Evening Star Newspaper, March 5, 1922, Page 59

BY CROSSLEY DAVIES. LONDON, February 27, 1922. RE you the missing heir to an estate in Great Britain? There is over $27,500,000 here waiting to be claimed by legatees who have vanished. And some of that money should undoubt- edly go to Americans. While the golden vision of thus becoming at a happy stroke of fortune a millionaire is delusive, though some bogus next- of-kin agents flourish by perpetuat- ing it, there are at the same time quite a lot of comfortable compe- tences going begging in this coun- try. For instance, search is being made for the heirs of Jane Eales, who was born in Wales in 1835, Her estate is now worth $300,000. Where is John Wy Binns, for. whom, of his lawful next of kin, $75,000 is waiting. Where is Charles L. H. Hannay of Oxford and Cape Town, to whom a fortune is due? Are there in America_any descendants of Gen. Peter Campbell of Southall, Jondon, who died about 17507 Does anybody know anything of Thomas Sheppard, who went .to the United States twenty-nine years ago? Or ©f Frederick J. Ingram, who emi- grated to Canada® Both are sought for “something to their advantage.” Some freehold property is held here for the descendants of John H. Pick- ering of Cardiff. who died in 1904. Other missing heirs include the chil- dren of John and James Lee, who went to America in 1845, and. of Thomas G. Alder of Hertford, -who, died in Ottawa in 1908. * % * ok’ ( THE list could be enlarged to & be- wildering extent. Suffice. it- to mention the call for the mext of kin or relatives of Charles J. Kemp, who died a century ago: of Francis and Mary Lakin of Stapenhill, who ‘died in 1780; William H. Pilcher (1865); Isitt and John Gimblett, who were married in 1810; Caroline Gage of California (1880), and Rev. B. C. Conway, who died in 1862. And it may also interest Ameri- cans that among those for “whom something to their advantage” is advertised is William Billson, alias Wilson, who emigrated in 1870. The romance of the missing heir is endless and brimful of human inter- est. There is hardly a family, how- ever poor, without expectations. And because there -are so many Amer- fcans with British ancestors or con- nections the British authorities are inundated with letters from the TUnited States. The last year, as it happens, has been a record year for the number of missing heirs for. whom advertisements have appeared in the daily press. One London Sunday newspaper, with a circulation running into mil lions, claims to have found 677 miss: ing heirs, and’ each week gives a is being made. It is extraordinary how men and women vanish, the yearly disappearances - numbering thousands. A long list of vamished legatees or next-of-kin, published re- cently in the London Times is par- ticularly fascinating. There is the case of a Bristol woman who went to, Australia nearly forty years ago, married, and survived her husband. She has left a fortune to her sister and her sister's children. Another case is that of the heirs of a married woman who died in a Glasgow poor- house twelve years ago. How did the money come to the inmate of a poor- house? Among the vanished people who have come into money are nursery governess and a parlor maid. And there is the strange case of the representatives of a man “who is be- lieved to have died in a lunatic asylum.” * kg X k re You One of the Missin To An Unclaimed Englis | (CROSSLEY DAVIES Seye ToeaniSeven) Million Doliars 1s Waiting to be Disttib- uted Among Legatees Who Have Vanished. Latest List of Persons Whose Heirs Are Sought Includes Several Who Were Last Heard of in America—Fortunes Go Begging. Amazing Tale of the Blake Millions. within seven years. The heir was finally found in London. He was then a taxicab driver living on the top floor of a Soho lodging house. His real name was William Rouse Upjohn Whittington, but he had adopted the name of Sidney W. Upjohn. Happily his identity was beyond doubt. “I left home,” he said when the news was brought to him, “because it did not suit me to marry the wealthy girl whom my father had in mind for me, and I found it necessar to earn my own living without any assist- ance. I was then eighteen and my existence has since then been a hard one, but I would not have changed it for the lazy life at Hastings." That left home is abundantly evident from this brief record of his jobs: Cinema ERHAPS the most remarkable in- stance of an unclaimed estate in all history is, that of a Parisienne who left $40,000 to “whomsoever would watch by her tomb day and BUILT FROM W™ANY MILLIONS AGNIFICENT BUILDING. night for twelve months and hold no communication with any one except the person who served the watcher ~rith meals.” One man did it for nine months - and lost his reason. The money is still unclaimed. An equally eccentric bequest, but less cruel, was that of a Brooklyn man who ordered that seventy pairs of trousers should be sold for the benefit of the poor wwith the proviso that nd