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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1950-3-29, Page 7Ironclad Excuse By Richard !fill Wilkinson Shortly after his marriage to Lynn Harvey it became evident to Burt Englewood that his wife was a procrastinator of the first order. This was annoying because Burt was used to order and system and routine and regular schedules. EIe had definite time for doing things, and he did them as planned. He was never late for an appointment, and never left articles of clothing strewn around, He never set over until tomorrow things that could be done today. Despite his annoyance, Burt tried to be fair, He realized that there must be certain things about his own habits that proved distracting to Lynn. And so, instead of com- plaining, he endeavored to discover his own faults and rectify theta in the hopes that she would take no- tice and try to improve leer own deficiencies. But no matter to what ends he went his endeavors and sticrificee made no impression whatever on Lynn. She continued blithely to procrastinate, and the blase inno- cence with which she accomplished it fairly caused Burt to writhe. At Length he was driven to complaint. The occasion was provoked by a bureau drawer void of socks when Burt was in sore need of these ar- ticles of apparel, "Good heavens, Lynnl" he blurt- ed,. "I own two dozen pairs of the things, Certainly there must be one washed and mended." Lynn's eyes widened. Site looked apologetic and contrite. "Darling! I'm sorry, I intended to finish them up last night, but as you know, the Westlands dropped in and I simply couldn't." Which was true. After awhile Burt began to sus- pect his wife of strategy, of manu- facturing excuses for the sole pur- pose of evading the inconvenience of household duties. He began to suspect her of being lazy. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became and present- ly he accused her openly. Lynn looked at him with a hurt and angry expression. "Burt Engle- woodt ou think that! Of all things! Why, I can't believe it! And I have been trying to improve, too, Only—only I haven' been feeling well lately. I've even thought of going to a doctor" "Doctor!" Burt scoffeed. "You don't need any doctor. What you " . You're just downright lazy, and t don't mind telling you it's getting on my nerves." need is it little backbouc and ambi- tion] You're just downright lazy, and I dant mind telling yott it's getting on my nerves." For a month things were serene. And then one day Burt cattle home and found Lynn asleep on the livng roost crotch, and the breakfast dishes still in the sink and dinner not yet started. EIe woke her roughly. "Well, what's your iron -clad ex- cuse this time? have a pain lu your foot or somethng?" "No," said Lynn, "it's in my side, 1 don't know what it is, Burt. Besides, I was dreadfully tired. I'm awfully sorry." "Tired? Lazy, you mean!" Lynn sighed and started for the kitchen. "All right, Burt. I'm sorry you don't believe me." Burt was mightily pleased with himself, Moreover, it gave hint a certain feeling of superiority, ap pealed itis vanity. Thus having satisfied himself that Lynn was once and for all definitely cured and having promised himself that he would never again break down when she offered excuses, it was something of a shock to return hone two days later and find her stretched full length on the Couch. "Well," he roared, "what is this, a game? There's plencty to be done around here, yet you seems to find time enough to take a snooze, Just what is your excuse this time? Now don't tell me you're sick or something, That gag's worn out," But Lynn didn't utove. She lay there, very still. And prescntly Burt canis' nearer, hent down to peer at her face, A horriible, sick- ening fearclutched at his heart; a wretched sense of shame and guilt and self-candrninntite. For Lynn had en iron -clad e': Buse at lase that was flawless. The Ontario Society for Crippled Children, aided by 150 service clubs, sees that every crippled child in Ontario in need of attention gets it. Frere a patient chats with his sponsor, Robert Thompson and Lindsay Scott, chairmnatt of the crippled children's committee of the Hamilton Shriners. The Society's Easter Seals appeal for funds continues until April 9. Donations may he sent to Tinny, Toronto. When They Opened The Erie Canal Finally, the Erie Canal ... aston- iohed the world, for it was an under- taking of such magnitude