Evening Star Newspaper, June 9, 1929, Page 111

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JUNE-9, 1929-PART- 7. “One Cat LL I know is just what I read in his- tory. Last Sunday our lesson was Henry 8th, the John Barrymore, Jack Gilbert, Mussolini, Heflin and John Roach Stratton all rolled into one. I told you about this first wife, Catherine of Arragon. Arragon translated from our old college days Iatin means, ‘‘Somewhere in Spain.” Well, Henry just “lost his taste for Catherine.” He was trying to raise him a bunch of boy babys and Catherine’s inclination ran more to the effeminate. Now we get Anne Boelyn. Anne was the Greta Garbo, Peggy Joyce type. Catherine didn’t believe in divorce, but Anne could reg- ulate her religion and her morals to fit the situation. She just said, “If this big fat round- headed bird is going to start in on a scries of promiscious weddings, why I better get in early, while he is really only an amateur.” But wait a minute; before we get to Anne, we got to stop and do something for Mary Boelyn, Anne’s sister, 4 years older. Mary had a husband named Carey, but what’s a husband between friends? Henry give him a job, it says, in the court, where he could see his own wife and Henry. I don't know what job Mary had at the court, but it was nothing trivial for her and Henry raise a baby boy, Carey was still around there, but Henry was the “head T Now Anne comes in. Anne was 19. was 35. Catherine, his wife, was 41. who of the two will win? You said it. “Hen"” Now ANNE had already been stuck on a young ncble named Percy, but he was kinder of the drug store type, this Cardinal Weolsey, who was really the Willilam Borah of that admin- kept promising that he would see that he would be made Pope at the next vacancy. Well, Woolsey had the backing of Hen, but he lacked the vote of some 55 cardinals. If it hadn’t form of “divorce relief.” Clement, couldn't see any reason why Henry a spare wife when he already if Henry could make Woolsey have given him a bill of sale marry who and what he wanted. is practically no telling who all Hen have married. No woman would have been safe from be- ump Safe for Airmen part, consisted in producing form to sketches submitted to them. For several years it was difficult to get any one sufficiently interested to go into the busi- ness of manufacturing parachutes. The market for them was obscure. Even those in closest touch with conditions could not foresee. that soon all civilized countries would be bound to supply parachutes for their military and test pilots. Two manufacturers finally started to build them. After the Army bought all it then needed, there was a lull. One eompany went out of business, convinced that the saturation point had been reached. The other company stuck, and is now supplying parachutes to the Army, Navy, Air Mail Service and to foreign countries. At present, however, this company has several competitors. Having learned, through exhaustive tests, how to design the parachute to meet streagth requirements, attention was next turned to the design of a suitable parachute pack, harness, lanyard, etc. All of these component parts of the parachute were subjected to rigid tests to insure non-fouling. HE next problem was to devise a suitable pack-releasing device. It goes without saying that this obstacie also was surmounted. A brief description is here given of this most important phase of parachute operation. The chute is carefully packed in such manner that there is little likelihood of the shroud lines becoming twisted. The pack carrier resembles a pillow somewhat in appearance, and is made of 12-ounce, double-filled khaki duck, well re- inforced on the edges, as well' as in places sub- jected to excessive wearing or pulling strains, with 1-inch cotton tape. : - it ! To facilitate the opening of the psck when the rip cord is pulled for the release of the chute, pleces of strong elastic, known' as pack openers, are stretched around the pack, and the ends are fastened to the top of the pack and held in place by cones and grommets. When the rip cord is pulled, these pack openers con- tract, pulling the four sides of the pack away from the packed chute,.and thereby aiding in quick release. In its compact form, the parachute is a bundle about 18 inches square, about 4 inches in thickness, and weighing 18 pounds. Two pins, running through slots placed on the outer covering of the pack, hold the bundle together. Attached to each pin is a length of very strong, flexible cable, fastened securely to the release ring. In packing the chute, & little pilot chute, about 36 inches in diameter, which is tied to the main chute, is the last thing which goes into the bundle before the covering is put on. The umbrellalike springs actuating the open- ing of this little chute are very powerful, and it takes strength to collapse it-and keep it so. The pull on the release ring, and hence on the two flexible cables, causes the pins to slide erine T'oo The Author-Comedian Delves Into Hi istory | any” . By W il Rogers and Brings Out an Interesting Story, Although It Is Not a New One—The Importance of Old-Time Ax-Man. coming Queen of England. Woolsey would go to Rome when a Pope would die with what Henry thought would be enough “doubloons” to buy enough votes, but some other King from France or Spain would send an entry with more “doubloons” and before poor old Woolsey could communicate with Henry to make an- other campaign denation, why the new Pope would be elected. Radio or even a good bicycle would have been a godsend to Woplsey in those trying hours. But it just looked like Woolsey was & Democrat in a Republican administra« tion. So whem Henry 8th saw that Rome was going to veto his divorce bills, why Henry and Woolsey started a religion of their own. - It wasn't exactly a frec love religion. Buf they would listen to reason in case some “gentleman” run onto a younger lady friend. Had Rome given Henry a divorce there would have been no Church of England, for Henry wasn't particular about what religion it was. All he wanted was, “Bigger and better divorces.” So this Anne Boelyn really should be their patron saint. She not only started a row, but a religion. § Henry kinder suggested to Anne that there really didn't have to be any marriage ceremony, but this Anne had seen where her sister Mary. had finished when there had been no wedding bells. So she just kindly informed the old King that there would be a session with the justice of the peace. Anne lived in 1529, just four hundred years ago, but boy, she knew her onions! She not only knew her onions, but her King! Henry started a couple of wars, thinking maby that would attract some attention to him and his country and make it look so important that out of the slots. The instant this happens, the pack openers get into their work. The flaps fiy open and out pops the little pilot chute. Its positive opening device causes it to func- tion immediately, and it proceeds to draw ‘the main chute along with it. The air flow around the folds of the big chute does the rest, and in less than 2 seconds the parachute is open, and the jumper, who in this brief space of time has fallen between 75 and 100 feet, ic suddenly arrested in his fall and he begins to glide down gently to terra firma. The shock the jumper receives upon touching the ground is akin to that following a leap from a height of about 10 feet. When in an inflated condition, the service parachute in use by the Army Air Corps resembles a large umbrella, but instead of the conventional umbrella framework of steel ribs hinged to & common base at the vortex and supported by & rod, it consists of a framework of cords or lines known as shroud lines, extend- ing from the main D ring at the harness to the skirt of the parachute, through a channel in the silk to the vent, across the vent down %o the opposite side of the parachute wall fo the skirt and back to the opposite D ring of the harness. The silk placed over the framework of shroud lines is paneled between each line and is called a main panel. The sections are cut on the bias with the warp of fhe fabric running at an angle of 45 degrees to the center line of the main panel. This arrangement permits greater economy in the cutting of the fabric and reduces the probability of tears or runs for any distance before being checked by the seams that are formed by the joining of the sections to form the main panel. It also tends to reduce the rate of déscent due to reduction of porosity. IN the course of development work on the parachute, a great many tesis were con- ducted with parachutes under normal loads and speeds, following which, there were tests with increased loads and speeds. When using a 300-pound weight, very few of the parachutes submitted for test withstood a speed of 100 miles an hour. Practically all parachutes showed a tendency to split and blow out at a radius of about three feet from the center. In fact, many of them were totally destroyed by the air pressure. Failures generally occurred near the vent, due to the fact that the sequence of opening progresses from the top of the para- chute down to the skirt. A ball of compressed air forms at the top and grows larger, forcing the parachute to open. ‘While the development work was progressing, Maj. Hoffman conceived the idea of obtaining slow motion pictures of the opening of para- chutes. These pictures proved invaluable in subsequent work. IT was not until two years after the parachute department was estabilshed on a proper working basis that sufficient confidence pre- vailed regarding the reliability of the parachute to warrant the purchase of any considerable number of them. Even then, when a contract Rome would have to listen to reason. That's when he issued that famous historic statement, “My Kingdom, My Kingdom for a Divorce.” Anne stood pat and the church lost England, which was of such little importance to them that it was about like Hoover losing Rhode Island. Martin Luther, over In Germany, was kinder kicking for a minority- religion at this time, and I guess that's really about where Henry got his idea from. Luther didn’t want to get married again. He just wanted to get frae. ESe g 7 Well, when he g0t his own court and made his own laws; why, of course, he said that Catherine was not married to him. He had 1t annuiled on the grounds that he had ncver seen Anne Boelyn when he married Catherine. Mistaken identity. So he grabs off Anne and leaves Catherine and his daughter Mary, mar- ries Anne, and she has a baby and its a girl, so he starts looking around again. This baby - was Elizabeth, that we are later to hear so much of. What happened to Anne? The ax! What had she done? Nothing! PBut Henry