buyer should e allowed to buy rhore than one pair. The reason for this was discovered when one purchaser found sewed in the waistband a canvas bag contain- ing ten $100 notes. A recent real life romance of a miss- dng heir. is stranger than fiction. A man in the English town of Hastings Yeft some $230,000 to be shared equally between son and daughter. The son missing, and the father directed that the trustees should presume the gon's death if ke did not turn up IN THE STRAND, OCCUPY A SITE WHICH ALONE COST $7500,000. attendant at a dollar and a half a week; film actor at a dollar,a day; motdr mail van driver at eight dollars a week; char-a-blanc driver at a little less, and from omnibus driver to he did not have a lazy life after he | EARL HOWE, WHOSE ANCESTOR, THROUGH HIS WIFE, SUCCEEDED new list of people for whom search|IN HIS CLAIM TO ONE OF THE BIGGEST ESTATES THAT HAS EVER BEEN THE SUBJECT OF PROLONGED LITIG JENNENS ESTATE, WORTH, ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO, $7,500,000. ‘TION. THIS WAS THE unclaimed cash has been sunk in the building of the magnificent Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand, which cost millions. The site alone ran into $7,500.000. In the Bank of England are some $25,000,000 of unclaimed stock and accumulated dividends, while during the war $5,000,000 was lifted by the state from the bank's unclaimed funds to relieve taxation. Most of the unclaimed money lies in the office of the national debt commissioners. A certain amount, left over from the now defunct court of chancery. over which Chafles Dickens made so merry, reposes in the trust of the high court of judi- cature, splendidly housed in the building, which was built with the gold of missing heirs. It is to this office that so many letters of inquiry come from the United States, but ac- tually here there are no millionaire estates, though there are a few sums well worth .while chasing. Yet the chance of recovery is not too good, i i OF UNCLAIMED ESTATES, THE ROYAL COURTS OF JUSTICE (AT LEFT) MISSING HEIRS. PAID FOR: THE ariving a taxicab. By the time me[even though you may have every news of his fortune came to him he|proof of your right. had bought his own cab and was Money used to come into the court doing so well that he was just about | of chancery and nowadays comes to to buy two more. ' Tk X o % D\'IRING the time that he drove a metropolitan steam omnibus he. charged. used to pass the hotel where his|few advertisements father and sister were staying. And now that he need no‘longer work he has set up as the proprietor of a motor char-a-blanc business and he works just as hard as ever. He is one of the happy few whom neither good fortune nor bad can spoil. .. Who benefits if no heir to an Eng- lish fortunes is found? The un- claimed estates go to the king, if the death of the last owner takes place within the Duchy of Lancaster; to the Prince of Wales, if within the its substitute when the executorsg of wills cannot find the beneficiaries. The executors’ duty is easily dlis- They have only to place & in the news- papers and if they get no reply pay the money .into court. The court takes the point of view that it is the duty of the missing heirs by some sort of .clairvoynncy to know that the money awaits them, and it is not the court's fault if the people con- cerned never get it. Once every threé years a list ississued, but you would be a very eclever person if you could find your claim mentioned there. It is there,of course, but not so as you would notice it! The list Duchy of Cornwall, and to the nation | does not give the names of thore en- it elsewhere. Quite a large slice of titled to money, but only the names l 5 | D. 'C. MARCH 5, 1922_BART g Heirs '\NeW French Science Discovers Why Fortune?, Some Men Fail and Others Succeed of thowe who have left it. And there is a masterly absence of detall. No Chrigtian names and no addreases are glven and no amount. There is rea- son for this seeming madness. If the full particulars, with particulars of the people wanted as heirs, wer published the court would be snowed under with claims, most of"them in all probability false. * ¥ X X BUT the court is rapidity itselt com- pared with the Bank of England. With some $2,600.000 of unclaimed stock and’dividends on its books its last published 1ist of the names in which those accounts stand was in 1845, This stock, by the way, s gov- ernment stock. Besides this vast sum which belongs to many un- known, there are many unclaimed deposits in the other banks and many accumulations of dividends in public companies. Altogether it is quite safe to say that there is well over $35,000,000 of other people’s money waiting to be demanded by the right- ful owners. The difficulty in finding heirs is well shown in the remarkable case of Lemuel W. Bangs, an American, who dled recently in London. He had come to London more than forty years ago and there wrote for an American magazine. He lived at a well