Zurich Herald, 1950-06-15, Page 3Where They Alter
u> sightly Vases
"This face under new Manage
"rent" is a sign that may well b
carried by a child who has bee
accepted for the correction c
crooked teeth, "lantern jaws" an
Other physiognomical defects by th
Philadelphia Center for Researe
in Child Growth, It is the larititar
Purpose Of the Center to detect all
correct, whenever possible, dent,
and facial irregularities that other
wise would disfigure and result eve,
in poor health,
The chief reliance of the physic
tan and other dentists who will talo
ugly ducklings and the faciall,
handicapped in hand is a reniarlc
able instrument, known as the
'`cephalometer," a new type o
X-ray apparatus devised for the
production of $cientifically accuatec
"pletures" of the exterior and in.
terior head and face. The cephalo•
meter will enable those in charge
Of the Project to determine whether
or not facial and .dental disharmony
is the consequences of a generalized
growth failure ill other parts of
the body.
"The new device will make pos-
sible a more accurate diggnosis of
the cause and cure of crooked teeth
and jaws," says Dr. John W. Ross.
Slow Stupid,
Cowardly
There are a few animals which
are extinct, in a sense, and don't
know it. Tete -elephant is one, and
the opossum is another. Of the two
the -opossum is the more difficult
to study—perhaps one reason why
Dr. Harold C. Reynolds is concen-
trating on it .
The opossum has changed very
little since it roamed the continent
with the dinosaurs seventy million
years ago. Most animals have be-
come more and more specialized as
they evolved. But not the opossum,
Dr. Reynolds is the only man
who has raised opossums in cap-
tivity. He now has a third genera-
tion to study. The only man who
has witnessed the unusual pheno-•
menon of the birth of an entire litter
of opossums, he reports that, after
a gestation period of only thirteen
days, the enbryolike young, each
about one-half inch long and weigh-
ing no more than a single paper
'Hatch book, emerge to make their
way into the mother's pouch. If
they fail, they die; if they succeed,
they attach themselves to a teat in
the pouch, where they remain for
about sixty days.
Period of Pouch Life
Another month passes before the
young are weaned. There may be as
many as twenty-one in a single
litter. Since the pouch contains only
thirteen nipples, some in such a
large litter must die. The pouch
literally overflows with opossums
by the end of the period of pouch
life because the young are then
about 800 times bigger than they
were at birth.
Because it is a primitive creature
and because it is a marsupial, Rey-
nolds believes the opossum may
prove to be a valuable laboratory
animal, n6w that he has shown
how it can be raised in captivity. For
example, if a scientist +wishes to
observe the effects of an injected
hormone on embryonic development
lie now has to cut a pregnant ani-
mal open to reach the embryo. The
process must be repeated when he
wants to observe the effects, The
embryonic young in the opossum's
pouch would' be readily accessible
for ,s ell studies at ani, time.
Why On This Gontinent?
Reynolds is primarily interested
in finding out why of all marsupials
only the opossum has developed on
this continent and why it has been
spreading northward, even into Ca-
nada, Within the last few hundred
years. He suggests that the answer
may be a superior ability to adjust
body temperature. ;
Opossums are stupid, slow and
cowardly. How, then, did they sur-
vive in competition with hundreds
of stronger prelatorl
atinals? The �
well -!mown talent for "playing 'pos-
su, would be no help, since the I
..............
Historic Canadian Beauty pit
Cape Trinity, rising majestically above the Saguenay Canyon
c• t �
tea ure could be eaten easily while
feigning death. It looks as if, the
opossum has few natural cnelilies,
so that it has, a good chance of
survival.
Reynolds has been able to dis-
prove some of the tales about the
opossum—its cunning, cleverness at
deception, ability to swing by the
tail, and the young riding on the
back of their "'other and holding
onto her arched tail with theirs.
There's no truth ill these, says
Reynolds.
