog
as rapidly as she could make her way through the snow. She tracked
him by the prints of his paws until she came to my door, and instead
of calling me a kidnapper and talking about the police, she was full of
pity for me, and volunteered to stay and take care of the whole
menagerie until the last of the babies should be called for and taken
away.
“The remaining mothers arrived in the course of an hour. I locked
myself in the top of the house and left the Irishwoman to explain
things. As I afterward learned, the intelligent dog had knocked two
women down in the street and stolen their babies out of their arms,
and had also broken into two houses, in the last one of which he had
bagged his brace of twins. All the mothers, except the Irishwoman,
were as unreasonable as they could possibly be. They insisted that I
deliberately trained dogs to steal babies, and they had no doubt that
my object in stealing them was to vivisect them. As for the dog, they
were convinced that he was mad and that their babies would be sure
to die of hydrophobia. Two of the women brought their husbands
with them, who asked to see me, explaining that they desired to blow
my head off. The Irishwoman nobly lied to them, telling them that she
had driven me out of the house with a club, and that I was on my
way to Chicago and far out of reach. The mothers and their
husbands went away at last, and as soon as it was dark I stole out of
the back door and took the first train for St. Paul. I didn’t show myself
in New Berlinopolisville for the next year.
“What became of the dog? Oh! I forgot to say that the Irishwoman
promised to take care of him and to cure him of his passion for
babies. I am sorry to say that she did not succeed. She kept him tied
up for six weeks, but one day he broke loose and captured a baby
out of a baby-wagon in the park. But the baby’s father happened to
be with it, and he was one of the best pistol-shots in town, having
been a judge of the Montana Supreme Court. He got the drop on the
dog before the beast had gone ten feet away with the baby, and
though they afterward had to pry the dog’s jaws open in order to get
the baby loose, no harm was done to the latter. I settled all the
lawsuits without letting them go to trial, although it cost me
considerable and I finally judged it best to remove to another State.
“Now, I suppose that some one will be enough of an idiot to repeat
this story with variations as a proof of the wonderful intelligence of
the St. Bernard dog. If it is intelligence that leads a dog to steal other
people’s babies and dump them on a respectable man, I’d like to see
what idiocy would do for such a dog. No, sir! depend upon it, the
stories about St. Bernard dogs are invented by the monks after
stimulating their minds by reading the ‘Lives of the Saints’ and by
going trout-fishing. Probably the monks have gradually brought
themselves to believe most of the stories. They look like a credulous
set of people, and I should rather like to try them with a good
American political speech, full of campaign statistics, and see if they
could believe it. I shouldn’t be in the least surprised if they could.”
 A MATRIMONIAL ROMANCE.
“And by the way,” continued the Colonel, “a curious thing about
this Josiah Wilson was that he was married for fifteen years and
never had any wife whatever.”
The Colonel had begun a story concerning one Josiah Wilson
which promised to be interesting, but his incidental allusion to Mr.
Wilson’s matrimonial experience awakened our curiosity, and we
begged him to interrupt his narrative long enough to tell us how it
came to pass that Josiah was a married man who never had a wife.
 “HOWLED FOR HELP WHEN HE WASN’T SWEARING.”

“The marriage laws in the United States,” said the Colonel, giving
his chair an increased tilt backward, which was his usual way of
beginning a fresh anecdote, “are as peculiar in their way as are the
divorce laws. You would think to look at them that they would permit
anybody to marry anybody else in any way that either of them might
choose; but for all that they sometimes make it impossible for a man
or a woman to get married. There was a couple who intended to be
married in a balloon, which is a style of lunacy that is quite
fashionable in some parts of the country, though I can’t see why a
man should want to risk his neck in a balloon on his wedding-day,
unless it is that it takes so much courage to be married at all that a
man forgets all about such minor dangers as are connected with
ballooning. The bride, the minister, and two witnesses of assorted
sexes went up in the balloon at the appointed time, and, naturally,
the bridegroom intended to go with them, but he accidentally caught
his foot in a neglected guy-rope and went up head downward about
twenty feet below the car. The party in the balloon could not haul him
up because they could not get hold of the rope, and the bride would
not consent to give up the trip because the groom had always been
a little shy, and she was afraid that if she let him go this time she
might not be able to land him again. So the parson went on with the
ceremony, and the groom made most of his responses in bad
language, and howled for help when he wasn’t swearing. When the
ceremony was over the aeronaut managed to land the balloon
without seriously damaging the bridegroom, but when, a year or two
afterward, the bride wanted to get her divorce, the court held that
there had never been any marriage, for the reason that both the
groom and the bride had not appeared together in the presence of
the officiating minister, and that, furthermore, there was no provision
in the law which would permit a man to be married upside down.