known West End hotel, the York, in Albe- marle street, and he was one ot the oldest members of the Garrick Club, where he was a regular attendant. Though he was well known' in the West/ End and personally acquainted with/ all the members of his club, a famous rendezvous of artists, actors and writers, when he died he left no information as to his property or estate and no will. No one knew who were his solicitors or bankers and it was only when a firm of solici- tors advertised for information that at last a cable was received fram a half brother in the United States and the first light was thrown on the personal affairs of this man, who had 80 many friends, but kept, right up to his death, absolute silence upon these matters. Had this ‘half-brother missed the advertisement the estate would have gone to the British treasury. The chancellor has had some astonishing windfalls. Who would believe, if there were not official facts to prove it, that a man who was worth $1,000,000 would die without any known heirs? The usual trouble is not that there are no heirs, but that there are too many. Other estates that have gone to the treasury in- clude $600,000, §750,000 and.two of $300,000. E | | | | i * k¥ % PERHAPS the most amazing story of all these of missing heirs fs that of the famous “Blake millions.” The cold fact is that the estate was probably worth about $1,000,000, part made up of land in British Columbia. The treasury, by an advertisement in the Times, invited the next of kin to apply for the estate. The appli- cation did not pass unheeded. Helen Blake was the daughter of a Mayo man named Sheridan. Her husband, Capt. Blake, a son of Sir Francis Blake, met her when she was a young peasant girl, fell in love with her, had her educated and then mar- ried her. He became a general and inherited a fortune from his father. When he died he left all he pos- sessed to his widow, then a striking- ly handsome woman, who, though many times pressed to remarry, re- mained faithful to the memory of her first and only lover. She died Intestate and the Invitation to the next of kin to come forward set all the next-of-kin agents on the trail. Many claiméints presented them- selves, but all failed to prove their claims and the money was pald to the commissioners for the reduttion of the national debt. Still there are people who think they have a chance to win this princely fortune and there is no doubt that if they could prove their right to it the treasury would pay it to them. But the experience of those who have gome before—and failed—is not too encouraging. One claimant came from America at the age of seventy. He belleved that he “was Mrs. Blake's cousin. Though he was amply provided for his visit, he spent so much in this vain effort to establish his claim that he ended his days in & poorhouse in Lambeth. Another Sheridan—this time Patrick of Liverpool, had an even more cruel experlence. A local solicitor persuaded him that he was the rightful heir and showed him some convincing evidence. The “exhibits” included a silver watch, tnscribed: “From Helen Blake to her dear nephew, Patrick Sheridan, 1866.” The other was an old family Bible, giving on the fly leaf the records of the family of Martin Sheridan, which referred to the marriage of Helen, his diughter. . * ok %k % UNHAPP]LY for Patrick, a jeweler to- whom the solicitor had given the silver watch to inscribe with the 1866 inscription became suspiclous: when the customer grew angry be- cause the engraver made the. very natural mistake of inscribing thé date as 1898. The jeweler had the inscrip- tion altered as desired, but he told the police. The result was the arrest of the solicitor and a charge ‘of for- gery and conspiracy. At the prison- er’s office the police made a startling discovery. It was a regular factory for faked Bible “records.” Sensation followed .sensation, for in Ireland it was \discovered that the solicitor had actually had somg old gravestones, properly inscribed, made and placed in appropriate churchyards. That ended Patrick's case and the poor man to console himself as best he could for the cruel deception. of which he had been the victim. It is & common proceeding to offer a reward for information leading to the finding of missing heirs, but the record was easily beaten by the offer of $5,000,000 for a certificate of bap- tism in connection with the “Jennens millons.” This was offered in an ad- vertisément in the Times. The lack of this certificate led to much costly litigation which dragged on for years. BSo long and so expensive were these proceedings that Dickens took the case as the model for his historic jibe at the court of chancery, the famous action, “Jarndyce v, Jarn- dyce.” l l l | BY STERLING HEILIG. PARIS-LYON-RIVIERA, February 26. AVE you wondered why some men are successful? It is because they have had the 5 luck_to get into their right place. 