THE NEWS OF ALL NATIONS.
Gets Another Prison Term.
Charles F. Kline, who, at the age of fifty-five, has spent thirty-three years of his life in prison, and who pleaded guilty in Federal court in Columbus, Ohio, to charges that he had counterfeited silver dollars, was sentenced by Judge Sater to four and one-half years in the Moundsville, W. Va., Penitentiary. Kline was arrested several months ago in a log cabin near West Jefferson, Ohio.
Woman, Seventy-four, Cutting New Teeth.
Mrs. H. Vincent, of Medford, Ore., seventy-four years old, and a pioneer of the Rogue River Valley, is cutting a new set of teeth, nine uppers and eight lowers. The unusual condition has necessitated the casting aside of false teeth.
Last summer Mrs. Vincent suffered from a paralytic stroke in the left arm, and the nervous shock is supposed to be responsible for the sudden reversal in Nature’s routine. Mrs. Vincent is suffering but slight inconvenience from her second “teething.”
Saved by Strip of Canvas.
Falling forty feet and not being injured was the unique experience of Worley Hassler, an employee of the Spring Grove Stone and Lime Co., of Spring Grove, Pa. A thin strip of canvas put up to protect the firemen from the sun saved his life.
Hassler was working on the top of a kiln when he was overcome by gaseous fumes, falling over the edge. Workmen who saw him hurtling through the air were surprised when he alighted on the canvas covering, bounded into the air again, and landed safely on the ground, unhurt.
Snake’s Queer Predicament.
When James Moriarity, of Lead Hill, Ark., heard a rustling of the bushes in a fence corner near his barn, he pushed aside the shrubbery and saw a large blacksnake apparently making a furious effort to crawl through a narrow crack between two rails of the fence. When the snake saw Moriarity, the reptile made an effort to withdraw but could not do so.
Moriarity investigated the predicament of the snake and saw that it had found a nest of eggs, part of which were on one side of the fence and part on the other side. The snake had swallowed an egg on the “near” side of the fence and then had poked its head through the crack and swallowed another egg. With two eggs in its throat, one on each side of the crack, the snake was a prisoner. Moriarity killed the snake but did not rescue the eggs.
Terrapin Back After Twenty-five Years.
This is the story of how a Georgia terrapin came back after twenty-five years. It is vouched for by a number of well-known citizens.
One day back in the year 1890, Harry Lee Jarvis and W. H. Prater were strolling over the latter’s plantation near Varnell Station, above Atlanta, when they encountered a highland tortoise or what is commonly known as a[Pg 56] terrapin, and pronounced “tarrypin” by the portions of the population who know and love him best.
Prater did what quite a number of now celebrated men have done before—he carved his initials and the year on the unresisting terrapin’s lid, and let him go. And last week the terrapin did what quite a number of now celebrated tortoises have done before—it came back.
Prater was directing the clearing of a ditch, when one of the workmen picked up a terrapin. On its shell were plainly carved the initials W. H. P. and date 1890, partly grown over by a new growth of shell, but still perfectly distinct. Mr. Prater says the terrapin didn’t seem to have grown much, but looked hale and hearty as when they first met.
Makes Tumblers Out of Ice.
Instead of icing drinks, why not put them in tumblers made of ice? It looks as if this would soon be possible in every home, for the United States patent office has issued a patent to Hendrik Douwe Pieter Huizer, of The Hague, Netherlands, for an apparatus for making tumblers of ice. Besides cooling the contents, such tumblers will have the hygienic advantage of never being used more than once. The inventor suggests insulating his ice tumblers in paper or celluloid cases in order to make them last at least as long as the drink.
Interesting New Inventions.
A new piano for traveling musicians weighs but one hundred and twenty pounds and can be packed and shipped like a trunk.
A rat trap has been patented that first catches a rodent, then electrocutes it, and finally drops the body into a receptacle out of sight of others.
A German speedometer for automobiles has an illuminated dial which makes several color changes as the speed of the car to which it is attached increases.
For the blind there has been invented a watch with the hours marked by raised dots and dashes that can be read by the sense of touch.
A new traveling bag locks automatically when it is lifted by the handle.
A California inventor has patented a chair for amusement places that can be opened for use only when a coin is dropped into a slot.
A saddle has been patented by a New Jersey inventor which includes leather flaps to cover the buckles, which frequently wear out riders’ clothing.
Champion Quiltmaker—A Man—Defies Rivals.
W. W. Yale, of Ouaquaga, N. Y., champion patchwork-quilt piecer of the State, defended his title by completing his twentieth quilt for the year.
Encouraged by his tremendous accomplishment for the fiscal year, Mr. Yale, who fears no thimbled demon in America, has issued a challenge to every hemstitching, quiltmaking, embroidery lover in the nation for the coming year. He says openly that he will complete twenty-five quilts or know the reason why, and those who know Mr. Yale declare that this is strong language for him.[Pg 57]
Already the champion has made arrangements for the construction of a quilt, the central decoration of which is to be the Ouaquaga town hall. Facetious persons who are familiar with the Ouaquaga town hall, figure that the reproduction in needlework may be life size, which would make the quilt ample to cover a cot or for use as a doily.