that the like of it had hitherto been accom- plished only by the greatest empires of the Old World and by means of the labor of slaves, It is but natural, therefore, that the unique spectacle of the celebra- tion of the opening of the great waterway, upon a stage stretching front Buffalo to New York before an audience composed of a large pant of the population of the state, should appeal to :English artists in search of American views, and that their sketches should be used to decorate the pottery of Stafford- shire. It is with pride, mingled with wonder and Ito little amuse- ment, that one reviews the story of the opening celebration, as -it is re- corded In the old china illustra- tions. The celebration began at Buffalo, the junction of the canal and Lake Erie, continued at each little hamlet and city along the banks, culminat- ing at last in a blaze of glory and patriotism as the waters from the Great Lakes were Mingled with the Atlantic in New York harbor, No resplendent Doge of Venice, stand- ing upon the prow of his gayly be- decked Bucantaur and casting the jewelled ring into the waters of the Adriatic, thereby symbolizing the marriage of Venice to the sea, was ever more proud than was Governor Clinton as, standing upon a primi- tive canal boat draped with the Stars and Stripes, he poured a barrel of Lake Erie water into the Atlantic Ocean thereby accomplishing the union of our West and East. The first illustration presents a view of the harbor entrance of the canal at Buffalo, with sail boats in the bay, low warehouses on the dock, and a packet boat upon the canal, which sailors are tying to the wharf , .. With something akin to awe, one listens to the sound of that reverberating cannon shot, which fired at Buffalo and repeated in succession by cannon stationed along the entire length of the canal, proclaims in one hone' and 20 Minutes to the people of New York City that the little fleet is under way, Four gaily bedecked horses theft proudly prance along He's Laughing Out Loud (At the Drop of a Buck) Dick Collier, who is probably the world's only professional laugher, started In business with a guffaw and worked his way down to a titter. And today, at the drop of a buck, Ice's ready to titter, giggle, snicker, guffaw, shriek, howl, snort, chuckle, gurgle and other- wise convulse himself for all corn- ers. He'll laugh any place, any time, anywhere, if the pay is right. Collier's vocal talents alone are sufficient, since be has a truly in- fectious laugh and has proved same through appearances on the radio and on records. But when you throw in his physical appear- ance (which is a big job, because he's well over 200 pounds) you've really got something, Dick Collier looks like a laugh, In fact, he looks like a walking belly -laugh, with a built-in chortle, As such, he's an up -and -cooling television performer and has his laughing eyes focused avidly on the fertile fields of Hollywood, * e He laughs for a living for two reasons. First, he's a down-to-earth, commercially -minded guy and, as he says, "Take a look at my puss, Doesn't it make you laugh? Sure, it does, So why shouldn't I cash in on it?" Secondly, he's a happy character. He traces his happiness to the war, when he was badly hurt. For a time, there was some question of his corning mat of it all right, But he did. "1 found out that just being alive," he says, "is the most won- derful thing. So now I get a kick out of a rainy day," During the war, he'd bean a ane-tnau show for Artny special services, Ile spent 17 moths .int Persia, giving shows at remote camps. He'd piny the piano, sing. songs, tell jotcee and look finny. The (if's liked biro, R:, • it When he wee discharged, he de- cided to give show business a whirl, despite the. fact that Ile had spent five years at Boston College. studying psychology, He built hie Dick Collier—He laughed the best paid laugh ever laughed. act around his laugh, a piercing ahrielc that had been a big hit with the boys in service, He studied laughter, and devel- oped a routine that encompasses (he says) more than 200 different kinds ranging from the timid laugh (used "when the little woman le - sues her orders for the day") to theshaking laugh ("pedtttiar to pleasingly plump people"), A Broadway • producer hired hint -to sit itt the audience of a new musical comedy and laugh in the right places, His laughter made others laugh, and the play became bit. it, Plne to comedians molt