Evening Star Newspaper, October 18, 1931, Page 19

AT 324 OCLOEK Members of Family at Bedside as End Comes to Wizard in New Jersey Home. EDISON SUCCUMBS l (Continued From First Page.) son perfected an electric vote-recording machine, which he endeavored to have Massachusetts officials adopt. It was rejected “because it would work” and thus would prevent filibustering. Thus convinced that he had wasted a lot of time and money, the young inventor resolved “never to work upon any in- vention unless beforehard I satis- fied myself beyond a a doubt that it would be useful in the field for which it was intended.” strictly to that rule, . Electrical Work Leads. During the greater part of his active life Mr. Edison devoted himself largely to inventions of an electrical nature, foremost of which were the incandes- cent lamp and systems for the trans- mission of electric light, heat and power; apparatus and machines to im- prove systems of communication by telephone and telegraph: the phono- graph and moving picture machines. In 1926, in connection with the 47th anniversary of his invention of the in- candescent lamp. Mr. Edison said trat his inventions that underlie the elec- tric light and power industry he con- sidered the most important of his works. Two years late Arthur Williams, vice president of the New York Edison Co.. estimated that the value of the enterprises which owed their origin, in part at least, to Edison's genius, rep- resented five times all the money in circulation With the outbreak of the World War, the Edison works, among many Ameri- can industries, faced a serious situation because of the cessation of imports of various chemicals for which the United States had depended upon Europe. The “Wizard of Menlo Park.” as Edison had come to be known, then plunged into| the mysteries of synthetic chemistry and evolved processes for the manufac- ture of various products that were| needed in industry and which became essential in the manufacture of muni- tions after the United States entersd the war. Before that step was taken by the American Government Mr. Edison had been named by Josephus Daniels, then Secretary of the Navy, head of the Naval Consulting Board, the member- ship of which included a score of Amer- icans pre-eminent in the field of in- ventive research. At the time Edison was working nearly 18 hours a day to help overcome the handicap with which his own industries were confronted, but he said he was “not too busy to lend a hand to Uncle Sam.” Later, when the war became an actual part of the Nation's business. he devoted his entire time in his laboratory and aboard a vessel provided by the Navy Depart- ment to Government problems of the | war and continued those activities un- til the signing ot the armistice. Experimented With Rubber. Yet with all that he kad contributed to the progress of life and for the bene- fit of mankind, Mr. Edison was not con- tent. He turned in his latter years to a new field of endeavor, devoting a great deal of his time to investigations and experiments looking toward the produc- tion of rubber from plants, shrubs and bushes in the United States in order to meet a possible national emergency and to give the rubber trade a new “mir- acle” to round out his career of inven- tion. Mr. Edison was born at Milan. Ohio, February 11. 1847, the son of Samuel and Nancy Elliott’ Edison. His ances- tors emigrated from Holland to the United States in 1730. Tre family of the inventor was noted, especially on his father's side, for longevity. His great-grandfather, a prosperous New York banker of Revolutionary times, lived to be 104, and his grandfather 102. His father was 94 when he died. Commenting on that family record when he was 76, Mr. Edison said he was only middle-aged and “I don't expect to_lower the family average.” Mr. Edison’s mother, who was born in New England, had been a teacher in a Canadian high school and from her he received most of his early education. It has been recorded that Edison spent | not more than two months altogether in school. At the age of 12 he had read | a number of treaties on scientific sub- | jects, as well as other works, such as Gibbons' “Decline and Fall of the| Roman Empire.” Tried Many “Enterprises. About that time he engaged in a va- riety of business enterprises, including newsboy on the Grand Trunk &Railway between Port Huron and Detroit, pro- prietor of a newsstand and book store and of a vegetable market and emplo ing 11 boys to assist him in these vari- ous activities. At 15 he turned to jour- nalism and, with some old equipment purchased from the Detroit Free Press, set up his shop in the baggage car of his train. There he published the Grand Trunk Herald. said to have been the first newspaper published aboard a train. This venture continued for nearly a vear and was suspended when he was denied further use of the baggage car. From_his early reading of scientific books, Edison was 12d into chemical ex- periments, one of which put an end to his railroad newspaper. While experi- menting in the baggage car, a bottle of phosphorus tipped over and set fire to the car and he was ousted. On one of his runs as a train boy, Edison proved a hero at Mount Clemens, Mich., when he snatched the young son of the station agent from in front of a