Bemidji Daily Pioneer Newspaper, December 19, 1913, Page 14

Section Two EARLY RAILROADS In the Days When Making a Rec- ord Was Quite an Event. FIRST MILE A MINUTE TRAIN. This Honor Was Claimed by Two Roads, the Boston and Maine,- With the Locomotive Antelope, and the Mohawk and Hudson, With the Davy Crockett. The first achievements of American railroading are, in the greater number of cases, lost in the obscurity of tradi- tion, and there has sprung up a host of interesting stories that go the rounds like Homeric tales. The honor of having created a record or a custom that is now commonplace has had many claimants in nearly every in- stance. Take the first train to run a mile a minute. The Antelope, an engine on the Boston and Maine railroad, accord- ing to one of the most cherished of these legends, pulled the first train that made this record. Her run was between Boston and Lawrence. a dis- tance of twenty-six miles. and one day in 1848 she is said to have made ber last fourteen miles in thirteen min- utes. But it is Just as earnestly wpheld that the Davy Crockett of the Mohawk and Hudson railrond has this distine- tion. The Davy Crockett was the pride of the road in her day. It1is said that her engineer, David Matthew, loved her better than he did his fam- ily. But she reached the pinnacle of her fame locally when In 1832, six- teen years before the Antelope was heard of; according to this other story. she covered a fourteen mile straight- away level stretch between Albany and Scheuectady in thirteen minutes and made one stop for water besides. A letter written by Matthew in that year mentions having done better than a mile a minute with her on several occasions. Running an engine at a mile a min- ute In those days was many times more dangerous than it is now. Three- quarters of a century ago the rails were light strips of iron spiked down to all sorts of ties. There were no tie or fish plates then. and in hot weather especially the sleepers and the rails would warp in the torrid sun and pull apart. Not infrequently the ends of the light rails wonld curve upward from the track, forming the much dreaded “snake beads” which were the horror of engineers and passengers alike. Many tales are told of *‘snake heads” springing up under the jolting train, piercing the flimsy car floors and im- paling passengerg in their geats. Until a remedy was found for these ‘*‘snake heads” by using better fastenings and more seasoned ties a large force of men was continually employed to walk the tracks and nail them down. Broken car wheels were another ever present danger in those remote days. The present standard gauge is said to have been originally established by taking the distance between the wheels of the carts used on English highways. For the same reason, ap- parently, the first rolling stock was equipped not with solid wheels, but with cast iron models of the wooden wagon wheel, though of smaller di- ameter. These were not submitted to the drop test that is now universal and were of a dangerously light pat- tern. The result was. that often inte- vior defects in the ¢ ing would pass annoticed until the wheel broke and the train was ditched It took a bad accident, in which a number of peo- ple were killed. so runs the tradition. to bring about the testing of car wheels by tapping them. Real time saving in running trains did not begin until 1851. Charles Mi- not,superintendent of the Erie railroad. was one of those given credit for in- augurating telegraph signals for the handling of truins, He was in the cab of a passenger train one day. so the story goes. There were no double track railroads in those days, and trains bad to lie out on sid- ings and wait for the train bound in the opposite direction to come along. However long the delay. the train on the siding walted. On this particular occasion Minot's train took its siding. The operator at the little country station strolled over. remarking that . the train in the oppo- site direction had got stalled on the grade some fifty miles down the line and that it would be two or three bhours before she could patch up her teaky fluex and get power enough to climb the hill Minot was in a bhurry, and he decided to telegraph down the line that the train he was on wonld not wait at the siding, but would proceed—for station agents to watch out for the other train and have it wait on the sidins unearest the spot where they would meet. The engineer refused point blank to take any such risk, saying that it was against all railroad law and custom. Minot finally discharged him. put him ff the enxine and ran the train him- self to the end of the division, keeping mosted by telegraph at each station. Bvorything worked oat just as he had planned and was so satisfactory that he at once Inaugurated a system of moving all trains on telegraph signals. t —Thaddeus S. Dayton in Chicago Rec- ord-Herald. Within oneself must be the’source of strength, the basis of consolation.