up the idea, and Collier•, trade a nice living laughing in radio studios, night chubs and theaters. But his code of ethics mime him refuse to laugh untess some tiring is funny. On one television program, Col- -tiet' got paid $100 for laughing for • five seconds, He says that's the best -paid laugh ever laughed, That nue helped hint develop what hi calls his crowning arhieventeni the last laugh. AMPS the tow -path drawing the canal boat, Seneca Chief, which bears Govenuor Clinton and his associates followed by the canal boats Super- ior, Commodore Perry and Buffalo. At the end of the procession Is Noah's Ark, from tate "unbuilt City of Ararat," having on board a bear, two eagles, two fawns, birds and fish, besides two Indiann boys in na- tive costume—all taken along to gratify the curiosity of the effete New Yorkers in regard to the wild West. One smiles at the allegorical pic- ture, painted in honor of the occa- sion, which ]tangs in the cabin of the Seneca Chief, for in it may be seen Hercules resting upon his fav- orite club after lbs labor of finishing the canal, Governor Clinton in a Roman toga standing by his side, gazing upon the placid water and inviting Neptune and his Naiads, Who coyly hang back as if hesitat- ing to approach domains not theirs by right, to enter through the open lock, Upon the deck stand two brightly painted pegs marked "Lake Erie"—the water from the lake which is to be used In the celebra- tion in New York. --From "The Blue China Boort," by Ada Walker Cantehi. Machine Solves Chess Problems Chess players will either be de- lighted or furious—it all depends on how they feel about the game— by the invention of Mr. T. Nerves, Chief Engineer of the Hungarian Posts Research Station, It's a cheat - problem -solving machine, an ingen- ious, fearsome looking contrivance of thermionic valves, phots -electric cells and cathode-ray tubes amid a mass of wires, lights, dynamos and other intricate gadgets, All the player has to do is to feed his problem into the machine, which works at lightning speed through all the possible combiaa- tiots of three legal moves—one by Blade and two by White. After a brief space, out comes the solution. If there is no solution the machine tells the player sol Mr. Nerves is not content with producing a problem -solving ma- chine. He is now at work on an- other more intricate affair which will play a game of chess and which, he says, "may surpass the schemes of thought of the great masters." What a jolly evening the cheep player can have by letting the ma- chine play—and win—hie games for him while he gets on with some- thing more mrgeut1 An indolent Vicar of Bray, His roses ;flowed to decay. His wife, more alert, Bought a powerful squirt And said to her spouse, "Let Ise spray„ BOUFORD Po You OW y�F�'IRM OPT Cigarette Lighters --A Milestone In History �f Conquest of Darkness Moat people don't realize what a wonderful thing the modern cigar- ette lighter is. It ie almost a magical trick, when you come to thunk of it. Yost whip out a little metal gadget, press the top, and a flame appears for your cigarette. This familiar, everyday gadget, which we casually use and take for granted, represents an interesting milestone in the long history of the conquest of darkness by Man. Strangely, enough, the most pri- mitive methods of illumination were still in use 150 years ago, and the tremendous acceleration in the dis- coveries which led to the modern forms of gas and electric lighting corresponded with the Industrial Revolution. Even the Eddystone Lighthouse was maintained by candles at the beginning of the nineteenth eon tury. Oil lamps of various kinds ap- pear to ltave been used, roughly, from the year 2,500 B.C.; lamps of hollow stone or sea-sltells have been found in many parts of the world. The • Greeks and Romans knew almost as much about light- ing se was known in the eighteenth century. We know how primitive Man pro- duced fire by rubbing flints and aticks together, An ancient Per. scan legend describes its discovery. "A great hero named Hushenk hurled a mighty stone at a snake. The snake escaped, but the stone struck a rock. Light shone through the dark pebble, the heart of the rock flashed out in the quarry, and fire was seen for the first time itt the world." Inventive processes int the mind of early Man are difficult to trace, but it is easy to imagine a cave - dweller watching a twig or fibre burning in fat dropped from a roast- ing