train. In gratitude, the father taught Edison telegraphy. = When he became proficient as an operator, his_experi- ence proved an aid to his natural bent for scientific work. The increased knowledge of the possibilities of elec- tricity which he had gained from telegraphy impelled him to delve further into its mysteries and into the work which eventually made him faTous the world over. | In 1873, Mr. Edison married Mary G. Stillwell, by whom he had three children, Marion Estelle, Thomas A.,.jr., and William L. Mrs. Edison died in 1884 and two years later the inventor married Mina M. Miller, Three chil- dren, Madeline, Charles and Theodore, were born of this union. Rigged Up Automatic Device, After he learned telegraphy, Mr. Edi- son became an_operator for the West- ern Union at Port Huron, Mich., and Jater night operator for the Grand Trunk Railway at Stratford Junction, Canada. There, the story is told, ho conceived the idea for his first con- tr a device to thwart orders for ht vigil promulgated by the circuit manager. The latter, fearing that young Edi- son might fall asleep at his lonely post, ordered him to tick off the signal “six” every half hour. That, to Edison, scemed senseless, so he rigged up a wheel with notches that automatically ticked off the required signal. Edison left his job at Stratford Junc- tion in haste without even the formality of a resignation when he permitted a train, which he was directed to stop, to pass by the station. Taking time to reply to the order, he found upon reach- ing the station platform that the train had gone by. A disastrous collision was averted only kecause the enginee's of the two trains traveling toward each other on straightaway track were able | to stop them in time. Making his way to Port Huron, Edi- son later went to Fort Wayne, Ind. and then to Indianapolis, where he began experimenting on his idea of the repeater. His positions were of short duration, for after leaving Indianapolis he went to Cincinnati, and then worked Thereafter, he adhered | h THE SUNDAY in Louisville and Memphis. He was then 17 and a living refutation of the old saying, “the clothes make the man,” for he had put all his money into his experiments. Repeater Is Perfected. While working at Memphis he per- fected his repeater and by its use was the first operator to bring New Orleans into direct communication with New York. But he lost his job because of jealousy on the part of the office man- ager. He walked back to Louisville and got his old job, which he retained for two years. Then he lost that when he tipped over a bottle of chemical in the course of an experiment. The fluid trickled through the floor and ruined the carpet on the floor of the manager’s office. 4 “Working as an operator in several other cities, Edison finally landed in the Western Union office at Boston. By that time he had established himself as a clever operator and had won a reputation for one of the °cleanest hands” in the business. In Boston he set up a small workshop, where .ie con- tinued experimenting on a duplex sys- tem of telegraphy. After the rejection of his vote-recording machine, on which he took out his first patent, he went to New York in 1869. Shortly after- ward he was in the operating room of he Gold & Stock Telegraph Co. seeking employment when the cir- cuit, over which fluctuations in gold prices were sent to several hundred brokers’ cffices, broke down. Edison volunteered to “chase” the trouble, rec- tified it and immediately was hired as superintendent at $300 a month. He set about to improve the tickers then in use and brought out new inven- tions, among which was the Universal stock ticker. In less than a year he re- ceived $40,000, the first money from his inventions, and opened a manufacturing plant at Newark, N. J., to fulfill a con- tract with the Western Union, which had taken an option on his patents. Established Laboratory. For six years the factory continued to turn out tickers while Edison applied himself to the perfection of many tele- graphic inventions, including the auto- matic, duplex, quadruplex, sextuplex and multiplex systems, the development of which saved the investment of mil- lions of dollars in wires. Concluding that the manufacturing business was interfering with his inventing, he gave up the factory and established his first laboratory at Menlo Park in 1876. The year before Edison had discov- ered the previously unknown and unique electric phenomena which he called “etheric force,” later recognized as due to electric waves in free space and which became the foundation of wireless telegraphy. ¥ When he was able to work on his in- ventions unhampered, Edison produced them rapidly. In his first two years at Menlo Park he brought out the carbon telephone transmitter, which made telephony a commercial art and in- cluded the microphone, which makes radio_possible. The favorite of Edison’s early inven- tions was the phonograph, whica he | produced in 1877. When h> heard his first crude contrivance repeat after him the verse about “Mary's Little Lamb.” | he remarked that it seemed even to {him “almost supernatural.” It was not many years after that the inventor saw his prediction come true, that the talk- | ing machine would be as familiar in as many thousand of homes as was the { piano at that time. | In the Summer of 1878, Edison ac- | companied_an astronomical party to Rawlins, Wyo., to test his microtasi- meter during a transit of Venus and upon his return began working on the electric light problem. Up to that time the electric light was known only in the form of the powerful arc light to illuminate strcets. His problem was to make it a practical illumination for the home. He worked steadily until October, 1879, when by carbonizing an ordinary plece of thread for a filament he pro- duced ths first incandescent lamp and which, when put into a circuit, main- tained its incandescence for more than In two months the thing demonstration of number, was,given at Menlo Park on th> night of D2cember 31, 1879, and attracted hundreds of people. In less than two years the first factory for manufacturing the lamps was estab- lished. The popularity of the new form of illumination was instantaneous and grew into the use of almost countless millions of incandescent lamps the world over. Improved on Dynamos. With that success, Edison continued his work in the electrical field and in- vented radical improvements in the construction of dynamos, making them suitable for generators for systems of distribution, regulation and measure- ment of electric current. He also pro- duced sock:ts, switches and various other applicances and improvements in systems that enabled the introduction commercially of electric light, heat and power. Between 1880 and 1887, in the development, improvement and exploi- tation of these systems, Edison took out upwards of 300 patents, many of which became of fundamental importance in other branches of the electrical in- dustry, including the electric railway. In the same years he worked on a system of wireless telegraphy (by in- duction) to and from trains in motion, stations, which was installed in 1887 on_the Lehigh Valley Railroad. In the latter year, Edison moved his laboratory to West Orange, N. J., where he began a new era of invention and in four years took out more than 80 patents. Soms of these were improve- ments on things he had previously evolved, while others were new machines and devices, including the motion pic- ture camera. Meanwhile, he embarked on an extensive scale in the manufac- ture and sale of phonographs and records and dictating machines. For the first decade of the twentieth century Edison worked on the produc- tion of the Edison Alkaline storage bat- tery, made numerous inventions relating to the methcds and process of produc- ing Portland cement, improved his phonograph and introduced his Univer- sal motor for operating dictating ma- chines. In 1912 he brought out the kinetorhcne, or talking motion picture, and by 1914 had perfected efter four vears’' work his disk phonograph, which commenced & new era in talking ma- chines. It was in that year that Edison turned his attention to synthetic chemistry. first to overcome the handicap caused by the embargo placed by England and Germany cn the exportation of carbolic acid at the outbreak of the World Way. After devising a plan to make the acid, Edison began the erection of a plant and the manufacture of the acid was commenced in 18 days. Later he erected other plants in which were produced benzol, tolucl, solvent naphtha, xylol and other chemicals. Helped in National Defense. ‘With his appointment as president of the Naval Consulting Board and the entrance of the United States into the World War, Mr. Edison devoied his time entircly. t> problems of national defense. This work, which wes brought to a close by the signing of the armistice, 1:sted nearly two years. Dur- ing that time Mr. Edison and his as- soclates gathered an immense amount of data, which was tabulated and charted, and, filling many volumes finally was placed in the Government archives at Washington for possible future use. Among the major problems on which Edison and his assistants sent definite results to Washington were: An obstruction dsvice for torpedoes, submarine searchlights, airplane dete: tors, device for quick turning of ships, | submarine buoys fcr coast petrol, ship camouflaging - and the burning of enthracite, expansion of torpedo power, oleum cloud shells. For protection against submarines and mines: A safety device fcr bringing merchant ships out of mined harbors, destruction of periscopes by machine guns, a sound range to locate the posi- tion of & gun, detector of submarines by sound from moving shipg. the detec- or between moving trains and railway | tion on a moving vessel of the discharge of torpedoes by submarines. ‘Water-penetrating projectiles and tur- bine-headed projectiles, observation of periscopes by a silhoutte process, reduc- tion of the rolling of ships at sea, induction balance for submarine detec- tion, stability of submerged submarines, a method of “blinding” submarines and periscopes. What was regarded as one of the most important of the protective inven- tions was Edison's device for quickly changing the course of a ship out of the path of a torpedo. With his listen- ing device aboard a vessel it was pos- sible to hear a torpedo as far away as 3,000 yards. In a test, a ship 325 feet long, loaded with 4,200 tons of coal, was turned at right angles to her pre- vious course with an advance of only 200 