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HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1952-01-03, Page 7r - Taking Care of Your Plano There are many natural enetr,ies • of the piano in your home, But if a few simple -rules are. observed even these enemies can be con- quered, and your Piano can be kept up to pitch and give you the years of pleasure for: Which you bought 1. A piano is peculiarly sensitive' to temperature a n d humidity ehaegcs. It. should never be placed near a fireplace, radiator, or regis- ter. It should be kept away from windows and outside walls. To give it a sheltered position close to an inside wall will probably necessitate rearranging your furniture; but, as the piano will probably be one of the most important decorative focal points i11 the room, this should not be too difficult. If the piano must be placed by an outside wall, then it is best to leave a foot of space between the wall and the piano. If the room is dry, it is wise to use a humidifier in the room, but do not place the humidifier too close to the .piano. 2. The white keys of the piano are either of natural ivgzy or plas- tic. Natural ivory keys' should be cleaned with a cloth dampened in lukewarm water to which has been • added a sinall amount of household ammonia. When the dirt is off, ',Ash the keys with a soft, lintless cloth. Be especially careful that no moisture is allowed to go down between the keys. There are many glued parts to the key, and action'44 assembly which could easily be. damaged. Plastic keys 'play be washed with a dampened .cloth, followedby a brisk drying with a" soft, dry cloth. Ivory keys should not be washed more than four or five times a year. It, is well, therefore, to get into the habit of dusting the keys once a week. The dusting attach- ment on your vacuum cleaner can do a good job of this because it will also suck up dust that may be between the keys, Do not, however, ever use the vacuum for cleaning any of the piano's innards. It is well to treat them as you would your own and have none but a professional doctor—in this case, a piano technician—decide what ad- justments ire necessary. The black keys are now made almost univer- sally of plastic, and a dampcloth will do the trick. • ` 3. As to cleaning the piano case itself, the best method is simply to wash it with a soft cloth, slightly dampened in clear, lukewarm wa- ter. Then dry with a soft cotton cloth and rub the case to restore its polish, taking care to rub in the same direction as the grain of the wood. Leading piano manufac- turers" advise against using any of the prepared furniture polishes on piano cases. Just keep the case clean and buffed, and dust will not be so, likely to accumulate and show. 4. Ever-present enemies of the piano are moths which are very destructive to the felt parts. If they are not controlled, you may some day be faced with an expen- sive refelting job. Place a camphor bag or a sinall .dish of dichloride crystals inside the case for a few hours. But don't forget about the dish before using the piano again, or the sound effects might prove surprising. 5. The first year your piano is . in your home it should be tuned every . three months, Always em- ploy the most reliable tuner you can find and stick with him. After the first year, tuning when the heat is turned on in the fall, and off in the spring, may suffice. The num- • ber of tunings depends a lot on' local weather conditions and on how much the piano is used. By the way, as you probably know, a tuner merely sets the ten, Sion of the strings so that the pits]..'•; is correct. The technician, on ,the other band, is trained to regulate and repair the whole instrument: 6. Placement in a room will have much to do with the way your piano sounds. As a rule, a piano will have more volume if it is not rest- ing on a rug, and is placed close Home From The War•—A German architect, turned homebuiider, is shown, left, putting the finish- ing touches to one wall of the cottage he is constructing in Frankfurt, Germany. Needing a place to live and lacking funds for conventional materials, the builder used wooden ammunition boxes that had been stacked in a former German army depot. To give the boxes the necessary strength to support the roof the compartments designed t hold shells were filled with cement. At right is a view of the outside of the building cis the architect caulks basement bricks. to a wide opening between rooms. However, the size of your room and the height of the ceilings will also affect the qual'ty of tone of your piano. Ifyours is a large living room, you can experiment with the placement. of the piano to get the, best acoustic results. The weight of your draperies', the place- ment of rugs and furniture, also will affect your p'ano's volume al- though the average individual is not too concerned with these slight variations. But do keep framed pictures, vases, and other things off your piano. Knickknacks and hanging crystals may cause jangl- ing, buzzing noises that will inter- fere with your playing enjoyment. You will find .that if you observe these few rules you can be as friendly with your piano as you want because, like a child, it can never get too much of your playing. A dairyman was having consider- able trouble with mastitis in his herd, says a well-known veterin- arian. He grumbled about it con- siderably, for there was no appar- ent reason for such disturbances. * * * The dairyman kept his cows clean and followed a recommended "fast milking" program with all the trim- mings. He fed intelligently and milked at regular intervals, The cows didn't have to wade through inud in the summer or manure in the winter. * * * There were no high door -sills or slippery floors or deep gutters or other booby -traps around his barn. The cows were well bedded to pre- vent chilling of udders on the con- crete floor. The stalls were plenty wide, and partitioned besides to, keep adjoining cows from trampling each other. They were long enough so that udders didn't hang over sharp gutter edges when cows lay down. * * * The milking machine was kept adjusted to the proper vacuum and recommended pulsator speed. In- flations were changed often and so made capable of doing a good milking job. Everything seemed to be in order, all right, but the cows continued to give a lot of bad milk, just the same. The cause? Believe it or not it was Bang's disease. * * * This disease is usually thought of in connection with abortions • and breeding troubles, but it can be as- sociated with mastitis too. This is no recent discovery, as years ago Grandpa suspected that "slinker" calves and "garget" milk were caused by the same thing. .