carcass and proceeding front that observation to build a primitive lamp, The production of fire by striking a flint in such things as the tinder -box and flintlock rifle came very much later. Various kinds of oil lamps have been used in the intervening years, but the first recorded use of illu- mination by gas dates back to 1765, when a man named Spedding, who loved near Lord Lotsdale's coal- mines at Whitehaven, piped coal gas to his offices, where he used it for illumination. He tried to obtain permission to build gas re- servoirs to light the streets of his village, but this was refused by the local magistrate. Early experiments in gas illumina- tion were extremely primitive, of course; the burners themselves were simply iron tubes with holes pierced in then, and the slightest obstruc- ttoin or rust resulted in a dim, over- cooled flame. The discovery fell into hands of a financial "tycoon," as we should now call him, named Winsor, He was not particularly scrupu- lous about the claims he made for his discovery, When a newspaper man asked him whether it would be 'dangerous to take a lighted candle Into a roots full of coal gas, he replied that the gas would not ignite because "it is intermixed with the air of the room." Asked whether It was harmful to the lungs, he replied, "Not in the least! On the contrary, it is more congenial to our lungs than vital air (oxygen), which proves too strong a medicine, because it only exists from one-fifth to one-fourth In the atmosphere, whereas unflam- tnable air exists above two-thirds in the animal and vegetable king- doms, in all our drink and victuals, It' forms a part of ourselves." Despite these shady beginnings, the Pall Mall was illuminated by gas five years later, and, by 1811, several large cotton mills were lit by this method. A year earlier, Sir Humphrey Davy demonstrated the electric arc between two carbons to the Royal Institution in London. Electric lighting developed at a slower pace than gas. New kinds of improved gas-btirners were introduced, and in 1885—after an interval of over a hundred years—Carl Van Weis- bach invented the incandescent gas mantle. It was he, too, who discovered that cerium and iron fused together resulted in a hard substance which emitted a brilliant spark on being struck with a wheel. He thus pro- duced the first "flint" But it is important to remember that this substance hears en, reiaioit to the genuine /Bets, the geological depo- sits used int the thuler-hox and flint -lurk rifle. It was not until the First World War that the flint was incorpor- ated la a primitive form of cigar- ette lighter consisting of braided tow enclosed in a email metal cylinder (sometimes a cartridge - case). Titis was surmounted by a fine-toothed wheel and flint. Friction between the two pro- duced a spark, and this ignited the tow, which when blown upon, created a red glow sufficient to light a cigarette. From this developed the modern cigarette lighter, though some years passed before the cigarette lighters were perfectly satisfactory end could be accepted as a respectable mechanical gadget, Easy Money An American had an invitation to a private shoot. Addressing the old gamekeeper, he said: "I'm one 01 the crack shots in the States. To- morrow you will be loading for Inc and for every bird I miss I'll, give you a shilling." The following evening the game- keeper stet a friend and told hint the story. "If I'd had another blank cart- ridge," he said. "I'd have made just a pound." Midget Mummy Up For Exams—Ivan P, Goodman, hoick, th.� 14 -inch figure which he believes to be the nttflliuty of a minia- ture prehistoric than. The "mummy was found by a group. of workers in 1934 in a formation of solid granite inside a sealed cave. Goodman bought the figure from a man who believed it brought bad luck. Scientists are studying the piece to deter- ly was the body of a man. Heating and Power mergencies in 7 States Railroad Traffic Cut Passenger to 3 Freight to, 60% 5°'0,` chools Cloted 0,250 -Pu ils t Cost Of The Coal Strike—:Here is what the month-long general strike by 372,000 United Mine Workers and the resulting coal shortage cost in industrial lay-offs and other hardshis.. The Newechart gives highlights of a nationwide survey on effects of the strike. p imelee Noiritem et SHE JUICE! HIS EYES ARE FWTTERING, NE'S COMING OUT OF IT ! -USED TO HAVE AN 010 POW LIKE THAT... rT ALWAYS HAD 70 BE PRIMED BEFORE Ir STARTED TO WORK,7D0,