Zurich Herald, 1951-11-29, Page 7iJlled Himself With
Pack Of Cards
No prison has yet been con-
structed that will hold indefinitely a,
really clever, determined pian. Ser-
vicemen who made such astonishing
escapes during the war proved that.
Yet, for sheer ingenuity, few es-
cape attempts equal the feat of
William Kogut, an uneducated Po-
lish lumberman, who migrated to
the States where he was sentenced
to death for killing a woman with
a pocket knife.
As he sat in his cell, ticking
off the days and listening to the
screams of desperate men as they
were dragged to the chair, he
determined to outwit the author-
ities. But he.had no weapons. All
he hnd was a pack of cards.
Someone had told him once that
playing cards are made of cellu-
lose, a fibre from which tri -nitro
cellulose, a high explosive is manu-
factured. Being an exceptionally
powerful fellow, Kogut snapped
off one of the hollow legs of his
iron cot. Here was the casing for
his bomb.
Carefully he tore the cards into
minute pieces, soaked them in water
till they were reduced to a pulp,
pushed them into the iron tube
and rammed them hone hard like
the charge in a muzzle -loading gun.
Then, taking the handle of the
broom with which he swept his
cell, he jammed it into the pipe
on top of his charge, making it
airtight.
These preliminaries took hours
and it was well past midnight when
he re -lit the lamp in his cell and
held his improvised bomb over
the flange. The flange, he reckoned,
would make the metal red hot and
the charge'inside would explode.
Kogut fully expected the wall of
his cell to cave in, but he had
no idea that the bomb he had made
was so powerful. When it went off
his and eight adjacent cells were
wrecked. The prison rocked. The
countryside for miles was alarmed.
For a time there was pendemonium.
Whistles shrilled, bullets whizzed,
and warning sirens and horns shat-
tered the night with their raucous
chorus. But when quiet was restor-
ed and guards rushed to the scene
with lanterns, they found the shat-
tered, almost headless corpse of
No. 1651—William Kogut.
You've 10,000 ulbs
On Tip Of Tongue
Hold your tongue—and you're
clutching one of the mysteries of
science. Physiologists still don't un-
derstand why substances should
taste the way they do, why sugar
is sweet or aloes bitter. One day
when the chemistry of flavors is
better known, children will be able
to collect a whole chain of delight-
ful new sensations merely by lick-
ing a taste -card.
Towards the tip of your tongue
packed into a third of an inch,
are some ten thousand little taste
bulbs and chances are that each
one flashes only one type of sensa-
tion to the brain. Every flavor,
from subtlest strawberry to arid
dust, evokes a permutation of sig-
nals from the taste bulbs. Four
main signal flashes—sweet, bitter,
acid and saline—control your re-
sponse.
Bitter and Sweet
Scientists have always imagined
that everyone has similar taste -
powers. Now they've discovered
that some folks can be short -tasted
as well as short-sighted, A new
chemical called thiourea tastes bit-
ter to six out of ten people, - but
proves tasteless to the minority of
four. Dr. Julian Huxley and other
experts tested it on twenty-seven
chimpanzees. Their proportion of
taste failures was the same.
Children can taste with the in-
sides of their cheeks, suggesting
the presence of taste -bulbs that
later fall into disuse. This, too,
may explain why the desire for
sweets is replaced by a preference
for such strong flavors as pepper-
mints or curry as we grow older.
Where Color Counts
Many animals have better taste
then
ale litter '` ° ith Yuletide Adornments
This young woman proclaims
her Christmas spirit with a col-
lar of crocheted metallic thread,
from which tiny sequin -adorned
felt trees hang as pendants. For
e. hair ornament she uses a
pastel felt angel, complete with
book of carols and halo.
BIC EDN t I ES
INCE Christmas belles are as much a part of the holiday
" scene as Yuletide bells, it's a wise woman who starts
planning now for her personal adornment if she wishes to be
a sparkling part of the festivities.
Glitter alone is not enough to make you the focus of ad-
miring eyes. To properly proclaim your Christmas spirit,
it must be glitter with a point.
You can accomplish this nicely—and dress up your simple
basic dress or a plain sweater—with an easy -to -crochet
collar of metallic thread, suggests Patricia Easterbrook
Roberts, noted New York designer. 'rise the simplest stitch
you know, and keep crocheting until you've concocted a
band of becoming width.
The next step is to fashion eye -stopping Christmas trees
of felt, to attach as pendants to your collar. Tiny multi-
colored sequins, sewed on as tree ornaments, are a clever,
decorative touch.
For a hair ornament, Mrs. Roberts suggests a pastel mem-
ber of the heavenly choir. Make him of pink felt—wings
and all—and attach a hymn book of blue felt. For a fitting
halo, sprinkle on a circlet of glitter dust around the crown
of his angelic. head. Giue will snake it stick.