— Marcus Aurelias. ROUND THE WORLD None of the Roman ruins shows a chimney. French scientists say dogs spread consumption. Missouri corporations last year paid $884,712 in taxes to the United States treasury. The pontoon of a new German hy- droaeroplane closely resembles a rac- Ing motorboat. Within the last two years agricul- tural wages in Scotland have risen at least $30 a year. Boston has a woman that has won first prize in forty vegetable shows during the past season. Hamilton, Ont.. proposes an electric sign a mile long and about 100 feet high advertising the city. Australia’s new nickel coins will have scalloped edges to prevent their being mistaken for silver money. Since 1820 nearly 31,000,000 immi- grants have landed in United States ports. In the past year 1,197,892 came. In British Arabia a native laborer earns from 12<to 16 cents a day, on which he supports himself and his family. Venice is wrestling with the peculiar problem of a rapidly increasing popu- lation without being able to enlarge the city. The new Chinese department of ag- riculture and forestry is very largely manned by Chinese graduates of the colleges of this country. A red cross sign made of glass, which can be illuminated from within by an incandescent lamp, has been invented for physicians’ automobiles. Plans for the foundation of a new hospital at Parel, a suburb of Bombay, as a memorial of the late King Ed- ward, are now being framed. By breeding blind fish found in dark caves under red light for several years a German scientist has succeeded in producing fish with useful eyes. It is estimated that $10,000,000 in gold is burned annually in China, where certain anniversaries are ob- served by the destruction of a piece of gold leaf. In the United States, in every busi- ness day of the year. $1,000,000 worth of ‘property is- destroyed, three lives are lost and seventeen persons serious- 1y injured by fire. The entire street railway system of a city in Australia was tied up when a pet parrot escaped from its home and dragged its ‘chain across two wires, causing a short circuit. Photographers now receive light very . similar to that through the traditional studio skylight by vapor tube electric lamps filled with carbon dioxide in- stead of mercury vapor. i The town planning development at Southend, London’s new suburb, for- ty miles due east, on the Englisb chan- nel, is converting that part of the coast into a model garden city. Resempling a pruning knife, put with a heavier insulated handle, is a ol in- vented by a Californian for removing insulation from electric wires without danger of shock to a user. In Naples motor trucks are still used very little, partly because of conser- vatism and partly because ‘of the rough street paving of large lava blocks, which is hard on all kinds of vehicles. Henry Hittson, aged eleven months, of Fort Worth, Tex., probably holds the world’s record for living grandpar- ents, of whom he has seven. He hus four great-grandmothers, but none of his great-grandfathers is living. The Haarlem (Holland) General fo- ciety For Bulb Culture offers a prize ‘of 1,000 florins for the best bulb dig- ging machine. At present bulbs are scooped out of the ground with the hands—a slow and laborious process. Because he never missed writing a letter to his mother each week of the fifteen years he has been in America J. W. Gordon, a tailor of East St. Lou- is, is heir-to $500,000 left by his bach- elor uncle, L. Liebowitz of Libaua, Kuh- [ 1and, Russia. The famous old yacht Amerieca, which won the Queen’s cup in the races between the American and Eng- lish yachts over half a century ago, is now owned by Butler Ames of Massa- chusetts. Occasionally the yacht is taken out for a short cruise. A man in New York has been arrest- ed and sentenced to eleven months in prison for the crime of steuling baby carriages. It seems not to have been a pastime with him, but a business. and he admitted that he had been en- paged in it for twenty-five