A great number of punsters make remarks about Mr. Yale and his life work, but he never gives them a thought, as is evidenced by the fact that he has heard their tirades frequently without so much as dropping a stitch. Frequently he has caused gasps of delight by his colorings, which he takes from the flower beds in the front yard of his home. The colorings are those of the cannas, bleeding hearts, hollyhocks, sunflowers, salvias, dahlias, and marigolds.
Mr. Yale dreads to have women advise him regarding his work, for they frequently annoy him by their overbearing attitude in matters which he, as champion, should be consulted about as the last authority. He gets terribly angry sometimes, but as yet has never struck any one.
Smallest Electric Motor.
The smallest electric motor in the world, just high enough to reach up under the chin of the head of Lincoln on a one-cent piece, has been built by H. F. Keeler, a student in the Highland Park College of Engineering at Des Moines, Iowa.
The armature is less than one-fourth of an inch in diameter, and the wire is of the size of number one-hundred thread. A jeweler’s microscope must be used to see the different parts, and the whole thing weighs only twenty grains, or as much as a third of a teaspoonful of water. When coupled with small dry batteries, it runs at very high velocity and makes a noise like a fly on a windowpane.
Says Eyes Tell Tales to Most Shrewd Observers.
Are your eyes predominantly blue or gray, or brown or black?
According to some elaborate statistical researches, if they are blue or gray you are of an intellectual rather than emotional nature. If brown or black, the emotional nature. If brown or black, the emotional in you exceeds the intellectual, and you need to be specially on your guard to keep your passions in check.
If, again, your eye is not strongly colorful; if it is prominent, with the pupil small and seldom dilating to any extent, and with the glance fixed, the modern physiognomist warns you to cultivate generosity of heart and breadth and tolerance of mind. For these are the qualities which this eye formation indicates that you lack.
So, too, there is a danger signal for you if you find a puffiness below your eyes, with the rim of the lower lid falling away from the eye, showing the red, while the upper lid droops. These signs usually point to one of two things, we are told.
Either you are wasting your energies in some form of dissipation or your internal organs, particularly your kidneys, are not functioning as they should. You yourself know best to which of these evils—dissipation or ill health—the puffiness is due.
Does your glance meet that of other people squarely[Pg 58] and fearlessly? Or do you have a tendency to shift your eyes and look away when talking with others?
In the latter event, says the physiognomist, you may be sure something is wrong with you. You are perhaps suffering from some slight nervous weakness. Or, what is more likely, you have thoughts in your mind which are not altogether to your credit. The shifting or drooping of your gaze is then based on a subconscious fear that your eyes will betray what is passing through your mind.
Finally, note the position of your eyes. Mistrust yourself especially if you find your eyes “slanting upward from the nose under brows also slanting upward with fullness in the upper lid which overhangs the eye and hides the rim of the lid, the eyeball thrown upward.”
“This,” says the physiognomist Foshbroke, and the writer has verified his observation, “is the eye of craft and treachery, indicating the nature of the tiger and the fox, whose eye it resembles.”
A person with such an eye cannot too soon begin a course of moral self-education to straighten out the kinks in his nature.
This can always be done. Eye indications do not mean that your nature is fixed and unalterable in accordance with the signs shown by the eyes. On the contrary, the value of such signs is that they specify precisely in what respects reforms are most desirable.
Fierce Man-eating Lion Dines on Dog.
Julia, the ferocious “snarling lioness,” billed as one of the most terrifying features of the Firemen’s Carnival in Mount Vernon, N. Y., escaped from her cage the other night when she sneezed and blew out two of the many half-inch bars forming the front of her den.
Fortunately it was three o’clock in the morning, at which times nothing is out in Mount Vernon but the street lamps and the downtown dogs. Of these latter Julia partook sparingly, as will be seen.
When Julia was brought here in connection with the effort to raise funds for Hose Truck No. 2, her fierce, untamed conduct, coupled with the fact that she was said to have two teeth, made the firemen fearful for the safety of their friends, who, after paying their admission, foolishly insisted upon feeding peanuts and stick caramels to the evil-eyed man-eater. The situation became so desperate that Julia growled every time she woke up—about twice a day.
One night, when her trainers left her, she was over in one corner of the cage, yawning. As she had yawned every couple of minutes since she was a cub, nothing was thought of it. They took their dinner pails and went home, confident that they had trained her enough for one day.
Soon after two o’clock, one of the trainers, unable to sleep because of a presentiment that something was wrong with the Firemen’s Carnival, walked down to the wild-animal cage and looked in. Julia was gone! The keeper, fully convinced of this alarming fact, took his life in his hands and immediately jumped into the cage. Then he called for a bit of help at the top of his lungs.