2nd Shakespearean
Outdoor Festival
Canada's second annual Shake-
speare Festival opens on June 91
in the quadrangle of Trinity Col-
lege, Toronto, which is recognised
as one of the most authentic and
beautiful Tudor settings in Am-
erica. In the open air, surrounded
by just such bildings as people
aright have stepped from in Shake-
speare's day, plays will be given
for four -weeks by the Earle Grey
Players: A Midsummer Night's
Dream, June 19-24; The Taming
of the Shrew, June 26 -July 1; The
Tempest, July 3-8; and T+velftG
Night, July 10-15,
The extension of the festival
makes it possible to have three
Sunday night concerts of old Eng-
lish music. These programs, which
are free to ticket holders for the
week -night plays, will again be
given in the Great Hall of the col-
lege, where candlelight flickering
on the tapestry background of the
dais, and the fine heraldic decora-
ions by Scott Carter recall the
golden age of British culture.
The chance to enjoy Shakespeare
under the stars drew crowd$ from
nan.y parts of this country and the
United States last year, and the
act that thousands of leaflets of
"formation have been requested
n the United States this year in-
icates an even larger festival for
950. In case of rain the plays are
rven in the Great Hall.
The festival has made theatre
istory because it is the first out-
oor Shakespeare project of its kind
America, and because Trinity Col-
ege, with its stately charm; has
o peer in Tudor architecture on
'is side of the water.
CHARGED WITH DRIVING
0 m.p.h. a Little Rock, Ark., man
laimed that he was merely trying
o frighten his wife out of liar
iccups.
"Ewan Bach To 'Sleep!" -Just litre any human youngster
who's tip and ready to play at the crack of dawn, Brulnas, the
London Zoo's polar bear cub, plagues his mother, Ivy, for an
early nnornin;g tussle. Ivy, whose dream. was interrupted iti the
nodule of a Ash dinner, is understandably rel'uc'tant,
After Surviving Many Disasters
6`Madame Tussaud's" Still Flourishes
Accompanied by her elder sou,
Joseph, Madame Tussaud landed at
Dover in -May of 1802, and set up
her first waxworks exhibition in
England, at the old Lyceum- The-
atre in the Strand. Her husband
remained in Paris to supervise the
exhibition there.
Her story—which survives today
ill the shape of the world-famous
exhibition in London's Marylebone
Road—is obviously a story of suc-
cess. Yet that success was not won
+Tithout long• years of endeavor, in
terspersed by triumph and despair.
T+vice, the sea all but engulfed
Tier efforts, When sailing to Scot-
land, 36 of liar figures were badly
smashed and the remainder dam-
aged by heavy seas, And again,
when +vitliiu sight of the Irish
coast, a stidden store' sank the
ship carrying most of her collec-
tion. Each time she set to and re-
built her waxworks, to tour trium-
phantly once more.
In 1831, when her collection was
housed at Bristol during the Reform
Bill riots, some of the mob, in-
flamed by liquor, tried to fire the
building. But one of her servants,
a huge Negro, kept them at bay
with a blunderbuss until the wel-
come arrival of the military.
1fadaine Tussaud was then in her
71st year and she found the experi-
ence too reminiscent of the Trench
Revolution for her liking.' She de-
cided the time had come to settle
permanently in London, and after
exhibiting at Camberwell, Hackney,
Crays Inn Road, and the Strand,
took over the Portman Rooms,
Balser Street—one-time mess Ball
for ti'e Brigade of Guards—in 1835.
fiantly at the milling sightseers,
But in those halcyon day,, nobody
paid much attention 'to dictators—
although its 1933 three dmonstrat-
ors were fined for throwing red
Paint on Hitler's effigy. They
should have been given medals.
Particularly since, on the first night
of the blitz, Tussaud's itself was
damaged by the Lufttr-affe!
Despite the draw of ti'e exhibi-
tion's 500 celebrtities, it is the in;.
famous who are the biggest lure,
People call never resist a visit to
the Chamber of Horrors. They
like to rub shoulders with killers
and see if their eyes are set close
together—or whether they loot: sin-
ister and leer.
They've an old axiom at Tus-
saud's: "A good murder is worth
an extra 30,000 through the gate,"
It usually works out that.+way. But
the unexciting truth is that usually
a killer looks quite ordinary. He
could +yell be your next-door neigh-
bor . genteel and respectable,
even slightly fang -dog.