vears, Boys in a fresh air school in Buffalo prune the orchard trees on the school grounds, grow catalpa trees for future transplanting, study bird whistles and notes as they hear them in the orchard and incidentally acquire a valuable in- sight into the main principles of fores- try. The unrestricted use of machine hoats by Greeks in the waters of Trip- oli has greatly damaged the normal in- crease of sponges. The [talian govern- ment has now begun to discourage the Greeks, and it is likely that ere long Milan will be the center of the trade in Tripoli sponges. IV LV Vit ey oy **Foop supefis' iTioNs.” Dyak Warr:ors Won't Eat Deer For Fear of Becoming Timid. In rural Germany one still -meets with a superstition that be who eats during a thunderstorm will be struck by lightning. Abstaining from food during an eclipse is common among savages; also a belief that in eating the flesh of any animal one absorbs that animal’s characteristics. Thus an In- dian tribe highly prizes tigers' flesh as food for men. but forbids women to eat it lest it make them too aggressive. In the Kongo women are forbidden to eat birds of prey on the sawe princi- ple. but are encouraged to eat frogs, which the men on Lo account. ever touch. In the Caroline islapds bl birds are a fayorite dish with women, ‘but men must not eat them, because if one did and afterward climbed a co- coa tree he would surely fall to the ground and be killed. Among the Dyaks warriors must not | eat venison because it would make them as timid as tbe deer. Fowls and eggs are forbidden to women of a Ban- tu tribe because on ‘eating either a woman would certainly fly into the brush and never again be seen. Again, the flesh of many animals is forbidden because the animals themselves—for example, swine—are disagreeable to the eye or have untidy habits.—Es-; change. BAD FOR PRONUNCIATION. Silent Reading and Neglect of Con- versation Are Harmful. Perhaps the most potent of influ- ences toward diverse pronunciation, especially difference in accent, is the fact that we seldom or never hear in conversation a vast number of words which nevertheless constitute an im- portant and indispensable part of our vocabulary. “By silent reading and neglect of comversation language itself,” declares Richard Grant White; “Is coming into disuse”” The result of this practice is not only that we are always men- tally registering pronunciations pecul- far to ourselves. which we have no means of ascertaining to be uncommon or ridiculous, but also tbat the natural tendencies of our language, unrestrain- ed by the conservative force which oc- casional use in conversation might ex- ert, rapidly foster new pronunciations and produce u diversity of pronuncia- tion even among the most careful speakers. All these influences obviously sup- % found beneficial for those who it wish to broaden their shoulders: & Stand erect, with arms hang- plement each other in resisting any trend toward uniform |pronunciation and facilitate the progress of the tend- encies of speech peculiar to. our Kng- lish tongue.—Robert J. Menner in At- lantic Monthly. Nero’s Dining Room. Excavators in Rome have uncovered the ancient dining room of the Emper- or Nero. The chamber revolved by machinery. * Underneath were three vertical shafts, down: one of which the explorer descended for 120 feet with- out reaching the bottom. But near one of the other shafts he found a tank and below this a chamber twenty feet wide by sixty feet long, with stones carved as cog wheels, which evidently repl:‘esented the machinery by which | the ‘dining room was made to revolve. Presumably slaves furnished the pow- iClose at hand and under the din- ing room was a bath, with rooms for varfous bathing processes, the walls being beautifully decorated with plc~ tures. PRACTICAL HEALTH_HINT. For Narrow Shoulders. The following exercises will be ing in front of the body. Raise the arms above the head, keep- * ing.the muscles rigld, and then pull them down slowly, as if you were dragging down a heavy weight: 4arms; them. rStand erect, with arms at sides. Raise the arms above the head. describing a circle; then bring the arms down to original position, keeping the muscles tense. Inhale when raising, ex- hale when lowering the arms. Stand with arms outstretched at the sides, as far back as pos- sible; and describe circles in the afr, keeping the arms stiff and letting all movement come from the shoulders. Exercise with light Indian clubs will also broaden the