The mother, Mrs. Wittig, had married Frank Hitchcock and moved to Peoria. She is now partially paralyzed.[Pg 59] She had made inquiries and put forth every effort she could to find her boys, and was successful in locating Louis, the eldest, who had led a dog’s life as a bound boy. He had learned that his name was Wittig, and in a Decatur paper had read of the marriage of a Mrs. Wittig and Hitchcock. He wrote to her on the chance of her being his mother, and their relationship was established. He now conducts a prosperous garage.
Benny is now seventeen years old. He has been a wanderer for nine of the intervening years since his father’s death, and the chain of happenings that have restored him to his mother is one that is read of in works of fiction, but seldom in real life.
Red and Green Light Tests.
It is strange how the color of a light makes it more or less visible, irrespective of its actual brilliancy. To test this, place two lights of the same color—two candles of the same size will do—in two tin boxes, and in each box perforate a pinhole. Cover one pinhole with green glass and one with red, and place them in a perfectly dark room.
To a normal person the green light will appear five times brighter when viewed obliquely than when viewed directly, but the red light behaves in the opposite way. Most people will pick up the green light when looking in some other direction and will be quite conscious of its presence, but when they turn their eyes directly toward it, they will not see it at all. The faint red light, on the other hand, will not be noticed at all until looked at directly, then it appears quite bright, but the instant the eyes are turned away from it it is gone.
New Mosquito Eradicator.
A genius of Jackson, Miss., has invented an electric motor which is to act as a mosquito exterminator. His plan is to have his motor revolve at just the right speed to make a humming noise like that of buzzing mosquitoes. That attracts all the insects in the neighborhood, and, as the motor is surrounded with a metal screen, charged with a powerful current, the mosquitoes alighting on it are instantly electrocuted.
Nonskid Banana Peel Discovered.
According to a news item wired from San Francisco, we are soon to have with us what one writer calls “the nonskid banana peel.” The edible interior remains about the same as the ordinary kind, we are told, but the new covering presents a new boon to humanity that should make its discoverer famous, if not wealthy. The genius who is said to be able to produce a nice large banana with a coat like sandpaper is one Frederick Boegle, employed at the Burbank experiment farm near Hayward, Cal.
The discoverer of the so-called “nonskid peel,” as a casing for the delectable contents guaranteed to be found inside, explains that the new fruit was obtained by crossing the ordinary banana with the cactus pear. Boegle says the new fruit has the usual delicious taste of banana,[Pg 60] but that the peeling may be dropped on the sidewalk with perfect safety to pedestrians.