Counting by Fives

After establishing the first newspaper in the American Colonies, Benjamin Franklin soon found himself with a big problem: keeping track of his inventory of movable type. As the stirrings of the patriots increased and the need for spreading the word of action became more imperiled, he realized he could no longer waste his time counting every single 'e' or 'H'. But one day as he held a handful of lowercase 'j's it hit him- the idea to not count every single letter, but to group them in fives. Thus the technique of counting by fives (5, 10, 15, 20, etc.) was born. His contemporaries were amazed at the ease at which he counted mass quantities of almost anything, and with a great deal of effort and patience he was able to teach the technique to the other prominent minds of the time.