The police force, who had been sleeping fitfully, responded as soon as he could get his helmet and shield on. When he reached the Firemen’s Carnival, the awful situation was finally made clear to him, and the two of[Pg 59] them, working in shifts, soon aroused the greater part of the town.
Julia was found cowering in the doorway of an apartment house. It was high time for her to cower, for it was found that in her jaunt she had eaten one of Alphonse Camera’s dogs, fell over an Airedale, which died of fright, and chased a black cat to its death in a heavy door at the apartment house which was swinging at an unfortunate moment.
While one of the trainers threatened Julia with a revolver, another got a box, and they shooed her into it.
The Firemen’s Carnival management say that the whole thing is a good advertisement for every one concerned—except possibly Julia’s trainer and the firm that made the cage.
Lawyer Seems to Have Amazing Dual Nature.
The strange case of Charles Williams, of Whitewater, Wis., is likely to become a cause for celebration among medical men, for it is one of the clearest cases of dual identity on record. The two personalities are Charles Williams, lawyer, justice, man of culture and personality, and the same man as a farm laborer.
The doctors, bringing Williams back from Merriville, Ind., where he was found after he had been missing for three days, are working to transform him once again to his true identity, that of the Whitewater court commissioner.
Mr. Williams was, while in college, a famous baseball pitcher, but in 1895, just after his graduation from the State University, disappeared while en route to Chicago to begin his life work as a lawyer. It was seven years before he was found, and he was then a farm laborer near Merriville, Ind.
He came back to Whitewater, and all went well for a dozen years. Last week Mr. Williams began to complain of headaches, and on Tuesday started for Janesville on some legal business. He disappeared exactly as he had twenty years ago. And the strange display of his dual personality was that he immediately went to Merriville, Ind., and tried to get work at the same farm where he was found after his first disappearance.
It took him three days to reach there, and as soon as he arrived, word was sent back to his home here, and relatives went after him. The doctors hope to restore his mind to the regular legal channels so strangely abandoned for the “call of the farm.”
War Hits Circus Men; Few Tent Shows on Road.
The circus has received two hard blows this year, and daddy, uncle, and auntie may not have many opportunities to take Johnny under the canvas to see acrobats, tigers, and such.
War was the first setback circus people experienced. Then came the foot-and-mouth disease among live stock. Each at first had an indirect result, but now the loss of foreign acrobats, animal trainers, and wild animals, together with the United States Bureau of Animal Industry prescribing narrow zones in which a circus can move for fear of carrying or contracting the foot-and-mouth disease, have caused lots of trouble for the three-ring showmen.
As evidence of this condition, A. L. Wilson, manager of a big tent and awning company of Kansas City, Mo., says that the demand for circus and concession tents has practically been suspended, and he does not expect it to[Pg 60] resume until the European War is ended and the United States government officials pronounce the country free of the foot-and-mouth disease.
Persistent Wooer Mauled.
That the course of John Jestor’s true love for Miss May Sutton, of New York, has been an intolerable rocky path was indicated when his cries for assistance called several policemen into the vestibule of Miss Sutton’s home. They barely dodged a butcher knife, of which the young woman had disarmed her persistent suitor and had hurled it into the street.
The policemen found Miss Sutton kicking Jestor about the vestibule, cuffing his ears soundly and occasionally landing a doubled little fist on his eyes, while he bellowed for aid.
Miss Sutton said that Jestor had declared that as she would not be his wife, he would end both their lives.
Jestor, who is forty-five years old, cut both his wrists with a razor three months ago, according to the police, because Miss Sutton had told him to stay away from her. He was locked up on a charge of attempted felonious assault.
Boy Bandit Comes to Grief.
After he had held up and robbed Miss Martha Zelf, eighteen years old, assistant cashier of the People’s State Bank at Dodson, a suburb of Kansas City, Mo., and forced her to give him three hundred and four dollars of the bank’s money, a man giving his name as Luther Afton, nineteen years old, of Merrick, Okla., was captured, and an hour later pleaded guilty in the criminal court and was sentenced to twenty years in the penitentiary.
The girl was alone in the bank when the young man entered. He pointed a revolver at her and ordered her to hand him the money in the teller’s cage. At first Miss Zelf laughed at him, and then handed him a double handful of silver dollars. These he refused. The girl parleyed with him a moment and finally complied with his demand for currency.
As the robber reached the door, the girl screamed for help. Immediately a number of citizens gathered and pursued the robber, catching him in a chicken yard.
Renders Objects Invisible.
Michael Comerford, of St. Johns, Newfoundland, claims to have discovered a process of developing a film which, when placed in front of any object, no matter of what character or size, absorbs the color and exact form of the said object and presents a surrounding which hides from view any object behind without the object being visible. In other words, the invention is all that is claimed for it, and it makes it possible for a man or a body of men to disappear in a twinkling. Mr. Comerford has given several demonstrations of the invention to his friends, who say that it will revolutionize modern warfare.