feet. After the war Mr. Edison resumed the direction of his personal affairs and continued improving and perfect- ing many technical processes and mechanisms. Upon the completion of these he turned his attention to the production of rubber in the United States. Hearing Became Defective. Many years ago Mr. Edison's hear- ing became defective and in later years it was said that so far as noise was concerned Broadway to him was as quiet as a village street. The defect, rather than being a_ handicep to the inventer, was said to have been a bless- ing in that it sheltered him from use- less irritations and annoyances. ~He once said it was nothing to worry, about, that within 100 years everybody would be deaf “because of our- increasirgly | noisy civilization.” M}l". Edison was an indefatigable worker, a fact that was the basis of several stories regarding the small amount of sleep in which he indulged. However, he was known to have put in long hours at his laboratory, hours that (were interrupted at times only when“Mrs. Edison drove in an ¢lectric runabout and its successor automobiles to the laboratory and insisted that he STAR take & recess for a drive. Usually there were arguments about the useless loss of time, but usually Mrs. Edison had her way. The inventor insisted thet most peo- le ate too much and slept too much. When he reached his sixty-fith_birth- day anniversary he figured that at that time he had lived 115 vears. “That 1s, he explained, “working as other men do. I have done enough to make me 115 years old. And I nope to keep on for 20 years more, which, figuring at the average man's labor per day, would make me 155 years old. Then I may learn to play bridge wita the iadi In the later years of his life, Mr. Edi- son’s birthday anniversaries were recog- nized all over the world and were the occasions for congratulatory messages from rulers and prominent persons in many countries. And on those days he usually had a message for the world, delivered in the course of interviews v ewspaper men s boe of | these interviews he was asked, if he thought it a fair ques- tion, what was his income from in- candescent laps. phonographs, moving pictures, telephones, storage batteries {and other products of his inventions | which had been patented and commer- clalized “Why. T'd tell you in a minute If T knew exactly myself,” he replied, “but I don't. The only way for me to gec Tich is to die. I make a whole lot of | money, but I save only what would be the salary of a railroad president Money always had a habit of getting away from me because I am always ex- perimenting and that costs & heap. Knowing his weakness for money, he | sald that when he sold to the Western { Union the inventions he had contrived for that company, it pald him $100,000, but he declined to take it in a lump sum. Remarking that that was a lot of money at that time, he sald: “I knew I was a goner if I took all that | money at once. So I made the agree- | ment read that I was to get it in 17 | installments. They lasted over 17 years {and I kept feeding ‘em into the mill.” The total product of that “mill” was prodigious. By 1928 when he received {the Congressional Gold Medal, Mr. | Edison had taken out 1328 patents and | the monetary value of the industries cither based wholly upon his inventions | or materially aided by his discoveries | was estimated officially at the Midas- | like total of $15,599,000,000. This indicated that the inventor had been instrumental in adding an average of $30,000,000 a year or more to th> Nation's wealth over a period of more than half a century, the list of enter- prises in which he could claim s part ranging from the telegraph, to which he devoted his earliest attention, down to the moving pictures and radio. Value of His Inventions. The Natfonal Congress made this offi- cial summary of the worth of the in- ventor to the Nation: | Electric railways | Electric lighting . | Moving pictures . Telephones ...... Electric supplies . Telegraph Concrete .. Car shops ... Phonographs .. Dynamos_and motors. | Electric fixtures . Wireless telegraph . | Batteries .$6,500.000,000 . 5,000,000,000 . 1,250,000,000 1,000,000,000 857,000,000 350,000,000 271,000,000 109.000,000 105,000,000 100,000,000 37,000,000 15,000,000 veses 5,000,000 | The fact that clectric railways and electric lighting topped this list of values emphasized that they were twins | of the Edison brain, having been worked out in the 1879-1882 period which saw the labor on the incandescent lamp and the Edison dynamo brought to fruition. The pioneer electric line was built in {1880. In the same year was begun the | manufacture of clectric lamps, switches, sockets, chandeliers and other devices which permitted installation of the first “3 wire system” of distribution at Sun- bury, Pa., in 1881. The next year the first ' commercial lighting central sta- tion in_the United States was opened by the Edison interests at 255-257 Pearl street, New York. ‘The whole civilized world took cog- nizance of this period of Edison devel- opment in 1929 when it celebrated with an “Edison Jubilee Year” the fiftieth anniversary of the invention of the filament lamp. Europe, Asia, Africa and South America joined with North America in doing honor to the man who had freed industry and