shoul- ders. Inhale when raising the exhale when dropping Origin of Sayings. A thoroughbred gamecock shows only red and black feathers, and a crossbreed is known by a white feath- er in its tail. Hence “to show the Bemidji, Minn., Friday Evening, Dec. 19, 1913 white feather™ conveys a strong no- tion of cowardice, from one point of view at least. One may search the Scriptures in vain for any allusion to Job’s turkey The expression “As poor as Job's turkey" had its origin in the brain of a humorist, Sam Slick. He describ ed this bird as being possessed of but one feather in its tail and as of so fee- ble a constitution that it was only by leaning against a fence that it was en- abled to gobble. ‘Why is it that a woman sufficlently modest to hate newspaper publicity will engage in smuggling and take all sorts of risks? The Duke of Abruzzi has taken a prize as a tango dance artist. And so royalty maintains its prestige in this exacting world. Surgeons now. performing operations by electricity would make a greater hit if they could only discover a way to do ’em by wireless. If the mission of the automobile is to check the earth’s tendency to over- population it is making considerable headway in fulfilling it The Esperanto congress advocates peace, and yet in print the language— if that is what it is—looks as if it might be well adapted to war. Vacations are usually taken during the fishing season. This fact has be- come so well known to the fish that they usually plan their own vacations accordingly. The United States is filling up so rapidly with immigrants that it will soon be impossible to find enough va- cant space to accommodate the auto- mobile races. About the only conclusion that can be drawn from the alphabetical air curves of the French aviator is that the letter “S” stands for so many dif- ferent things. Authorities at the University of Wis consin have forbidden the queer dances, as have the better hotels in New York city. These are signs of re- turning sanity. Efforts to suppress the African can nibalistic organization known as the “Leoparé society’” would probably be more successful if the spots were re Pages 9 to 16 movea with an ax. The discovery of dictophones. in the Chicago city hall'need not distarb the officials. Probably some one is just getting a record of the proceedings for vaudeville purposes. Despite the partial failure of the corn crop there will be a national Thanksgiving this year as usual ‘Word comes from Cape Cod that the cranberry crop is O. K. An English critic of American man- ners says that American ‘men do not even know how to “sit up.” That may be, but it must be admitted that we know how to take notice. Only a half dozen women cab driv- ers are left in Paris, and six years ago there were twenty times as many. It looks as if Frenchwomen didn’t take kindly to legalized brigandage. The second bankruptcy of a welk known and once popular night restau- rant in the white light region testifies anew to the proverbial fickleness of New York’s after theater appetite. New York is boasting of having pro- duced the biggest book in the world. No; it doesn’t contain an alphabetical list of New York officeholders, with an itemized statement of the debt of the city. Jack Raftery, a reporter, who has worked in many places, went to work on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer under Bceott Bone about the time a grand jury was called. Raftery was ordered te cover the grand jury. The judge and the district attorney warned the grand Jurors about the necessity for secrecy. Raftery had full reports of the doings in his paper every day. The judge summoned Raftery. “Young man,” he said, “you have been asking those jurors. questions. Who bes been infornmng you?’ “I can’t tell you, judge,” Raftery re- plied. “It wouldn’t be right to the juror. He didn’t know he was talking to a, reporter.” 5 “But you asked him questions,” said the judge heatedly. “Not questions, judge,” soothed Raf- tery. “I only asked him one question— Just one—but I agked that one fre quently.” “What was that question?’ demand- od the judge. “What was it?” “Why,” Raftery replied, “my ques- ton was, ‘What will you have ta drink ? ”—Saturday Evening Post. BLG-DELARTMENT- STORE Beginning Friday Until Christmas 2 TABLES TOYS AND DOLLS Values $1.25 to $2.00 Sale Price only 98¢ TABLE TOYS AND DOLLS A Blg Line of Blackboards, Go-Carts and Toy Furni ture Coing at Specia Value 65¢ to 98¢ Begins Friday Sale Price only L.ow Price!