“But to get back to Josiah Wilson. He lived in Indiana, close to the
boundary line between that State and Illinois, and he courted
Melinda Smith, a young woman who lived a little way up the
mountain-side with her father and three brothers. The girl was
anxious to be married, but her family were dead against it. You see,
Josiah was a Republican and a Methodist, while the Smiths were
Democrats and Baptists, and, naturally, they hated each other like
poison; and one night as old man Smith and Josiah met on their way
to rival prayer-meetings they exchanged revolver-shots, without,
however, doing any harm. Then, once Josiah had most of the calf of
his leg taken off by the Smiths’ bull-dog, and twice the Smith boys
came into the sitting-room where Josiah was calling on Melinda, and
suggested to him with their shot-guns that he had better go home.
Gradually Josiah and Melinda came to the conclusion that her family
were resolved to discourage the match, so they determined to elope
and be married without the knowledge or consent of anybody.
“One dark night Josiah carried a ladder and planted it under
Melinda’s window. He had advised her to walk out of the front door,
which was always left unlocked at night, but she refused, saying that
if she was going to elope she should do it in the proper way, and that
if Josiah had no respect for her she had some little respect for
herself. She climbed down the ladder with a good deal of difficulty,
because she insisted that Josiah should help her, and also that he
should stand forty yards away, for reasons connected with her
ankles, and he found it rather trying to follow out these contradictory
orders. However, Melinda reached the ground at last, and the pair
started in a carriage that had been waiting just around a bend in the
road, in company with the Methodist minister. Their plan was to drive
to the next town and there to be married, but it happened that one of
the Smith boys, being restless, got up in the night, and, looking out
of the window, saw the ladder standing at Melinda’s window. In about
twenty minutes after the young people had started, the whole Smith
family and their shot-guns were following the runaways in a wagon
and gaining on them fast.
“The Methodist minister, whose hearing was unusually good,
heard the sound of hoofs before Josiah noticed it, and told the young
people that there was not the least doubt that they were pursued,
and would be overtaken in a very few minutes. ‘And then, you know,’
he added, ‘the chances are that, being Baptists, they will shoot first
and ask for explanations afterward. The only thing for us to do is to
get the marriage ceremony over before they come up. Then they will
see that opposition is of no use and will listen to reason.’
“Josiah and Melinda at once consented, and the parson, noticing a
little clearing in the woods on the left-hand side of the road and a flat
sort of tombstone standing in the middle of it, said that he would
stand on that stone and marry his young friends so quick that it
would make their hair curl. He was particularly glad to meet with a
handy tombstone, for he said that a tombstone was the next thing to
a church, and that to be married by the side of a tomb would be
almost as solemn as to be married in a minister’s study. So the party
hastily descended, the parson mounted the stone, Josiah and
Melinda joined hands in front of him, and they were married and the
parson had kissed the bride and pocketed his fee just as the Smiths’
wagon drove up and the Smith boys cocked their guns and covered
the party. But the parson was wide awake. He had his revolver out
and old man Smith covered before anybody had taken aim at him,
but instead of shooting he remarked that he was a minister of the
blessed gospel of peace, that there was no necessity for bloodshed,
and that he would blow a hole through old Smith unless the Smith
boys lowered their weapons and consented to argue the matter. ‘The
fact is, Colonel Smith,’ said the parson, ‘you’re too late. The young
people are legally married, and the sooner you accept the situation
the better. I married them not two minutes ago, standing on that
identical tombstone.’
 “‘YOU’LL COME STRAIGHT HOME WITH ME.’”

“Colonel Smith was a lawyer, and the sharpest one in that part of
the country. He saw the force of the minister’s remarks, so he told
the boys to put up their guns and he shook hands with the minister.