3, 7% Edisen and Secretary Mellon are cerebrals, H Briangd, and President Harding are digestives. Secretary of State Hughes and ex- Prestdent Wilson are of the respira- tory ‘type. it Judge Gary and Premier Poincare are musculars—which does not mean that they are.physically strong. as will be seen, nor necessarily:in their place just now, but, as they are suc- cessful, it is.prohable that they have been in their place for long periads of their lives. Have you, yourself, been out of place all your life? Do you want your child to avoid your failures or repeat your successes? Would you have him (or her) forceful. lireezy, useful, happy? Or are you youns. and would you help yourself? Or even middle-aged, or old? Learn of the new science of human mor- phology. . THIS is no correspondence course of human vigor. It is’ modest science which forbids putting round pegs into square holes and, equally, forblds putting square ~pegs ° Into round holes. Most of the miserable failures may be traced to such errors of environment—into which false in- terests, blind chance or wall-eyed routine are continually dragging the young and middle-aged alike. War veterans in France say that morphology is great. In the new loosening up, where fellows are given vocational choice, large numbers who previously dared not tell their 'folké that they hated their jobs, now (feel- ing themselves backed up by’ the board) rejoice in the mew way of life which they have found—and which they were made for. Why, it is simply absurd to put a respiratory into the regime of a cerebral! 1 These are teachings of a new branch of science, created by an un- known physician of Lyon in 1911 but which had no luck in winning popular interest until vocational problems of the after-war brought | out its results with a whoop. Now the works of Dr. Sigaud bid fair to g0 down the roll of fame along Wwith | those of Trousseau, Laennec and Broussais, in taking up again the great traditions of the French clinic. Doubtless, it is highly important to investigate and master the infinitely small, yet the principal element of the human problem gets further away from us the nearer we get to microbe and electrom. 1 dont say this—it is Prof. Thooris, chef des travaux (vou might say, director or} layer-out of work) at the Practical School of Higher Studles, in Paris. | And he, himself, before the war had Dr. Sigaud up before his special stu- dents. Now the Hautes Etudes, as every- body knows, is the culminating point of the French university system. So Prof. Thooris, in 1912, put these things before men who, in 1929, were in responsible positions to utilize them on a mass of young men whom the war had yanked out of the rut. The principal element of -the hu- man problem is the human form, says Dr. Sigaud. In ordinary’ lan- * ok ok ok | OME Facts Abo:xt l Unknown French Phy Digestives, Respirato Men Who Belong to These Various Types—A Way to Start the Child Right—Progress With ‘War Veterans in Voca L __Branch of Science Brought Out by an H;x;:xan Morphology. a sician—The Cerebrals, . | | ries and Muscu]ars.i | | { tional Problems. . I “TALLEYRAND BELONGED TO THE DIGESTIVE TYPE OF MANHOOD.” | skull i billions of ancestor: environment, provided that it does not force on them irregular or hur- ried meals. Most digestives do not know that they are digestives. They bear no tag. They are not gluttons. Yet irregular or hurried meals cut their effective force by 70 per cent, just as a short “siesta” after meals (which 70 per cent of them never learn to take) adds 30 per cent, ac- cording to Sigaud, to both quality and quantity of their results. The musculars require either phy- sical fatigue, or else a great deal of movement. The cerebrals, on the contrary, are fit only for a sedentary life, in some big social center with its sense stim- ulations. How tell them apart. To begin with, the Republican Federation is on the point of preparing a book by Dr. Sigaud, which it will circulate gratuitously in France and allied nations. Meanwhile, here are certain brief indications. The respiratory has the nose and median part of the face par- ticularly developed. The thorax oc- cupies a very large part of the trunk and the false ribs extend to touch the lower edge of the pelvis. The digestive shows a preponder- ance of the lower parts of head and trunk—i. . of the jaw, stomach and abdomen. ¥ The cerebral has a smallish body in proportion to the head, while the shows a larger development than usual in the average. The muscular is harmoniously pro- portioned. But these are hasty, sketchy signs. No life should be decided on them There 1s vastly more to human mor- phology, otherwise it would not be a sclence, would not even require & textbook. The great thing is this: We cannot ignore-our types. I we do not give them what they need they will re- venge themselves upon us. Your preponderance (like mine and his and hers) is an epitome of the preponderating types in a struggle of vast ancestry behind us. Back. back into the mists of time! How dare we disregard our