households from dependence upon oil and gas illumina- tion. He took it all with characteristic simple modesty. Another typical action of Mr. Edison’s . |late years was the help he gave high | school youths ambitious for a technical ‘education. ‘The typical part of this movement was the practicality with which the scheme was worked out so |as to bring prize students from every | State together in a nation-wide contest. The examinations, which determined {the ultimate yearly winners were not only technical, but designed as well to test the general intelligence and intel- lectual alertness of the boys. A foun- dation of common sense coupled With talent for sclentific research was em- phasized by the founder of the tests as requisite for success, illustrating the tenacity with which he clung tbrough the years to his determination to work only for results which would be useful. Honored by Government. Mr. Edison was in his 82d year when the United States Government honored him by presenting him with the Con- gressional Gold Medal “in commemora- tion of his achievements in illuminat- the path of through the development and application of his in- ventions.” The exercises, which were broadcast over a radio network, took place at the Edison laboratory at West Orange, and included an address by President Coolidge, broadcast from Washington. The President praised the inventor as “representing, the finest traditions of our citjzenship.” At the same time Mr. Coolidge sent te following message to Mr. Edison: ‘Noble, kindly scrvent of the United States and benefactor of menkind, may you long be spared to continue your work and to inspire those who will carry forward your torch.” The medal was presented by Andrew W. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury. The French ent honored Mp, Edison by m in turn & che-. WASHING valier, officer and commander of the Legion of Honor. He received honors from several other foreign governments as well as medals from scientific and engineering societies and honor: de- grees from several American colleges and universities. Mr. Edison was one of that quartet of famous business men whose close friendship was manifested in their an- nual vacation taken together. The others were Henry Ford, Harvey §. Firestone and the late John Burroughs. After the death of Mr. Burroughs the other three continued their annual out- ings together for several years. It was on one of these trips that Mr, Edison first became interested in the idea of growing rubber in the United States. In the course of a dis- cussion on rubber, Mr. Ford expressed apprehension that the foreign supply soon would be exceeded by the de- nd, turning to Mr. Edison, hy don't you do something | Edison. ‘The inventor then acquired plan- tations on which to grow various plants and weeds from which he could obtain certain amounts of rubber and sent agents afl over the country to collect specimens with which he could experi- ment. Besides his Llewellyn Park home at West Orange, N. J., the inventor main- | tained a residence at Fort Myers, Fla, where he spent the Winters for several years past. | CLUBWOMEN TO MEET Special Dispatch to The Star. i EAST NEW MARKE[L, Md. October | 17.—The semi-annual meeting ot the | Eastern Shore District Federation of Women's Clubs will be held here Oc- tober 22, with the local woman's club as the hostess club, Mrs. Alphonso Boley of St. Michaels | is president of the federation, Mrs. J. | W. Stowell, Federalsburg, vice pres dent; Mrs. Gardner E€pring, jr.. Salis bury, secretary, and Mrs. P. Watson | Webb, Cambridge, treasurer. i OCTOBER 18 1931—PART ON From the Front Row Reviews and News of Washington‘s Theaters. Miss Daniels, Mr. Williams, In “Honor of the Family.” HEN the gentleman slaps the lady and nothing sen- sational happens, an im- portant step may have been taken in sealing the fate of a modern Brunhilo. It is the beginning of the end of her domination of & household of wealth. The slap in “The Honor of the Family” is administered by War- ren Williams to Bebe Daniels, these two players leading the cast in this current film at the Earle Theater. Some interest attaches to the production as _another _opportu- nity for Miss Daniels and as a means of introducing Mr. Wil- liams, a stage figure, in a con- spicuous way to the movie world. Mr. Williams and Miss Daniels handle the slap with a skill that puts them at_ ease in the other events of the play. Further taming of the young woman is accelerated when Mr. Williams, with equal grace, carries Miss Daniels back into the mansiop from which she has pretended to try to escape, and the ipb proves to be somewhat long and iaborious. While the tale is credited to the fertile mind of Balzac, it is not cver- burdened with the co-ordination to be expected of a really great piece of dramatic work, but is rather a series of incidents in the later days of a man of affairs and of resources, whose approach to the end of a ca- reer makes him the object of the attentions of persons who covet his wealth. The duel between Mr. Wil- liams and Alan Mowbray, who plays the rival for the favor of the woman, is a plece of realistic sword handling <+ Which 15 undoubtedly a feature of the action of the play. Frederick Kerr, as the elderly object of atten- tion, has a strong place