* * * We're a little wiser nowadays, for we kno.0 that all "Banger" cows don't have mastitis any more than . all cows giving bad milk have Bang's disease. However, any time that mastitis is appearing without BY HAROLD ARNETT GtUED TOGETHER FOIL PROTRUDING AT LEFT DOES NOT TOUCH FOIL AT RIGHT, PAPER CLIPS HOLD WIRES. SHEETS OF FOIL ARE ABOUT 3" BY .° TO ANTENNA ANTENNA WIRE A FIL ER FOR YOUR RADiO WILL SEPARATE STATIONS THAT COME 1N ON TOP OF EACH OTHER . MAKE IT AS SHOWN, AND CONNECT IT IN YOUR ANTENNA WIRE. apparent cause, it's a good idea to consider Bang's disease as a pos- sible factor. * * * This is logical enough, for Bang's germs are often found in the ud- ders of reactor cows. In addition, they're frequently found in the milks produced by such cows. Well, in the udder they may cause enough infection to result in symptoms of mastitis. If they don't cause actual udder damage, they may serve to lower natural resistance against other types of germs. Some of these are ordinarily harmless, but become increasingly "hot' as re- sistance decreases. Regardless'. of whether they're directly or indi- rectly concerned, Bang's germs can still be to blame for mastitis, What is worse, the disease may be spread through the bad milk from cow to cow. * * Some authorities still deny that this can happen, and refuse to class- ify mastitis as a contagious disease. However, an English experiment proved that at least some kinds of mastitis can be spread through milk, and that a single cow may be able to infect an entire herd. More recently it has been reported that Bang's germs applied to the ends of cows' teats may cause severe cases of mastitis. At best it does- n't seem that mastitis spread merits much gambling with possible causes. * * * With this being true, tinexpletined mastitis trouble may be reason enough for having a blood test run on the whole herd. If no Bang's reactors are found, the testing at least will do no harm. If infection is discovered, the owner may be surprised at the number of reactors that have also been giving bad milk at irregular intervals. Anyway, such a test is often the logical way of starting a battle against mastitis. * * * It's certain that all the high- priced remedies on the market are- n't going to cure Bang's disease or the mastitis it causes. Maybe you'll have to sell your "Banger" cows before you can get rid of your mastitis troubles. We say "maybe," because we don't know that Bang's disease is causing mas- titis in your herd. However, you probably won't know either, unless you test, so you might be doing a little thinking about the matter. In Milwaukee, a pet mouse clambered into the coin -return slot of a pay telephone and had to be rescued from a maze of wires by a repairman. HAD ENOUGH Granny had volunteered to look after her four-year-old grandson while his parents went to the pic- tures. Tucking hint in bed, she whispered: ' "Are you ready for your bei-tiine story?" "Not +tonight, please, Granny," he murrhured. "Then; shall 1 sing you a lulla- by?" asked the indulgent grand- parent.. "No thanks," said the four-year- old. "No lullaby." Granny was perplexed. "Then what can I do for you my child?" the asked. "Well," proposed the child, "sup- pose you take a walk and let me get some sleep." Did the Job: To remove bees from the eaves of his house, Clem Cable, of Illinois, lit some rags to smoke- them out—and burned the whole building to the ground. v+ Six Small Dots Give "Sight" o Bund In recent years a great deal has been done to help blind people be. come self-supporting and useful Members of the community, Yet, incredible as it may seem, the blind were not always accorded. such treatment. In ancient Rome blind boys were considered a total loss to the community and were Sold ' into slavery as galley rowers; blind girls were sold into prostitu- tion, Even 200 years ago many Europeans either shunned the blind or ill-treated them. The first to alleviate their condi- tion was Valentin Hauy, an eigh- tee.nth century Frenchman. When he was twenty -sic he was horrified to find that the blind were exploit- ed to provide crude amusement for their fellow citizens: groups of sightless beggars were made to wear pointed hats and huge card- board spectacles, were given sheets of music and ordered to sing for the amusement of passers-by, Hauy was repelled by this piti- ful burlesque, and in 1784 establish- ed the first school for the blind, where the alphabet was taught by means of embossed wooden letters. Later, in 1817, a blind English- man named Moon developed a sys- tem of embossed shorthand which is still used, but to a rapidly de- creasing extent, It was left to Louis Braille, an- other Frenchman, to give the blind s'ght in their finger tips. When aged three, he was imitating his father, a saddler, by cutting leather. The sharp knife slipped and sliced one of his eyes. The otlier eye was affected, and he soon became totally blind. His father had him educated and he grew into an ac- complished musician. He learned to read by means of embossed let- tering but felt that the system was much too unwieldy. For years Braille struggled to develop a better system and ulti- mately hit upon the