Discovers Funniest Joke.
The “funniest joke” has been rediscovered. Samuel Ramsey, a carpenter of New Orleans, La., knows it, though a waiting world is yet to hear it. Just as soon as Sam gets entirely free from the ether of the Charity Hospital, he says he’s going to tell it.
Sam laughed so heartily at the joke that there came a click to his jaw, and, to his dismay, he was unable to close[Pg 61] his mouth. In his predicament he was removed from his home to the hospital, where surgeons endeavored to set the jawbones. A reporter interviewed Sam on his little cot, and Sam wrote this on a slip of paper:
“I can’t tell it to you now—it’s too funny, but if you wait until I get out of here, I’ll try to tell it.”
Patient is a Wireless “Nut.”
A patient in the State asylum, in Pueblo, Col., is suffering from an unusual form of insanity. He believes that the wireless stations throughout the world are preying on him and sapping his strength.
He wants to form a union for the purpose of elaborately attempting to abolish aërial communication throughout the world.
So far as known this is the first time this peculiar hallucination has come to notice.
Favors Pardon for Youtsey.
The Reverend Andrew Johnson, nominated for governor of Kentucky on the Prohibition platform, announced that his first official act, if elected, would be to pardon Henry E. Youtsey, who is serving a life sentence for the assassination of William Goebel in 1899, while Goebel was contesting W. S. Taylor’s gubernatorial seat.
This announcement will carry more weight than is apparent on the surface, since the Democratic party has been divided two or three times over efforts to pardon Youtsey, and petitions have been put in circulation, principally by women, in aid of such effort.
Youtsey is only one out of more than forty men arrested for complicity in the Goebel murder. Caleb Powers and James Howard, who were alleged to be most concerned, were pardoned by Governor Wilson, Republican, several years ago. As Youtsey confessed to his part in the crime, Democrats contend he should be pardoned.
Mr. Johnson offers to withdraw from the race if the Republican or Democratic party puts a State-wide prohibition plank in its platform.
Horse Falls in Hidden Well.
Chester Tupper, of Paternos, Wash., was riding through the orchard of C. J. Stiner in pursuit of some cattle, when his horse broke through a hidden well, which had been dug to a depth of sixty feet and then covered with loose boards. Tupper threw himself clear of the saddle and saved himself. The horse went down, but somehow managed to keep his head above the water. A tripod was rigged with pulley and snatch block. A team was hitched to this and the horse was brought safely to the surface.
How White Woman Came Near Being an Indian.
If Mrs. Josephine Carroll, of South Omaha, Neb., had become a little Indian papoose as she was slated to have been, one of Omaha’s most enthusiastic charity workers and night-school instructors would be missing to-day.
Mrs. Carroll was once slated to be a papoose. A squaw so wished her when her parents were not looking. The squaw kidnaped the child a little more than half a century ago, when Omaha was a buffalo pasture.
There was a rescue. But it never got into the papers. There were no papers to print thrilling adventures that occurred around the Missouri River bluffs in those days. The mother, Mrs. John Godola, walked right out of the[Pg 62] house, stopped the squaw, and took the child away from her. If it were to-day, the movies would have a thriller on the screen about it. But that was before Edison or any one else had thought of making pictures walk and talk; also, those were the days when experience with the Indians were many and grotesque. A mere kidnaping did not attract much attention.
Mrs. Carroll’s mother lived at what is now Thirteenth and Farnam Streets. At that time it was neither Thirteenth nor Farnam. It was just a place in the hills, prairie and timber. The present Mrs. Carroll was about three years of age. Her mother employed a young Indian squaw as a domestic. All was fine, but the domestic didn’t like to work. She liked to play with the baby, however. The baby took a great liking to the brown maid.
One day the brown maid and the baby’s mother fell out. Straightway the servant was dismissed. Being fired was a somewhat novel experience to this brown maiden. She knew principally that she was expected to leave the premises, and that her pay, whatever that may have been, was to stop.
When the childish prattle was no longer heard, the mother rushed out just in time to see the squaw disappearing over the hill with the child. There was a hotly contested half-mile race. It was a race of the white and the red. White won, and the precious child was brought back.
Millionaire is Generous.
Henry Pfeiffer, of Philadelphia, son of one of Cedar Falls’ earliest pioneers, now head of the big chemical company of Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Chicago, and a multi-millionaire, concluded a two weeks’ visit with his brothers and sisters here by presenting each of them with a check for ten thousand dollars and an automobile. His benefactions in this way totaled nearly one hundred thousand dollars.
The beneficiaries are H. J. Pfeiffer, L. Pfeiffer, Mrs. D. C. Merner, Mrs. W. F. Noble, brothers and sisters, and ex-Mayor W. H. Merner, D. C. Merner, and S. S. Merner, brothers-in-law. Besides this, the children of all these people were likewise remembered handsomely.
Twin Children Made Taller.