origins? They cry aloud—ghostly voices of If we disregard them, look out for breakage! Frost-Gripped Gold. ~ERTAIN Alaskan gold placers lie in ground that is permanenily frozen, only the surface being thawed OTHERS OF THIS TYPE INCLUDE EX-PRESIDENT McKINLEY, CHAI‘(LES;(D a depth of two or three feet in #he SCHWAB, PRESIDENT HARDING AND G XVI., Rossini, Talleyrand, McKinley, Charles Schwab, Briand, Gen. Har- bord, President Harding) find in food the most important source of their vitality. The Musculars (Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Grant, Hoover, Judge Gary, Poincare, Roosevelt) live most on move- ment. ‘The Cerebrals (Henri III, Richelieu, Edison, Secretary Mellon, Elihu Root, Foch, Rockefeller) find their best source of energy in visual and sonor- ous impressions. Victory over decline belongs to marked predominances constantly in contact with the particular environ- ment which is favorable to them. Here, in a word, is my story and yours, of success or failure, well be- ing or grouch. The bad thing is that, being unwarned, none is safe from the tricks of circumstance. The lovely thing is that, once we are “LAFAYETTE IS OF THE RESPIRATORY TYPE,” ACCORDING TO FRENCH SCIENTISTS. OTHERS OF THE SAME TYPE INCLUDE EX-PRESIDENT WILSON, GEN. PERSHING, SECRETARY HUGHES AND ‘MARSHAL JOFFRE. guage, “form” refers only to exterior configuration. To the morphologist, however, “form” includes all physi- cal qualities, color, elastleity, tem- perature, etc. Human weakness and degeneracy. are deformations. Re- tard deformations, prevent the break- ing down of the form. * k x ¥ NOF: we will soon be there. The human form is an hierarchised en- semble “of four different appiyatus— the respiratory, the digestive the muscular and the cerebral. And the predominance of any one of these over the others assures a good equili- brium in exact proportion as the pre- dominance Is strongly confirmed. The - Respiratory Type (examples, Conde, * bon _Quixote, Washington, Lafayette, Secretary Hughes, Joffr: Gen Pershing, Wilson) lives, above all, from the atmosphere. The —Respiratory Type (examples, warned, no one is doomed to remain in the mouise. It requires only courage to make the wrench. Only luck to get out of the rut. Observe that great muscular—Na- poleon. ‘As a youth, cooped up in schools and towns, he amounted to nothing but exisfed’ in a lethargic conditi ‘Why, he even tried writing short stories for the magazines! His superb vitality awoke with the. stir and movement of war. His health, too, continued wonderful, so long as he continued to find in the campaigns of Egypt, Syria and all Europe the occasions for that movement which kept his elasticity in good condition. The muscular type began t& break down in the inactivity of Elba, and sunk rapidly and completely in the immobility of St. Helena. The cerebral, Richeleu, on the con- trary. carried on the work of an en- tire cabinet in his head, fooled the HARBORD. diplomats of Europe and beat the combined great feudatories, while making his vast collections of paint- ings, marbles, books and jewels, and personally handling and cataloging | them. He never took exercise, scarce- { Iy ever quit the palace, and when he | was forced to do so he rode in a| closed litter whose drawn curtains prevented him from sceing anything or getting extra ozone. Compare him with Edison, that other cerebral. Edison can do with five hours' sleep, but often takes twelve. He despises food or eats! reasonably, according to mood. And he finds sufficient exercise, during weeks at a time, inside the compli- cated laboratory where most of his life pases. * % x x | EACH tspe has its instincts and its needs. The cdrebrals are not! necessarily intelligent. A digestive | may be quite as “brainy.” No more ; {are musculars necessarily strong. It is the type that counts. Each type would stumble naturally | on a way, perhaps, to regulate its! life according to its predominance,! did not the so-called interests of an | artificial civilization, family tradi- tions and desires, false starts from hastily acquired ideals, or the cramp- ing limitations of opportunity or routine keep the victim out of his more favorable environment. heart of summer. In this respect they resemble the gold-bearing gravels of Siberia, and the methods of working are similar. Summer is the best time to prospect for new leads, but exca- vation of the grave! from shafts and tunnels can be as well carried on in winter. The ground at the end of a shaft is softened by a fire of wood and then attacked with the pick. But, instead of breaking under the blo’ it mats together, and this tendency renders gunpowder and dynamite comparatively ineffective in dealing with the frozen mass. With any less powerful incentive than the gleam of gold to spur on his human antagonist the frost king would doubtless win an easy victory in so desperate a con- flict. Miles of Rain. RAINFALL is usually recorded 1 inches and fractions of an inck One