For street wear, with your coat or suit, try an old-fashioned
nosegay, Mrs. Roberts urges, instead of the traditional cone-
-and -berry corsage. You can easily make your own, using
a pleated circle of red metallic paper as backing for a layer -
on -layer arrangement of glossy green ivy leaves and snowy,
white straw flowers.
The snowy freshness of white
straw flowers and the glossy
green of ivy leaves offer an in-
teresting contrast to the red
metallic ruffle that forms the
background for old - fashioned
Christmas nosegay highlighting
neckline of tailored suit.
powers than we have, and a Here-
ford bull especially enjoys his food.
He has 30,000 taste bulbs( In addi-
tion, many tastes are really smell
sensations and some are due to
pure imagination. We have always
learned to associate raspberry with
red, lesion with yellow, orange
color with orange flavor. In a New'
York test, when taste -free thiourea
tables were colored green, a taster
pronounced thein lime. Black tab-
lets had a burnt taste, though they
were known to be free of such
flavor.
Disregard can blunt the taste
as well as tobacco. Tea -tasters say
that the taste of water differs with
localities, depending on the salts
and minerals in solution. Most
people regard water as tasteless—
apart from the chlorine in big cities
— merely because they've never
given it full savor.
Damage to soil caused by the
force of falling raindrops is some-
thing often overlooked, even by soil
conservationists,
The weight of water falling on
an acre of land in an inch of rain is
nearly 110 tons, points out Fred-
erick Bisal of the Swift Current
Soil Research Laboratory, and the
drops striking bare soil, splash
about 22.5 tons of clay or loam
soil.
* * * •
Water is as important as fer-
tility for growing crops so it is
essential to hold it where it falls.
Experiments at the Laboratory,
says Mr. Bisal, show that an inch
of rainfall on a hare clay or loam
soil reduces the infiltration rate to
approximately one-third of an inch
an hour. If the rainfall is of greater
intensity than this, the excess will
become the runoff water. This run-
off becomes very high during au
intense rain, and is capable of car-
rying a great load of soil with con-
sequent severe erosion.
* * *
' Nature's answer is a cushion of
organic platter of plants or dead
undercomposed plant material. This
breaks the force of the falling rain-
drops and no soil is lost, but the
water gently finds its way into the
subsoil for storage and future use
by growing crops.
The simplest way to save the
soil and hold the rain where it
falls, is to protect the surface of
the soil from the force of the rain-
drops wi,h a suitable plant or straw
mulch cover.
BY •
HAROLD
ARNETT
TO ANCHOR WINDOW BOX ON SILL SO IT'S
EASY TO REMOVE, SLOT TWO WOOD CLEATS To TAKE THE
HEADS OF SCREW EYES IN WINDOW FRAME. NAIL CLEATS TO
BoX,SLIP SCREW EYES THROUGH BOX AND TURN.
Selecting swine breeding stock
is a year-round job. It is one call-
ing for planning, observations,. rec-
ords, and finally the selection of
animals -which will maintain or im-
prove the performance of the swine
herd. * *
Experiments at the Dominion
Experimental Station, Lacombe,
show that performance of litter
ma,,es is a sound basis for selection
for carcass quality. The individual
animals rust be physically sound,
have good length, depth, and bone,
and; if gilts, good teats; and should
be. from the best performing litters.
Litter size and thrift at weaning,
feed 'efficiency, and carcass -quality
are the three main factors deter-
mining profit from swine.
* * *
The first profits from swine come
from large thrifty litters, points out
J. S. Stothart, Animal Husband-
man at the Station,. and so the gibs
going into the herd should be
from a large thrifty litter, from
a sow which repeatedly farrows
large thrifty litters and raises them
because she is a good milker and a
good smother. The gilt herself
should have at least 12 and prefer-
ably 14 well spaced, functional teats.
She should be checked carefully to
see that she has no blind teats.
* *
Next, the extra profits from swine
are from pigs which convert feed
into gain efficiently. Some pigs will
gain 100 pounds on from 350 to 400
pounds of teed while others take
450 to 500 pounds to make the
same gain. Obviously, the former
is the more profitable. Rate of gain
is important but mainly in its as-
sociation with lower feed consump-
tion. Fast gaining pigs are gener-
ally the most economical pigs. The
task, and here is where a few sim-
ple records taken throughout the
year will help, is to select boars
and gilts from litters which gain
at a satisfactory rate on a low con-
sumption of feed.
* * *
Finally, says Mr. Stothart, the
real profits from swine are from
pigs which combine litter size and
feed efficiency with carcass qual-
ity. Carcass quality commands the
top market price and comes from
pigs of good length without excess
back fat; pigs with light shoulders
and full meaty hams and loins. The
breeding stock which will improve
performance and increase profits,
therefore, should be selected from
large thrifty litters of good feeding,
high grading pigs, as indicated by
Advanced Registry tests, and car-
cass grading results.
The Shadows Lift
The rains come, and the wind,
and the woodlands are left bare.