Phaon and Uriah Schaeffer, four-year-old twins from Pinegrove, will be returned to their home from the Miners’ Hospital, in Pottsville, Pa., fully an inch and a half taller than when they were admitted three weeks ago.
The twins were so bowlegged as to be deformed, and Doctor J. C. Biddle, to straighten out their limbs, put them in a plaster cast. The result has not only been to straighten out the legs but to make the boys much taller, while their walk is so different that they could hardly be recognized by relatives.
Little Ship Sails to Find Arctic Explorer.
Within a month the little schooner George B. Cluett will be bucking ice in the arctic waters, on her way to Etah, Greenland. The Cluett sailed from New York recently for Nova Scotia and Labrador, where she will put off part of her cargo for the coast hospitals of the Grenfell Association. Then she will sail on to search for Donald B. MacMillan and his party.
MacMillan set out from New York just two years[Pg 63] ago to explore Crocker Land, the existence of which Rear Admiral Peary believed he had discovered. According to a message which MacMillan managed to get back some time ago, there is no such land. The American Museum of Natural History, one of the chief backers of the expedition, is sending the schooner Cluett to find MacMillan.
At one of the hospital stations where the schooner will stop, Doctor E. O. Hovey, of the museum, will be taken aboard. Captain H. C. Pickels, of the Cluett, hopes to find MacMillan and his comrades waiting at Etah, the expedition’s base, and to get out before the winter ice closes in on the schooner. In that case he will be back in November. But the schooner carries provisions to last two years.
If MacMillan has to be awaited for or search made for him, the long winter will make neither task easy. The ship will then find herself encompassed with leagues of ice. Eskimo huts will spring up around her like mushrooms, and in the long arctic night it would be difficult to identify the little Cluett with the picture of her taken at New York the other day.
But a closer acquaintance with Captain Pickels and the Cluett helps one’s imagination to bridge the gap. Ever since she was built, four years ago, for the Grenfell mission service on the Labrador coast, Pickels has commanded her. She was designed for work in Northern waters. As the bronze plate in the captain’s cabin sets forth, she was presented to Doctor Wilfred Grenfell in July, 1911, by George B. Cluett. That she went to sea with purposes other than those of the ordinary trading schooner, the plate makes plain in these few words: “The Sea is His and He Made It.” The inscription in the brass band which binds the wheel, “Jesus saith I will make you fishers of men,” serves to distinguish her from the run of fishing craft which infest the Labrador waters. But for these symbols of a higher vocation she is just like them, save that she is much more stanch.
Although the proved nimbleness of the Cluett leads her charterers to hope that she may slip in and out with the rescued MacMillan party in time to get back to New York in November, the way food supplies have been poured into her show that no chances are to be taken in a locality where, as the captain remarked, “ye can’t fetch stuff from a grocery ’round the corner.’” He shed light upon what for a dozen men might be considered a two years’ food supply. Some two thousand pounds of beef, nearly half of it canned and the rest pickled in brine, and an almost equal quantity of mutton and pork, formed the backbone of the stores. Beans and potatoes and barrel on barrel of pilot bread set off this impressive meat supply, which winter hunting is to vary with fresh steaks and roasts.
Several hundred pounds of coffee and a hundred of tea, onions, and many gallons of lime juice to ward off scurvy, were important items; strangely enough, not a particle of chocolate or coco. A comment upon the rather small supply of milk—condensed, of course—as compared with, for one thing, three hundred pounds of rolled oats, drew from the hardy captain the explanation that crews in the North preferred molasses with their oatmeal, and of molasses he had nearly a hundred gallons.
When the schooner starts on the last leg of the journey north, with decks piled high with barrels of kerosene—the Cluett is to be stocked with nearly five thou[Pg 64]sand gallons of kerosene and nine hundred gallons of gasoline for her engines—the only persons aboard beside the crew of eight hardy Nova Scotians, will be the representative of the Natural History Museum. Captain Pickels’ Newfoundland dog, “Chum,” completes the list.
“Belled” Buzzard Appears.
When working on the Charles Dufour farm, two miles north of Vevay, Ind., Charles Hollcraft and son were surprised to hear a bell ringing in the top of a high tree. On investigation they discovered a buzzard with a sheep’s bell strapped around one of its wings in such a manner that at each flap of the wings the bell tinkled. Seven years ago a “belled buzzard” was seen in various parts of Switzerland County at frequent intervals, but finally disappeared.
Woman Operates Zinc Mine.
One of the most active prospectors and mine operators in the extensive zinc-mining district of southwest Missouri is a woman, Mrs. Sarah Matlock. There is much activity in the Wentworth district, where her interests are located, and she is carrying on operations on a big scale. One of her many mining properties comprises one hundred and sixty acres. The biggest mine in that district is owned by her. Much of her land is subleased.
Indian Given State Office.
Oliver la Mere, of the town of Winnebago, Neb., is the first Indian to hold an appointment under the Nebraska State government. He has been appointed dairy inspector by Food Commissioner C. E. Harman, a department of which Governor Morehead is the chief.