Then he inquired, in a careless sort of way, where Josiah and
Melinda had stood while they were being married. The parson
showed the footprints of the bride and groom, and then Colonel
Smith turned to Melinda and said, ‘You’ll come straight home with
me. There hasn’t been any marriage yet. That stone is the boundary
mark between Indiana and Illinois, and you were standing in Indiana
and that other idiot was standing in Illinois when the parson tried to
marry you. Nobody can marry in two States at the same time, and I
shan’t recognize the pretended marriage till a court of law compels
me to do so, which will be never. I hope this will teach you the folly of
fooling with Methodism. When you want to get married next time try
a Baptist minister, who will know the difference between a tombstone
and a boundary mark.’ There were too many Smiths and they were
too well armed to be reasoned with successfully, so the upshot was
that Melinda went home with her family and Josiah and the parson
went to see a lawyer.
“The next day Josiah brought a suit for divorce against Melinda. It
was a friendly suit, you understand, and his only object was to test
the question of the validity of his marriage, for, of course, no man
can get a divorce unless he first proves that he is married. Old man
Smith conducted the case on his side, and a lawyer named
Starkweather, who is now a member of the Illinois Legislature,
appeared for Josiah Wilson. Colonel Smith argued that while the
parson who conducted the alleged marriage ceremony could
undoubtedly have married a couple in the State of Indiana, he could
not marry a woman in Indiana to a man in Illinois, for the reason that
the man and the woman could not be in the same place while they
were in two different commonwealths, and that hence Josiah and
Melinda had not legally appeared together before the officiating
minister. Furthermore, he argued that the minister at the time of the
pretended marriage was standing neither in Indiana nor in Illinois,
but on the boundary line; that the statute defined the boundary line
as ‘an imaginary line’ running from such and such a point to such
and such a point, and that a minister who stands in a purely
imaginary locality stands virtually nowhere, and hence cannot
perform any function of his calling.
 “On the other hand, Josiah’s lawyer claimed that the minister had
married Melinda Smith in the State of Indiana; that consequently she
must have been married to somebody, and that that somebody was
unquestionably Josiah Wilson. As to the point that the minister stood
in an imaginary locality because, as was alleged, he stood on the
boundary line, the lawyer maintained that it was a physical
impossibility that a minister weighing two hundred and fifty pounds
could stand in a purely imaginative place. Moreover, he was
prepared to prove that while performing the ceremony at least one of
the minister’s feet was in the State of Indiana, which was sufficient to
make him legally present in that State.
“The arguments lasted three days, and the court before which it
was tried, consisting of three judges, took all the third day to deliver
its verdict. It decided that Melinda Smith was legally married to some
person unknown, though not to Josiah Wilson, and that Josiah
Wilson was also married to some unknown woman, who was not
Melinda Smith, whoever else she might be; that no marriage
between the plaintiff and the defendant had ever taken place; and
that no divorce could be granted, but that if either of them married
any one else he or she would be guilty of bigamy.
“The Smiths, with the exception of Melinda, were delighted with
the decision, for it made it reasonably certain that Josiah could never
be recognized as her husband. She was a good deal cast down
about it, for, like every other Indiana girl, she had looked forward to
being married and divorced as the natural lot of woman. Now it
appeared that she was married, but in such an unsatisfactory way
that she could never have a husband and never be divorced from
any one. As for Josiah, he was furious, but there was no help for it;
the law was against him, and, as a law-abiding man, he was obliged
to respect it, especially as he could not hope to kill off all four of the
Smiths if he decided to make a family feud of it; he himself having no
family whatever, and no one to help him to keep up his end of the
feud.
“For the next fifteen years Josiah lived a single man except in
name, and Melinda mourned her hard fate and kept house for her
father and brothers; but one day Josiah’s lawyer, who was by this
time in the legislature, came to him and offered to have his marriage
to Melinda made legal in all respects for five hundred dollars. The
lawyer was so certain that he could do this that he was willing to wait
for his pay until after he had gained a verdict, and Josiah, after a little
bargaining such as every self-respecting man would have made in
his place, consented to the lawyer’s terms. It seems that the lawyer
had accidentally discovered that there had been a mistake in the
survey of part of the boundary line between Indiana and Illinois, and
at the very place where Josiah and Melinda were married. A
rectification of this mistake would move the line ten feet west, and so
place the spot where the pair stood during their wedding entirely
within the State of Indiana. The proper steps to obtain the
rectification of the boundary were taken, and it was rectified. Then
Melinda in her turn began a suit for divorce against Josiah, and had
no difficulty in proving the marriage and in obtaining a decree. Josiah
paid the lawyer his five hundred dollars and was overjoyed at being
finally able to call his Melinda his own. But he met with a little
disappointment. Now that Melinda had obtained her divorce, she
thought she might as well live up to it and marry a fresh husband. So
she married the Methodist minister, who had just lost his third wife,
and lived happily ever afterward.