six little raised dots which are transposed to make letters, syllables, and contracted words similar to those used in shorthand. Today the blind can read easily in Braille and write rapidly with pointed instruments. on special boards. There is a contracted form known as Braille No, 2. Using this, a blind reader can finish a book or printed article in nornxal time. Braille has brought happiness to thousands, and though blindness is a dreadful handicap, there are nu- merous jobs in which the blind can more than hold their 'own, Even before Braille, a few blind people attainedpositions of emin- ence :through their own efforts; Nicholas Saunderson was Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge and John Metcalf became a famous en.' ginger, But most blind people lived in an abyss of black despair. Braille is one invention of which it can be truly said it has no evil reper- cuss:ons. Forgetful Brutes You wouldn't think an octopus was very clever, would you? But Professor J. Z. Young, who re- cently returned to Britain from Naples, where he has been studying octopuses, found they are quite brainy, although their memories are not as good as they might be. He discovered that the octopus, whose brain is about the size of a man's little finger -nail, is able to differentiate between the letters T and L. It can also distinguish between, squares of varying sizes. When Professor Young lowered these signs into the tank of an octopus 'selected at random, the creature quickly learned to associ- ate one letter with food and an- other with an electric shock, But there was a snag. Two days after- wards the octopus had forgotten all it had learned and the scientist had to start training it all over again. Professor Young confesses that so far scientists do .not understand how the octopus, learned to dis- tinguish between the signs. Ile estimates it will take them years to find out. • A Scotchman who had a bottle of whiskey on his hip slipped -on some ice. On rising, he 'felt something wet running down his leg. "Hope it's blood," he said. Disaster Bri qs Unity to Italy By Julius Humi Rovigo, Italy—(NEA)—N ational disaster brought unity to politically turbulent Italy—but the unity didn't last as long as the disaster. For a short and busy week, all the country's political parties for- got their differences. For the• first time in, the postwar _period,,.,Coti-.. monists, Fascists, Christian Demo- crats and Liberals got together for a common cause: the relief of 200,- 000 Italians caught in the Po River flood, which caused havoc on a scale unknown since World War II. The disaster, which struck with sudden ferocity, left even the most ardent of politicians speechless at first. From Italy's bigger cities, 10 mil- lion dollars in cash and tons of clothing were contributed in a week. The U.S. promised another million, and Britain, France, Nor- way and Austria sent technical aid and medical supplies. More than 3000 firemen from all parts of the country—the equiva- lent of an entire Italian army divi- sion—collaborated with .British and American troops from Trieste, row- ing, pulling and carrying 100.000 flood refugees to safety. Italian, British and American planes drop- ped food and medical supplies; U.S. helicopters spotted farmers and livestock trapped by the raging waters. In the first burst of enthusiasm, even the Communist press praised the work done by Allied troops. But, as one Italian newspaper said, "it was too good to he true." As the situation improved, politi- • cal fetor got the upper hand again. At first, the Christian Democrats, who run most of the relief work, prohibited some of the motor boats run by local Communist sectors from continuing salvage work. The Communists retaliated with a vicious propaganda campaign, charging foul play by sone gov- ernment agencies in distributing aid. Shortly after that, police ar- rested some 30 local officials who, they charged, had diverted relief supplies and then redistributed them as coiling from Communist sources. American and British officers lost patience when politics began to interfere. A British captain, for instance, who was. running one of ® MO the'two large assault boats bringing in refugees from Adria, had his official guides withdrawn 'for "poli- tical reasons." He had to lay up his boat for a whole day while authorities quarreled as to which party should•furnish the guides. Final blow to the short-lived national . unity came when Com- -munists del}landed'- in parliament .. that the 620 billion lire appropria- tion for rearmament be diverted to flood relief. With typical Commun- ist forethought, they had picked a way to fight rearmament which would appeal to the man in the street. Despite these squabbles, the dis- aster relief has been a success, even if the unity it brought about was not. More than half the estimated 40,000 cattle in the area were brought to safety on improvised rafts. In the immense movement of people, with whole towns and vil- lages evacuated sometimes within a few.hours, less than 100 lost their lives—half of them when a truck carrying evacuees slipped off the road. But the damage to the Po Valley, Italy's . agricultural heartland, will be a grave problem to the govern - . for years to come. Now the valley's rich farmlands are a muddy delta of ruin and destruction, and it will be at least a year before they can be worked again. Meantime, it will be an added burden, not only for Italy's strug- gling economy, but for the whole European community working to- ward reconstruction. it Ran On A Political Reef — British assault boat, skippered b; English captain (standing, rear) ferries a.Ioad of homeless Italian: from flood -ravaged Adria. But the boat had to halt its mere' missions for a day while local Italian politicians argued as tc which party should furnish guides for the skipper. JITTER By Arthur Phi otter At.LWN4 NAVE ARE PET MONKS - TRY AND FIND TAN TOR THEM! WbW WHOS TAO'a