Mr. la Mere is not an expert dairyman, but is a farmer, and has had considerable experience with dairy cattle and dairy products.
He is thirty-six years of age and has a wife and seven children. He attended the Indian school at Genoa, Neb., three years and attended school at Carlisle, Pa., in the year 1902. While he was a student there during that year he played center on the famous Indian football team. He then weighed two hundred and five pounds. He has written some newspaper articles on Indian clan organizations and Indian burial customs, and has coöperated with the government in anthropological research.
Lightning-rod Dispute is Officially Settled.
A few days ago a lightning-rod salesman near Bloomington, Ill., was struck by lightning and seriously injured. Notwithstanding the fact that the unfortunate salesman could not be expected to have his person and rig fitted out with a system of his alleged lightning catchers, extending far above his head and continually plowing into the roadway, as he made his tours of the country, still, the incident again revived the oft-discussed question as to the efficacy of the wares that constituted his stock in trade—the great American lightning rod—the mysterious economic discovery that has caused thousands of American farmers the loss of so much sleep and so many dollars in coin of the realm.
Ever since Ben Franklin designed the lightning rod as a means of protecting structures from lightning stroke, there has been periodically raised the question of the efficiency of these rods as a means of warding off the[Pg 65] bolts from the heavens. Men of eminence in the electrical world have been found arrayed on both sides of the question, and in order to arrive at some well-founded conclusion, the subject was taken up by the weather department.
The investigation was conducted by Professor J. Warren Smith, who addressed an open letter to the mutual fire-insurance companies throughout the country, especially those in the rural districts, asking for any information which these organizations might have which might throw some light on the subject. The value of the rods was undoubtedly attested to in the answers, and Benjamin Franklin has received full vindication.
In two recent years two hundred mutual companies doing a business of fully $300,000,000 had 1,845 buildings struck by lightning. Of this number only sixty-seven were equipped with lightning rods. So far as could be learned, about thirty-one per cent of the buildings insured by these companies were rodded; hence, if the rods had furnished no protection, the number of rodded buildings struck should have been five hundred and seventy-two instead of sixty-seven.
Thus the efficiency of the rods in actually preventing lightning strokes appears to have been about ninety per cent. It may be fairly assumed that a large part of the damage done to the rodded buildings occurred in cases where the rods were improperly installed or in poor condition.
Five companies, with over 18,000 buildings insured, of which more than fifty per cent were rodded, reported that they had never had a building burned or even materially damaged by lightning that was equipped with a lightning rod; their records covering periods ranging from thirteen to twenty-five years.
Another important fact brought out by Professor Smith’s figures is that when a rodded building is struck by lightning and damaged but not burned down, the average damage is much less than in an unrodded building, viz., ten dollars in the former and twenty-two hundred dollars in the latter.
Boy Attempts to Fly; Falls.
John Mitchell, aged fourteen, living in the Mount Vernon Road below Evansville, Ind., attempted to rival the birds, and came to grief, with a broken arm. Mitchell made a girder and wings after a pattern in a boy’s book which he bought at a local store.
He attempted to glide from the loft of the stable to the ground. The girders were not strong and the wings collapsed. Mitchell fell to the ground and his left arm was broken near the elbow and he suffered slight internal injuries.
Sharpening Stones; Their Various Uses.
Not many people realize that there is a special sort of whetstone for nearly every purpose. The proper sharpening stones for each different use are exhibited in the National Museum at Washington, D. C., and there are hundreds of them.
The hard, white, compact sandstone found near Hot Springs, Ark., are among the best whetstones known, equaling, if not surpassing, the Turkey stone, which for years has been considered one of the best.
The hard, flintlike stone should be used only to sharpen instruments made of the very best steel, requiring very[Pg 66] keen edges and points such as those used by surgeons, dentists, and jewelers. Other grades, although composed of the same ingredients, are more porous, the sand grains are not as close together, and a rougher edge is given to the sharpened tool. Because of their more porous nature, these stones cut faster, proving suitable for the finer-edged tools and for honing razors.
Indiana and Ohio supply a whetstone made from a sandstone of a coarser grain than the novaculite of Arkansas, but nevertheless quite uniform. It may be used with either oil or water, and is useful for sharpening household cutlery or ordinary carpenters’ tools. But since it is easily cut and grooved by hard steel, it is not suitable for the fine instruments of dentists and surgeons.
Scythe stones and mowing-machine stones are practically all made from mica schist rocks found in New Hampshire and Vermont. These rocks are composed of very thin sheets of mica and quartz crystals. The grit of the schist is not as sharp as that of the sandstone, because it contains foreign material other than silica, which prevents the quartz grains from abrading freely.
Mica-schist stones wear down quickly from constant use—an advantage rather than a disadvantage, for, as they wear down, more of the hard silica grains are exposed to do the sharpening. Neither oil nor water is needed to keep the pores of the stone open, as with other whetstone rocks. Scythes require stones with these qualities.