“It was just after this that Josiah, being perhaps made a little
reckless by his disappointment, became involved in the affair that I
was going to tell you about when you interrupted me and wanted to
hear about his marriage. Matrimony is a mighty curious thing, and
you can never tell precisely how it is going to turn out. That is one
reason why I was never married but once, though I spent ten years
of my life in Chicago, and had friends at the bar who stood ready to
obtain divorces for me at any moment and without a dollar of
expense.”
 HOSKINS’ PETS.
“Yes!” said the Colonel reflectively, “I’ve been almost everywhere
in my time except in jail, and I’ve been in a great deal worse places
than a first-class American jail with all the modern improvements.
The fact is that philanthropic people have gone so far in improving
the condition of prisoners that most of our prisons are rather better
than most of our hotels. At any rate, they are less expensive and the
guests are treated with more respect.
“I never could understand a craze that some people have for
prisoners. For instance, in New York and Chicago the young ladies
have a society for giving flowers to murderers. Whenever a man is
convicted of murder and sentenced to be hanged, the girls begin to
heave flowers into his cell till he can’t turn round without upsetting a
vase of roses or a big basinful of pansies and getting his feet wet. I
once knew a murderer who told me that if anything could reconcile
him to being hung it would be in getting rid of the floral tributes that
the girls lavished on him. You see, he was one of the leading
murderers in that section of country, and consequently he received
about a cart-load of flowers every day.
 “HEAVE FLOWERS INTO HIS CELL.”

“I had a neighbor when I lived in New Berlinopolisville who was

President of the Society for Ameliorating the Condition of Prisoners,
and he was the craziest man on the subject that I ever met. His
name was Hoskins—Colonel Uriah Hoskins. He was the author of
the Hoskins Bill that attracted so much attention when it was before
the legislature, though it never became law. The hill provided that
every prisoner should have a sitting-room as well as a sleeping-
room, and that it should be furnished with a piano, a banjo, a library,
a typewriter, a wine-cooler, and a whist-table; that the prisoner
should be permitted to hold two weekly receptions, to which
everybody should be allowed to come, and that he should be taught
any branch of study that he might care to take up, books and
masters being, of course, supplied free. Colonel Hoskins used to
insist that the only thing that made a man go wrong was the lack of
kindness, and that the sure way to reform a criminal was to treat him
with so much kindness that he would grow ashamed of being
wicked, and would fall on everybody’s neck and devote the rest of
his life to weeping tears of repentance and singing hymns of joy.
“While Colonel Hoskins was fond of all styles of criminals, burglars
were his particular pets. According to him, a burglar was more
deserving of kindness than any other man. ‘How would you like it,’
he used to say, ‘if you had to earn your living by breaking into
houses in the middle of the night, instead of sleeping peacefully in
your bed? Do you think you would be full of good thoughts after you
had been bitten by the watch-dog and fired at by the man of the
house, and earned nothing by your labor except a bad cold and the
prospect of hydrophobia? There is nothing more brutal than the way
in which society treats the burglar; and so long as society refuses to
put him in the way of earning an easier and less dangerous living, he
cannot be blamed if he continues to practise his midnight
profession.’
“I must say this for Colonel Hoskins. He did not confine himself to
talk, like many other philanthropists, but was always trying to carry
out his principles. He really meant what he said about burglars, and
there isn’t the least doubt that he had more sympathy for them than
he had for the honest men of his acquaintance.
“When people asked him what he would do if he woke up in the
night and found a burglar in his house, and whether or not he would
shoot at him, he said that he would as soon think of shooting at his
own wife, and that he would undertake to reform that burglar, then
and there, by kindness alone. Once somebody said to Hoskins that
he ought really to let the burglars know his feelings toward them, and
Hoskins said that he would do it without delay.