had run onto Jane Seymour and in the mean- time Catherine had died of a broken heart, so his.batting average was: Met two, defeated two. Here is what Anne Boeyln said, “I heard say the executioneer is very good, and I have a little neck.” That night Henry give a big party, he had found a better way than to divorce ‘'em. He married Jane, who didn’t have much to recommend her outside of just bzing of the female gender. Well, they had a baby and it was a boy, and she died at once, which was fortunate for her, for he was already in communication with Germany to import a new wife from over there. Her name was Anne of Cleves. His ministers had picked her from & Holb-in portrait, so they brought her over and I will say one thing for old Henry: He had was let for the construction of 550 parachutes, the parachute department did not consider itself fully competent to describe how they were to be made. So Insistent, however, was the demand for them that Maj. Hoffman was forced to combine the best knowledge then available and design the outfit, known as Type A. . Previous to this time, live jumps were made with the best designs, and in April, 1920, Maj. Hoffman himself made two of them to prove his contention that the device was sound. His first attempt was a “pull-off,” that is, he stood on the wing of a DH-9 airplane, released the parachute and was pulled off his none too secure perch into empty space. The second was made by jumping from the cockpit of the plane and releasing the chute after he was clear. Both departures from the airplane were made at an altitude of about 1,500 feet, and Maj. Hoffman reported the sensation as very delightful. Some time later, he succeeded in having one of his original assistants, Guy Ball, return to take charge of the work. The latter contributed no conscience, but he did have judgment. He went to the docks to meet Anne from Gennany, and got one flash at her and chocpped off Cromwell's head for being such a bad judge of beauty. But it looked like it would strengthen the kingdom with Europe if he married her, so hz shut his eyes. She had been what the Japanese call a picture bride. All they see is the picture, but Holbein was a painter, not & camera. If cameras had been in use it would have saved Henry that marriage. One snap- shot would have kept her right at home. She had a lot of breeding, but no class. She was a princess 31 years old. Well, Henry wanted beauty, and how! The only English word she could say was “Ja, Ja,” and Honry didn't know what that was. Neither do 1. Cromwell said, “Yes, me lord, but she hath & queenly manner.” “Hen” wisecracked back; “Well, she don't need it to protect her.” She missed beheading by him' divorcing her and sending her home. NOW we get Katheryn Howard, a cousin of Anne Boelyn's. Sh2 went to the block with these kind words, “I die Queen of England, but I would rather die the wife of a Culpepper.” (X wonder if he was aLy relation to the Virginia Culp:ppers, who owned a courthouse.) Wefl, that didn't make Henry feel any too good, to know that he wasn't in as good favor as Culpepper, so he just hunted up Culpepper and off with his bean. Oh, what a cheerfal ancestor our folks that come over on the Mayflower had in this gentleman Henry. Well, he was death on Katherine’s. He gets ancther one, only they all spell their name different. ~ This last one is Katherine Parr. She was a motherly kind of a soul, and they do say, (and all hoped it was true) that she poisoned him. Anyhow, she beat him to ths ax. She had bepn married twice before and you gof to learn something in that time. Course, Henq had her six to three, but her and that English grog bumped bim off before he could get her. She buried him and then married the man of her choice, which was No. 4 for her. And then we say, “What's our country coming too. We are getting worse and worse.” Well, it looks to me the only safe man in those days was the ax man. So I just want to meet some Colonial dame now that 1 to claim she can trace her ancestors back to the Tudors. (Copyright, 1929.) —Continued From Page 27 many valuable ideas and continued the parse chute development work. G Mr. Ball found the lure of commercial svia~ tion too great to resist, and again resigned from the Government. M. H. St. Clair, whe has been connected with the parachute departe ment for some years, took up the work where Mr. Ball left off. Maj. Hoffman, after an absence of several years from the engineering division (now the material division), is back at his old stamping ground.- He is now busily at work on a much bigger idea—a planechute—which he hopes wilk eventually be used with airplanes with as much success as the parachute has been used with individuals. Sergt. Nichols is a veteran in parachute work, having instructed more than a thousand officers and cadets in the art of parachute jumping. Some of the members of the Caterpillar Club have been under Sergt. Nichols’ instruction; among them Col. Charles A. Lindbergh, whe has to his credit no less than four emergency parachute jumps. SPECIAL FOR THE JUNE GRADUATE The Nationally Advertised BULOVA WATCH 242 Pay 50c a Week New, popular models. 15-jeweled move- ments, in dustproof cases. We handle all standard make watches at standard cash prices, with no extra charge for liberal credit terms, Girls’ Bulova Wriat JIJEWELRY ANY Watch $24.50 Watch $24.50