Stove Trouble is Solved.
For some time it has been impossible for the family of James Rich, of Fidelity, to use the stove in the summer kitchen, because the flue had become choked in some manner. The other day Mrs. Rich noticed a cat sitting on the stove and looking steadfastly at the stovepipe. At the same time Mrs. Rich’s attention was attracted by a tap-tap-tapping sound. Although the woman is not a spiritualist, she answered the three taps by rapping on the stove with a fork handle. The taps responded from the stovepipe.
She called her husband and he too listened to the mysterious rappings. Finally they decided to take down the pipe and investigate. They did so, and what should suddenly emerge from the pipe but a red-headed woodpecker much soiled from his adventure in the pipe’s sooty retreat.
The bird immediately took wing and flew away, pursued by other birds that seemed to mistake him for some new species. Mr. Rich then lighted a fire in the stove, and the flue has been drawing excellently ever since.
Girls Hang to Ties for Life.
Hanging from their hands from a high trestle of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, near Yarklyn, Del., residents of Mount Cuba escaped death when an express train overtook them.
Mrs. Mary Flusher attempted to run to the end of the trestle, but was overtaken by the train and hurled down an embankment after her leg had been cut off. She was taken to the Delaware Hospital in a critical condition.
Miss Ryan and Miss Sastburn, together with Mrs. Fisher, were utilizing a short cut homeward. Both girls dropped between the ties and clung with their fingers as the train thundered over them. Members of the train crew dragged them to safety after it was brought to a stop.[Pg 68][Pg 67]
The Nick Carter Stories
ISSUED EVERY SATURDAY BEAUTIFUL COLORED COVERS
When it comes to detective stories worth while, the Nick Carter Stories contain the only ones that should be considered. They are not overdrawn tales of bloodshed. They rather show the working of one of the finest minds ever conceived by a writer. The name of Nick Carter is familiar all over the world, for the stories of his adventures may be read in twenty languages. No other stories have withstood the severe test of time so well as those contained in the Nick Carter Stories. It proves conclusively that they are the best. We give herewith a list of some of the back numbers in print. You can have your news dealer order them, or they will be sent direct by the publishers to any address upon receipt of the price in money or postage stamps.[Pg 69]
714—The Taxicab Riddle.
717—The Master Rogue’s Alibi.
719—The Dead Letter.
720—The Allerton Millions.
728—The Mummy’s Head.
729—The Statue Clue.
730—The Torn Card.
731—Under Desperation’s Spur.
732—The Connecting Link.
733—The Abduction Syndicate.
736—The Toils of a Siren.
738—A Plot Within a Plot.
739—The Dead Accomplice.
741—The Green Scarab.
746—The Secret Entrance.
747—The Cavern Mystery.
748—The Disappearing Fortune.
749—A Voice from the Past.
752—The Spider’s Web.
753—The Man With a Crutch.
754—The Rajah’s Regalia.
755—Saved from Death.
756—The Man Inside.
757—Out for Vengeance.
758—The Poisons of Exili.
759—The Antique Vial.
760—The House of Slumber.
761—A Double Identity.
762—“The Mocker’s” Stratagem.
763—The Man that Came Back.
764—The Tracks in the Snow.
765—The Babbington Case.
766—The Masters of Millions.
767—The Blue Stain.
768—The Lost Clew.
770—The Turn of a Card.
771—A Message in the Dust.
772—A Royal Flush.
774—The Great Buddha Beryl.
775—The Vanishing Heiress.
776—The Unfinished Letter.
777—A Difficult Trail.
782—A Woman’s Stratagem.
783—The Cliff Castle Affair.
784—A Prisoner of the Tomb.
785—A Resourceful Foe.
789—The Great Hotel Tragedies.
795—Zanoni, the Transfigured.
796—The Lure of Gold.
797—The Man With a Chest.
798—A Shadowed Life.
799—The Secret Agent.
800—A Plot for a Crown.
801—The Red Button.
802—Up Against It.
803—The Gold Certificate.
804—Jack Wise’s Hurry Call.
805—Nick Carter’s Ocean Chase.
807—Nick Carter’s Advertisement.
808—The Kregoff Necklace.
811—Nick Carter and the Nihilists.
812—Nick Carter and the Convict Gang.
813—Nick Carter and the Guilty Governor.
814—The Triangled Coin.
815—Ninety-nine—and One.
816—Coin Number 77.
NEW SERIES
NICK CARTER STORIES
1—The Man from Nowhere.
2—The Face at the Window.
3—A Fight for a Million.
4—Nick Carter’s Land Office.
[Pg 70]5—Nick Carter and the Professor.
6—Nick Carter as a Mill Hand.
7—A Single Clew.
8—The Emerald Snake.
9—The Currie Outfit.
10—Nick Carter and the Kidnaped Heiress.
11—Nick Carter Strikes Oil.
12—Nick Carter’s Hunt for a Treasure.
13—A Mystery of the Highway.