“That same day he drew up a beautiful ‘Notice to Burglars,’ and
had it printed in big letters and framed and hung up in the dining-
room of his house. It read in this way: ‘Burglars are respectfully
informed that the silverware is all plated, and that the proprietor of
this house never keeps ready money on hand. Cake and wine will be
found in the dining-room closet, and burglars are cordially invited to
rest and refresh themselves. Please wipe your feet on the mat, and
close the window when leaving the house.’
“Colonel Hoskins took a good deal of pride in that notice. He
showed it to every one who called at the house, and said that if other
people would follow his example and treat burglars like Christians
and gentlemen, there would soon be an end of burglary, for the
burglars would be so touched by the kindness of their treatment that
they would abandon the business and become honored members of
society—insurance presidents, or bank cashiers, or church
treasurers. He didn’t say how the reformed burglars were to find
employment in banks and insurance offices and such, but that was a
matter of detail, and he always preferred to devise large and noble
schemes, and leave the working details of them to other men.
“One morning Colonel Hoskins, who was an early riser, went down
to the dining-room before breakfast, and was surprised to find that
he had had a midnight visit from burglars. Two empty wine-bottles
stood on the table, and all the cake was eaten, which showed that
the burglars had accepted the invitation to refresh themselves. But
they did not seem to have accepted it in quite the right spirit. All
Hoskins’ spoons and forks lay in a heap in the middle of the floor,
and every one was twisted or broken so as to be good for nothing.
The window had been left open and the rain had ruined the curtains,
and on a dirty piece of paper the burglars had scrawled with a lead-
pencil the opinion that ‘Old Hoskins is the biggest fule and the gol-
darndest skinflint in the country. You set out whiskey next time, or
we’ll serve you out.’
 “Hoskins was not in the least cast down by the rudeness of the
burglars. ‘Poor fellows,’ he said, ‘they have been so used to bad
treatment that they don’t altogether appreciate kindness at first. But
they will learn.’ So he laid in some new spoons and forks and added
a bottle of whiskey to the wine that he kept in the closet for the
burglars, and was as confident as ever that the next gang that might
break into his house would be melted into tears and repentance and
would call him their best and dearest friend.
“A week or two later Mrs. Hoskins was awakened by a noise in the
dining-room, and after waking up her husband told him that there
were burglars in the house, and that he must get out of the back
window and go for the police. He told her that he was sorry to see
her manifest such an unchristian spirit, and he would show her how
burglars ought to be treated. There was not the least doubt that there
were burglars in the house, and they were making a good deal more
noise than was strictly consistent with the prospect of rising in their
profession, for no able burglar ever makes any unnecessary noise
while engaged in business, unless, of course, he falls over a coal-
scuttle, and then he naturally uses language. St. Paul himself would
probably say something pretty strong in similar circumstances.
Hoskins was sincerely delighted to have the opportunity to meet his
burglarious friends, and he lost no time in dressing and descending
to the dining-room.
“He wore his slippers, and the burglars—there were two of them—
did not hear him until he was fairly in the dining room. They were
seated at the table, with their feet on the damask table-cloth, and the
bottle of whiskey was nearly empty. The Colonel was much pleased
to see that they had not damaged his silverware, and he was just
about to thank them when they saw him. They started up, and one of
them caught him by the throat, while the other held a pistol to his
head and promised to blow out his brains if he made the slightest
noise. Then they tied him hand and foot, gagged him, and laid him
on the floor, and then sat down to finish the whiskey.
“Both the burglars were partly drunk, which accounted for the
unprofessional noise they had been making. They talked in rather a
low tone, but Hoskins could hear everything they said, and it was not
particularly encouraging to a gagged and bound philanthropist. They
agreed that he was a fool, and a stingy fool, or else he would have
kept money in the house, and would have set out lemons and sugar
as well as plain whiskey. They said that any man who treated poor
working-men in that way wasn’t fit to live, and that Hoskins would
have to be killed, even if it was not necessary—as it plainly was in
this case—to kill him in order to prevent him from appearing at any
future time as a witness against them. They admitted that the
whiskey was not bad of its kind, but they were of the opinion that
Hoskins had left it in their way so that they might get drunk and be
caught by the police.