Tussaud's only trouble to show
the notorious ones. As each pays
the penalty, lie takes his place in
the unholy tanks—his one chance
of immortality Heath's effigy,
which tools six weeks to make, was
nil show an hour after he was
hanged. A last-minute reprieve,
and it would have been melted
down into some more respectable
shape. Haigh, exhibitionist to the
last, bequeathed the green hopsack
suit, green socks and red tie he
wore throughout his trial expressly
to adorn his trim likeness, Ile also
left a note requesting that the suit
should always be well pressed,
:Many stili believe that a reward
will be given to anyone brave
enough to spend a night among the
criminals. The rumor was started
by Dickens in his publication.,
"Household Worda," and Tussaud's
is still besieged by applicants frons
all over the world anxious to test
their nerves. Originally, the sup-
posed sum was five pounds, but be-
tween the wars, it shot up to, a
hundred,
The only recorded case of anyone
spending any length of time alone
in the chamber is that of .a rat-
catcher who went down one night,
professionally. Ile wa's very soon
beating on the doors, frantically
complaining that "everyone was
looking at him." That's not sur-
prising for the figures are so ar-
ranged.
Big attractions in the Grand Hail
are the Royal Group, V.C.'s,
Tableau and—all old favorite—the
beautiful and restful "Sleeping
Beauty," She has slumbered peace-
fully since 1884. Ili 1928 her clock-
work lungs were electrified, and
she stopped breathing for the first
time during Shinwell's "cuts" of
1947. The original—beautiful Mme,
St. Amaranthe, of Louis XVI's
Court—ceased to breathe 160 years
ago on the guillotine!
Today, 11r. Bernard Tussaud" a
great -great-grandson of the found-
er, is chief artist, He supervises
the making of each new model
which entails interviewing, photo-
graphing and measuring, before the
head can be sculptured out of clay.
The figures are made to the exact
height and build of the subject in
question, who is usually only too
pleased to supply a suit of clothes.
Where new suits have to be bought,
they're made by the subject's own
tailor, and usually broken in by a
member of the staff.
Eyes, which originally came from
C,ernarty, are in short supply today.
Particularly scarce are gray -green
and gray -blue shades—that of most
notabilities. Hair is another head-
ache. It used to come from the
Balkans, where girls grew it spe-
cially long and sold it to the wax.
works for as much as $125 a time
to pay for their dowries. Occasion-
ally, where fashion dictates, women
in Great Britain donate their tresses
to the exhibition to be interted into
the models strand by strand, 300 to
the square inch.
Souvenir hunters have always
been a problem at Tussaud's. Every
year, dozens of fingers, snuff boxes,
medals, jewels and rings are filched
by the public; while Crippen and
other murderers lose buttons so fast
that—in the words of one official
—"After a bank holiday, it's as
much as they can do to keep their
trousers up l"
But nest time you visit the exhi-
bition, don't fail to look for 'a de-
mure little figure in black, standing
alone in the Grand Hall like a
Pocket edition of Mother Hubbard.
It is a beautifully modelled self-
portrait of the founder, completed
by herself at the age of 82,
She has a far -away look in her
eyes, almost as if she is looking
both backwards and forwards in
tine—to the roistering, colorful
Past, so faithfully portrayed by her
and Iter descendants, and to the
unknown future yet to be recorded
in her name.—From Tit Bits,
Not As ToughAs
Mo
at Men Think
Ask any man what lie thinks
about shaving and he'll tell you
fhe same thing; "I've got a tough
beard." Iu actual fact, the beard
of a young man is rarel•,r tough,
Whiskers become harder with ager'
and white or grey hair is some-
times about as strong as piano
(vire,
Once a young than starts to shave
regularly the hair oil his face grows
at the rate of six inches a year.
This means that after half a cen-
tury of shaving a pian has grown
the equivalent of nearly twenty -
live feet of beard.
The razor blade cuts through
25,000 hairs every time a than
shaves, and it is estimated that the
razor covers an area of about forty-
eight square inches each time.