14—The Silent Passenger.
15—Jack Dreen’s Secret.
16—Nick Carter’s Pipe Line Case.
17—Nick Carter and the Gold Thieves.
18—Nick Carter’s Auto Chase.
19—The Corrigan Inheritance.
20—The Keen Eye of Denton.
21—The Spider’s Parlor.
22—Nick Carter’s Quick Guess.
23—Nick Carter and the Murderess.
24—Nick Carter and the Pay Car.
25—The Stolen Antique.
26—The Crook League.
27—An English Cracksman.
28—Nick Carter’s Still Hunt.
29—Nick Carter’s Electric Shock.
30—Nick Carter and the Stolen Duchess.
31—The Purple Spot.
32—The Stolen Groom.
33—The Inverted Cross.
34—Nick Carter and Keno McCall.
35—Nick Carter’s Death Trap.
36—Nick Carter’s Siamese Puzzle.
37—The Man Outside.
38—The Death Chamber.
39—The Wind and the Wire.
40—Nick Carter’s Three Cornered Chase.
41—Dazaar, the Arch-Fiend.
42—The Queen of the Seven.
43—Crossed Wires.
44—A Crimson Clew.
45—The Third Man.
46—The Sign of the Dagger.
47—The Devil Worshipers.
48—The Cross of Daggers.
49—At Risk of Life.
50—The Deeper Game.
51—The Code Message.
52—The Last of the Seven.
53—Ten-Ichi, the Wonderful.
54—The Secret Order of Associated Crooks.
55—The Golden Hair Clew.
56—Back From the Dead.
57—Through Dark Ways.
58—When Aces Were Trumps.
59—The Gambler’s Last Hand.
60—The Murder at Linden Fells.
61—A Game for Millions.
62—Under Cover.
63—The Last Call.
64—Mercedes Danton’s Double.
65—The Millionaire’s Nemesis.
66—A Princess of the Underworld.
67—The Crook’s Blind.
68—The Fatal Hour.
69—Blood Money.
70—A Queen of Her Kind.
71—Isabel Benton’s Trump Card.
72—A Princess of Hades.
73—A Prince of Plotters.
74—The Crook’s Double.
75—For Life and Honor.
76—A Compact With Dazaar.
77—In the Shadow of Dazaar.
78—The Crime of a Money King.
79—Birds of Prey.
80—The Unknown Dead.
[Pg 71]81—The Severed Hand.
82—The Terrible Game of Millions.
83—A Dead Man’s Power.
84—The Secrets of an Old House.
85—The Wolf Within.
86—The Yellow Coupon.
87—In the Toils.
88—The Stolen Radium.
89—A Crime in Paradise.
90—Behind Prison Bars.
91—The Blind Man’s Daughter.
92—On the Brink of Ruin.
93—Letter of Fire.
94—The $100,000 Kiss.
95—Outlaws of the Militia.
96—The Opium-Runners.
97—In Record Time.
98—The Wag-Nuk Clew.
99—The Middle Link.
100—The Crystal Maze.
101—A New Serpent in Eden.
102—The Auburn Sensation.
103—A Dying Chance.
104—The Gargoni Girdle.
105—Twice in Jeopardy.
106—The Ghost Launch.
107—Up in the Air.
108—The Girl Prisoner.
109—The Red Plague.
110—The Arson Trust.
111—The King of the Firebugs.
112—“Lifter’s” of the Lofts.
113—French Jimmie and His Forty Thieves.
114—The Death Plot.
115—The Evil Formula.
116—The Blue Button.
117—The Deadly Parallel.
118—The Vivisectionists.
119—The Stolen Brain.
120—An Uncanny Revenge.
121—The Call of Death.
122—The Suicide.
123—Half a Million Ransom.
124—The Girl Kidnaper.
125—The Pirate Yacht.
126—The Crime of the White Hand.
127—Found in the Jungle.
128—Six Men in a Loop.
129—The Jewels of Wat Chang.
130—The Crime in the Tower.
131—The Fatal Message.
132—Broken Bars.
133—Won by Magic.
134—The Secret of Shangore.
135—Straight to the Goal.
136—The Man They Held Back.
137—The Seal of Gijon.
138—The Traitors of the Tropics.
139—The Pressing Peril.
140—The Melting-Pot.
141—The Duplicate Night.
142—The Edge of a Crime.
143—The Sultan’s Pearls.
144—The Clew of the White Collar.
Dated June 19th, 1915.
145—An Unsolved Mystery.
Dated June 26th, 1915.
146—Paying the Price.
Dated July 3d, 1915.
147—On Death’s Trail.
Dated July 10th, 1915.
148—The Mark of Cain.
[Pg 72]
PRICE, FIVE CENTS PER COPY. If you want any back numbers of our weeklies and cannot procure them from your news
dealer, they can be obtained direct from this office. Postage stamps taken the same as money.
STREET & SMITH, Publishers, 79-89 Seventh Ave., NEW YORK CITY