Grays and browns possess the hills,
more bleak and drab than seemed
possible when autumn was at its
height. For a few days the after-
glow of the leaves remains under-
foot,a warmth like sunlight. But
it fades; it leaches away, and only
the grays and the browns remain.
Then comes heavy frost. You
waken to a November dawn when
there is a shimmer, a new, strange
light • almost forgotten. Frost is
there, frost on the grass and tlis
browning leaves and all the naked
little bushes. And the world is no
longer brown and gray. It is alive
with brightness. Look through the
woods and you see new vistas. You
see frosty hills and gleaming Hol-
lows long hidden. For a little while,
until the sun has measured a span
of its southern arc, it is a new
world. Then the frost is gone, and
it is a world of grays and browns
But there comes another day,
when the rain has turned to snow.
Early snow that cannot last. At
first it melts as it falls, and the
grays become blacks. But then the
snow begins to stay. The first melt
has washed away enough of the
earth warinth to let a few flakes
remain. Then more flakes. And
suddenly it is a world of bright-
ness again, a world of overcast and
falling snow, but yet a world of
light. The hillside whitens, and
there are the vistas, the bright dis-
tances narked by the naked trees.
And one knows all is not brown
or gray, that even winter is not
so drab. Then a chickadee sings_
and a junco flashes past, and the
gray sky seems to lighten. The
shadows lift.—From the New York
Times.
Weighty Evidence—Size o¢ this
40 -pound channel bass may be
hard to top before the copper -
colored fighters quit running this
winter. So far it's the largest
of the species to he taken in
in 1951 with rod and reel The
huge bass was landed by El-
wood Groseclose on tackle more
suitable for a three -pound blue-
fish.
Biond.in Crosses
Niagara Falls
Who now, unless it be those
ageing inhabitants who were boya
and girls in 1859, recalls the ex..
ploits of the mighty Blondin, Mon-
arch of the Cable?
It is Niagara with which his
name is most inamately associated,
and it is probably true that on
the day of Blondin's most notori-
ous feat all roads led to the giant
cataract.
This, according to one fo the
historians of the event, was the way
the rope was hung: First, a smaller
cable was conveyed across the river,
a thicker one attached, and to this
again was attached the cable pro-
per—a three-inch rope of fine and
tested hemp. This was in two sec-
tions of a thousand feet each,
united by a long splice. On the
summit of the Canadian cliff it
was twined about three axletrees
placed one behind another in holes
drilled for them in the solid rock.
It was made as taut as possible
by a windlass worked by horses
on the American shore, some two
thousand feet distant. The rope
hung high at either end, however,
and was sagged about fifty feet
in the center by its own weight.
To reduce the swaying of the
slender bridge, it was necessary to
put on guy lines.
He was no novice. He had walk-
ed many ropes before, in perilous
places and at perilous heights. It
was no artificial courage that Blon-
din possessed, born of mere skill
and vanity. The son of one of Na-
poleon's own heroes, he had in-
herited many of his father's quali-
ties. On the voyage to America he
had sprung overboard to rescue a
drowning man. As performers go,
he is said to have been rather mo-
dest than otherwise. In spite of
his reckless daring, he is known to
have been not a little cautious
where caution seemed to be re-
quired.
Blondin was inspecting some of
the guys. Now he was talking with
those about him. He was making
ready to step off. He was picking
up his balance pole—a fifty -pound
burden—and placing his foot upon
the rope. And now he was launched
in space and had begun his journey
toward the British province of
Upper Canada: a breathless mo-
ment.
Without hesitation, the perform-
er proceeded briskly, almost casu-
ally, to the center of the cable.
There he seated himself with
great composure and glanced com-
placently about him at the throng-
ing shores. He did not look down,
it was reported; that was some-
thing he had trained himself never
to do, After a few seconds he rose
upright, strolled forward again for
some feet, and again stopped. This
time he stretched himself at full
length upon the rope, lying upon
his back, his balance pole horizon-
tally across his chest. Another mo-
ment of suspense; then a feat of
appalling rashness. He turned a
back somersault upon the rope,
came upright upon his feet, and
walking rapidly to his landing stage,
arrived as coolly as if he had no
more than alighted from a bus.
The entire journey, with its stop-
overs, had occupied about five
minutes.—From "Booknian's Holi-
day," by Vincent Starrett, Copy-
right, 1942.
Freckles: A nice sun tan—if
they'd only get together.
They're Off And Running!—chose are plasti. nags, destined to spend their days galloping mound
the outer fringes of a merry -go -You id spurred on by hard -riding jtfVenile :owpokes Rial-t now,
with the aid of an automatic conveyor they're thundering off a Cargoliner They flew there in a
herd of 250 from +he factory where they were foaled
JITTER
(I's AWFULLY 1401"....MY PON'r )
you MAKE SOME LEMONADE/ p
%OK IN
\ MINUTE
By Arthur Pointer