“Colonel Hoskins listened to this conversation with horror, and the
prospect that the drunken rascals would be as good as their word,
and kill him before they left the house, was only a little more painful
than the conviction that his method, appealing to the better nature of
burglars, had failed for the second time. When the whiskey was
exhausted the men rose up and looked at Hoskins, and a happy
thought struck one of them. ‘Thishyer idiot,’ he said, ‘may not have
any money in the house, but he’s bound to have some in the bank,
and he’s going to write us a check for a thousand dollars, provided
we let him off and don’t kick his brains out this time.’ The other
burglar, who was in that benevolent frame of mind that Irish whiskey
and conscious virtue sometimes produce, agreed to the suggestion,
and Hoskins was therefore unbound and seated at the table, and
told to draw a check at once if he had the least regard for his life. As
he was gagged he could not explain to the burglars the kind feelings
that he still had toward them, and the fact that they could not draw
the money on the check without being captured by the police. So he
simply signed the check, and groaned to think that the poor burglars
were so slow to be reformed in the way that he had hoped they
would be.
 “TIED HIM IN A CHAIR.”

“When this business was over, the burglars tied Hoskins’ wrists
together again and then tied him in a chair. Then they set to work to
do all the damage they could do without making too much noise.
They tore the curtains and hacked the piano with knives, and poured
a jug of golden syrup over the carpet. Then they plastered Colonel
Hoskins’ face with raspberry jam and emptied a sack of flour over his
head, and went away, telling him that if he ever again ventured to
trifle with the feelings of poor but self-respecting men, they would put
him to death by slow tortures.
“Hoskins sat in the chair for a couple of hours, till his wife timidly
crept downstairs and released him. It took him a good hour to get the
jam and the flour out of his hair and whiskers, and as Mrs. Hoskins
said that he was in no state to enter a decent bedroom and made
him wash at the pump in the back yard, he found it a rather cold
operation. Perhaps it was the remarks that Mrs. Hoskins addressed
to him during the operation that irritated him, for she intimated very
plainly that he was no better than a professional idiot, and when a
man’s hair is stuck together with jam, remarks of this sort from the
wife of his bosom seem to be lacking in tenderness. However that
may be, Colonel Hoskins had no sooner got himself into what his
wife condescended to call a state of comparative decency, than he
took down his ‘Notice to Burglars’ and tore it into a thousand pieces.
That day he had an electric burglar-alarm put into his house, he
bought the savagest dog that he could find, and he stopped the
payment of the check, which, however, was never presented. He
continued to be the President of the Society for Ameliorating the
Condition of Prisoners, but he steadily refused to ameliorate a single
prisoner convicted of burglary, and while he was always a lunatic in
regard to other criminals, he openly maintained that a burglar was
the worst of men and that kindness was utterly thrown away upon
him. He never had any more burglars in his house, though the dog
now and then lunched off warm leg when some stranger to that part
of the country ventured into the Hoskins premises at night. Hoskins
was very fond of the animal, which was quite right, but his practice of
leaving a bottle of whiskey, with an ounce of strychnine in it, on the
dining-room table every night, in case a burglar should succeed in
getting into the house, was, in my opinion, going a little too far.
Antimonial wine would have been much more humane and
sufficiently effective. But there is no man who is more severe than a
philanthropist who has been turned sour.”
 THE CAT’S REVENGE.
We had been discussing the Darwinian hypothesis, and the
Colonel had maintained a profound silence, which was sufficient
evidence that he did not believe in the development of man from the
lower animals. Some one, however, asked him plumply his opinion of
Darwinism, and he sententiously replied, “Darned nonsense!”
Feeling that this view of the matter possibly merited expansion, the
Colonel caused his chair to assume its customary oratorical attitude
on its two rear legs, and began to discourse.
“There are some things,” he remarked, “which do look as if there
might be a grain of truth in this monkey theory. For instance, when I
was in France I was pretty nearly convinced that the monkey is the
connecting link between man and the Frenchmen, but after all there
is no proof of it. That’s what’s the matter with Darwinism. When you
produce a man who can remember that his grandfather was a
monkey, or when you show me a monkey that can produce papers to
prove that he is my second cousin, I’ll believe all Darwin said on the
subject; but as the thing stands I’ve nothing but Darwin’s word to
prove that men and monkeys are near relations. So far as I can
learn, Darwin didn’t know as much about animals as a man ought to
know who undertakes to invent a theory about them. He never was
intimate with dogs and he never drove an army mule. He had a sort
of bowing acquaintance with monkeys and a few other animals of no
particular standing in the community, but he couldn’t even
understand a single animal language. Now, if he had gone to work
and learned to read and write and speak the monkey language, as