expert, however, declares thal weather bulletins would be mors graphic if the amount of rainfall were expressed in miles and tons. Thus, instead of having the official statement of the rainfall in one state for a certain year read, say, “forty inches,” this expert would change it {to read “forty-three and nine-tenths cubic miles.” He has calculated that the rainfall in one.year throughout the United States amounted to 1,296.4 cubic miles of water, and that the an- nual rainfall weighs about 6,000,000 000,000 tons. Only a small part of that vast amount reaches the sea Men who hated their jobs went on fanciful. In the French army per- fectly good men were weeded out as “physically not apt” For ex- ample, there are the classical cases| of great French aviators who had been rejected by the revision councils —from Latham, Vedrines and Nieu- port to the illustrious Guynemer himself. Yet when the war came they were soon at the head of their larm. Having shown their fiying ability, they were promptly ‘“reinte- grated” into the service. | On the other hand, the French jarmy (like all that are recruited by | forced conseription) accepts thous- ands of young soldiers who simply wilt in barracks and remain of no use. Yet they have the necessary measurements, etc. Then, Why Simply because no account was made of their morphologic constitution. As early as the year before the war | Prof. Thooris stirred up his brother, | Principal Military Doctor Thooris, to make expeyiments with boys who “ought to have been rejécted.” The | results were magnificent, and because | Dr. Thooris had his official residence at the Invalides, where he was thrown into contact with the military gov- ernor of Paris, morphology had the luck, at least, to become known by the late and then all-powerful Gen. Maunoury. The respiratories can flourish only. 1in the open air. To all such garrison 1 in country district, and particularly the mountains, was ordered as asuf- ficient. “reviving” measure for “wilt- ed” lads of that type. And it is now a fact known to all that during the war the various Alpine corps, previ- | dusly so difficult of recruit, made thejr heroia reputation of “les diables bleus” with 70, per cent town-bred young soldiers. Today in vocational recommenda- tions they back up such who, having made 2 name in the open alr of trenches and no man’s land, hate to return to the confining jobs Where they were “wilting” in pre-war days. 1 know of one such who is happily and successfully raising chickens in the suburbs of Paris, and another who is managing a big tourist-car busi- ness on the Riviera. Tk ok ¥ % le( @igestives, warns Prof. Thooris, expect no worthy effort 1f you do’'not furnish them abundant nourishment. They are the easiest ;nf all to rightly place (the luckiest of all) because they flourish in any through rivers and streams; most of with them, not to seem changing ami ! it is evaporated from the land. An Electric Air Trap. HE instrument used by a French scientist for collecting specimens of air at high altitudes with the 2id or sounding balloons consists of & very perfect vacuum tube with a fine- ly drawn out end. Either the rise of the mercury in a barometer, cor- responding with = previously deter- mined altitude, or the clockwork of the meteorograph, forms an electric contact, causing a little hammer to £zl and break the end of the tube. Air then rushes in, whereupon another electric contact, brought about by the same means, causes the current of & small accumulator to heat the plati- | num wire wound around the capillary tube to & red heas This fuses the glass and again closes the end of the vacuum tube, thus entrapping the air. When Poles Were Warm. AMONG the interesting discoveries made by antarctic expeditions are the fossil bones of many verte- brate animals, including some of great size, together with abundant remains of plants. These show that, as in the case of the north polar regions, a mild climate once existed where now everything is in the grip of perpetual frost. Explorers have found evidence that great forests once flourished on the borders of the antarctic continent, and the animal remains indicate that vast expanses of herbage must have cxisted there to serve as feeding grounds. Strange birds were also probably among the inhabitants of the ice-buried land. . Traveling Telephones. | reported that in India the British military authorities employ 2 form of movable telephone, which can be used with great facility in the field. The cable weighs only seven pounds per mile, but it is so well in- sulated that it can be stretched across 2 stream of water without lods of cur- rent. It withstands a strain of 120 pounds. An apparatus for placing and removing the cable, working automatically and capable of being attached to a saddle, is employed. Recently in the Punjab a horseman, proceeding at a gallop, placed the cable over a distance of two miles in seven minutes. To remove it eighteen minutes were required.