in the film, and as in other recent character- izations by him, puts genuine cha: acter into the part of Paul Barony, a shrewd and amorous nobleman. Miss Daniels and Mr. Williams, in the course of their extensive par- ticipation in a story of battles of wits, acquit themselves with as much credit as may be possible in pro- ducing the elements of a plot which is somewhat commonplace. The stage performance at the Earle offers a series of acts by tal- ented performers which carry the punch of ‘a reviving vaudeville art, The place of honor is given to Sammy Lewis and Patti Moore, as- sisted by Barney Dean and the La Verne Sisters, in a combination of spirited dance steps and excellent comedy. With an act entitled “Foot Jugglers of Human Beings,” the Six American Belfords display athletic skill which is up to the highest standard, while Sylvia Froos gives a number of enlivening song numbers, and Norman 'Frescott, assisted by Bebe Stanton, revives the art of the- atrical mind reading with the tra- ditional method of selecting sub- jects from the audience. The cus- tomary short films and selections by the orchestra complete t}}:c, program. . C. C. “Twenty-Four Hours” Is an Exciting Film. R. BROMFIELD'S tabloid his- tory of several staid and veteran New Yorkers, whose past comes creeping out within a day's circle, has been made into a picture ’ which is full of virile drama and shrewdly enough concocted to make its brief hour one of intense excite- ment. “Twenty-Four Hours,” shown at the Metropolitan yesterday for the first time, is not by any means a great film, but it is a good one, due sometimes to magic direction and to a cast which is splendidly in its element. Here may be seen Clive Brook as an inebriate scion of wealth and Park avenue respectability, whose married life is cold, and who escapes from it by cultivating the “friend- ship” of one Rosle Dugan, night club entertainer. Here also is Kay Francis, comely beyond bellef, as the wife who realizes almost too late that it is her husband who matters; and here is Miriam Hop- kins as “Rosie,” who loved not wisely but too well, and others, such as Regis Toomey, a weak-kneed gang- ster; Lucille La Verne, a gat-toothed old witch, and “our own” Minor Watson in a small but capably played role. They're all good—and the director has tied them up into that small knot which was the virtue of the book. Although many of the main characters have been thrown over- board, the film is an excellent ex- ample of how out of an almost un- limited asscrtment of names and places a shrewd writing gentleman (such as is Mr. Weitzenkorn, who put together the scenario) may finally weed out the best and produce eventually something that is ex- tremely palatable screen fare. One may, of course, object to some of the speakeasy drama. But as far as brutality is concerned—and the director might have filled the pic- ture full of jt—an example of ex- treme skill with the toning down brush is the sceme in which Rosie is murdered by her husband. You don't see it—not any bit of it. All you hear is the phonograph grind- ing away one of her favorite night club songs, and hear a few extreme- ly modulated screams. It's a grand scene—excellently handled. 50 is everything in it. There's no *» B3 use telling the story. It's highly improbable and highly theatric— entertainingly so. But—don't take grandma. E. de 8. 'HER. “Spirit of Notre Dame” Enters Its Second Week at Rialto. INTERING a second week at the ~ Rialto Theater, “The Spirit of Notre Dame” will continue to im- part that enthusiasm which is the product of foot ball played on the screen by experts, with a background of college affairs, and reminders of the great career of Knute Rockne as an athletic teacher. The film is inspir- ing to both the collegiate and the non-collegiate world, and, besides its value as a remarkable picture of college life, it offers some views of sport teams in action which it would be very difficult to duplicate. In ad- dition to Lewis Ayres in the lead- ing role, the cast includes Sally Blane, J. Farrell MacDonald, and several foot ball stars, including Prank Carideo and the Four Horse- men of Notre Dame fame. D.C. O FIRE DESTROYS PLANT Evaporating Estiblishment Burns at Front Royal. Special Dispatch to The Star. FRONT ROYAL, Va, October 17.— Fire this afternoon completely destroyed the two-story evaporating plant belong- ing to the Old Virginia Packing Co. of this place. The building was located on the eastern outskirts of town. Sev- eral men were working in the building drying apples when the fire was dis- covered. The local firemen were soon on the scene, but with a strong north- west wind blowing the building was soon a mass of flames. The fire is said to have started from the furnace. One dwelling house nearby with en- tire contents was badly damaged by the fire. The house was occupied by Henry Fletcher. The loss on the evaporating plant is estimated around $8,000, partly covered by insurance. AUTOMATIC GAS HEAT as low as $5 DOWN Think of it'—No more coal shoveling, no more dusty IN YOU _ ashes. And no noisy burner or bother from an almost- automatic heating system. At this astoundingly low price Janitrol gives you clean heat with gas, the modern auto- matic fuel. 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