Our ancestors had to use sharp-
ly -ground flints or shells, or even
bones, for shaving, or else they
had to pluck the hairs out by the
roots. Either way, shaving v,as,such
a painful business, as we all know
when a blunt blade "pulls" a little,
that many people grew Beards.
Causes of Bluntness
In 330 B.C., Alexander the Great
made all his men shave because
beards provided a convenient hand-
hold for all enemy to seize his op-
ponent's beard and cut off his head.
It is over half a century ago now
since King C, Gillette, there a forty -
year -old American salesman, first
thought of a cheap razor [-)lade that
could be thrown away as soon as
it got blunt. In 1903 the first Gillette
razors and blades were put on .
the market.
In tell years half a million safety
razors and three and a half million
blades were sold; but the decline
of ,tile old "cut-throat" was very
gradual, partly because of the ex-
cellent wearing properties of the
high-grade steel blade.
Bluntness is chiefly caused by
minute particles of grit embedded
in the skin of the face, and also
by specks of rust, too fine to be
seen with the naked eye.
The edge of a razor blade is
about 1-80,000th of an inch thick,
and this fine degree of finish is
obtained by sharpening with vary -
pressures against a 300 -foot long
strop in the factory.
Such an edge is very delicate
and sensitive, and if, for instance,
a blade is dropped on the floor.,
although it may not land on tha
edge, the sudden blow sets up
strains which result in microscopic
cracks. These spread in a matter
of hours, so that the next time your
use the blade you are painfully re-
minded of the ancients and their
flints.
Making Blades Last
The edge of a razor blade Iast%
longer if, after shaving and rins••
ing the razor, instead of removing
and drying the blade, you pop -the
whole razor into a jar of methyl.
ated or surgical spirit, or one of
the proprietary liquids now on the
market- that are made specially for
this purpose.
An authority on shaving maintains
that haste is the greatest enemy
of a good shave. It takes hot water
about three minutes to soften up
the stairs, but the majority of men
only allow half this time, so that
they do not get a good shave.
The principle function of soak
is to remove the protecting film of
oil and grease from the skirt.
Srx years later, her husband—
then a destitute old man—wrote,
w•°
asking her for financial help, But
his mismanagement of her Paris
exhibition had been too great a
blow to Marie's pride for reconcili-
ation, although she instructed her
�A
sons to send +what money he needed,
115 1!
xmhZ
She spent ti'e remaining nine
�...�.
years of her life quietly at 58 Baker
r *\c
Street, where she died on Tuesday,
a.
`• sk "�:, .'
April 16, 1850, Her last words to
,
her sons, Francis and Joseph, were:
m` �;.
"I implore you, among all things,.
never quarrel." She is buried at
St, Mary's Church, Cadomin Place,
�� o` p "°
Chelsea.
a`
Since then, Tussaud's has grown
and flourished. In 1882 the collet-
tion was moved to its present horns
; �� =ar �� `t �i�z' ' `; Dint+•
+where it continued to draw singe
\ �
crowds, But in 1925 carne fresh\
4
disaster. Tide broke out, and within\\
two hours the work of 150 ears
Y
x �`�`� 4e�
was reduced to a sodden ruin. Many
k
of tl;c original moulds were saved,
but damage was estimated at
$800,000.
Three ears passed before the ex-
Y 1
xr
hibitioti was able to re -open its
doors, acid then in 1931 a mitiot
\,u..
earthquake caused further havoc.
Di. Crippen and Camera both lost�Ma
their steads, Helerl Wills Moody
- - `CmiJ. - '•
Vas discovered next morning minus
1,cr strong right arm,
Toast With A Twist --Curled tip like a couple of pretzels, acrobats Mai, left, and Mati Jon-
nenen of Finland drink a toast at the annual banquet
Soon a pair of dumpy figures ap-
of the National Society of Acrobats and
Aerialists. George A. Hamid, right, who presiders over the convention,
peared .in the galleries to glare de-
admires their contortions.
Mai and Mati will "take their American debit(
soot".
By .Arthur .Poinxtnr