HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1931-01-16, Page 6aA
i1
Seaton the
„? lin 4kihk't`of 't ►e
,%puncti�o?.. in' The World. The
, *Age to the trill which melees
•a tical it-
�'�le famines'famines'rPa n 1x 'b �'
eiitt 'tee prem' ea of the A. 0.
Inetteatien lle Mailw•aukese. This
tetonly threatens to. end the
1.ir,, .of th M robot; it threatens to
Mditeefe itself—in the form of
5 llt i''0 hitherto known it.
'The camper►, was founded over half
„: century ago with the commendable
.eferetose of fabricating baby carriages.
due . time, basbies were abandoned
sfer bicycle riders. About 7900, Mr.
A. 0. Smith, son of the founder, had
'been fallowing the early flounderings
of the automobile. Bankers and other
sensible folk knew it for a crazy, un-
practi+ealble contraption. Mr. Smith
•was convinced the motor car had a
future. It would need a frame. With
a .grouped men from the bicycle shop
lie proceeded to design and erect ma-
chinery for making steel frames, a full
year 'before there was any evidence
that America would take to making
automobiles in a determined way at
all. And this is the sort of thinking
that is coining out of Milwaukee to-
day.
In 1902 the orders began to arrive,
and the first frame came from the
shop at the rate of 10 per day. The
business prospered. The grandson of
the founder. 'Mr. L. R. Smith, took
the helm. He looked at rows of men
handling la avy steel side bars. "It's
stupid," he thought, "and wasteful.
Men have too much ability to be con-
demned to such work." He turned to
his engteers. "Could we design a
machine as big as a factory to do
this whole job automatically and
turn these things out at 4,000 or
.5,000 a day?"
The drawing boards groaned. Ten
times the plant was built on paper.
Finally, after incredible labor and
some of the boldest mechanical think-
ing ever done on this planet, a plan
was evolved.. Beyond the technical
incredibility of •the project was the
whole question of market. Who was
to buy 2,000,000 frames a year? In
1916 only 1,500,000 motor cars were
manufactured. But soon after the
plant was built ($6,000,000 had been
sunk in it) . the roaring '20s, building
4,000,000, 5,000,000 motor cars a year,
were demanding Smith frames.
The 'buildings are squat and grim.
-full of noise and power. There is an
air of spaciousness and cleanliness,
but no hint of lawns, flowers and the
tra la la school of mill design. But
stop a minute. 'What is this partly
finished building with black granite
base and fluted aluminum creeping
up the stanchions? It is the new Re-
search building, equipped to house
1,000 engineers—a lovely temple to
the god of science.
We enter one of the mills. Tts
floor is one solid mass of glittering
steel, a thousand shapes which rush
and stop, rise and fall, dancing to
some gigantic rhythm. The largest
single shape, with drum -shattering
gasps is solemnly picking up pieces
of steel, fitting them to a pattern,
dropping the unit down for automatic
insertion of 100 rivets, raising the
unit, placing it on a little carriage.
Upon each carriage there is now ob-
viously a' motor car frame. As the
,.'*"-'rs of stee'.
dragons move forward upon them to
head the rivets. Their great jaws
close in a 40,000 -pound crunch on the
rivet head, and the frames move on
to another group of monsters. One
hour and a half from raw steel to
completed frame. Ten thousand
frames a day. Frames for Pontiac,
'Chrysler, Chevrolet, Buick. About 30
different styles are now fabricated,
but the total variety is virtually lim-
itless.
Mr. Smith admits his mill to b,
an engineering failure though a huge
-commercial success. He set out to
build a machine that would make
frames without men. He did no•
quite succeed. At one or two sta-
tions men touch the frame with their
hands.
But not a stone's throw away is
the old "hand" mill. Here are 2,000
men drilling holes, twisting shapes,
conveying the growing frame from
process to process. Work as they
xray, then can make no more frames
a day than can the automatic mill
with a scant 200 men, not more than
50 of whom actually touch the pro -
•duct. Two thousand dreary jobs—
robot work if you please—against 200
amusing ones for an identical output.
The cost of the automatic frame to
the hand frame is as two to three
`(and rather less in total than a good
pair of shoes).
The eggs of the A. 0. Smith Cor-
poration are not in one basket. The
company in 1918 made aerial bombs,
but far more important, it worked out
an electric are -welding process with
which to seal the bombs. Lying in
the Florida sun, a few winters ago,
Mr. Smith had a pipe dream. Why
not fold up long sheets of steel and
arc -weld them where the edges join-
ed? Why not give the pipe industry
a jolt? Within four months of his
return a new mill had been built and
pipe was coming through to the tune
of eight miles a day. Now it em-
erges at the rate of 32 miles a day.
The Aineriean oil industry—and its
bankers,—were shown how they could
-with this particular kind of pipe, build
transcontinental Innes for gas and
gasoline at unbelievably low costs per
mile. The engineers demonstrated to
the oil men how to make money in
their own business, and the pipe -line
boom was on. Four thousand miles
were ,ordered in May and June of this
year alone. Gas is canting to Chicago
from T'exam, 1,250 miles away. Ot1her
pipe builders have been aroused from
a. generation of lethargy to develop
eoMpeting processes. Not yet. how-
ever, has any steel company broken
A. 0, ,Smith's hold on the big, elec-
trieally welded pipe market. And
two years ago Mr. Smith turned his
laboratory hounds loose to develop a
Way of making pipe which would an-
tillt'tate his competitors before they
ra
c'
741
of masa toredUCtion Wath an eateb11ab.'
ed -market or one which can be estab-
lished,
- A product to be made, so much
better and cheaper than anything else
in the field that it will a elf itself
vttttl>a no outlatys for high-+pieslsure
salesauership.
3•--'A product profitable enough to
liquidate its fixed investment in not
longer than a year or two.
The Smith policy is ruthlessly to
scrap everything which is not a jump
or two ahead of the rest of the world;
to scrap, indeed, when it is ahead, if
the research staff has developed a
better process. Certain great cor-
porations buy up improvements and
file them in their safes. Mr. Smith
puts them to work instanter. "I grant
it is wasteful but it is far more
wasteful to burn up men and mater-
ials in the old way when a better is
found.
I regard Milwaukee as the most
dangerous area in the United States.
It promises, in the persons of the
Smith dynasty, to deal American in-
dustry a wallop beside which the
stock market crash was a chuck under
the chin. And determined adoption of
its principles will turn the economic
structure upside down, shatter the
nerves of untold bankers and set high
pressure salesmanship in a roadside
ditch.
But when the hurricane is over, we
may find a. world where poverty has
disappeared., where robots are un-
heard of, where working hours have
been cut in two, and where the era
of the salesman has given way to
the era of the engineer.
ORDEAL BY BUS
The casual student of industrial
trends, reading of the fierce competi-
tion between bus and railroad lines,
and learning how the railroads are
•'girding themselves for battle," prob-
ably pictures the bus men as spending
their time laughing up their sleeves.
The picture is false. As a matter of
fact, many of the problems of the in-
fant coach business are vast and vex-
atious.
Consider, for example. the difficulty
of working out precisely just how
lone a traveller can ride without go -
c' ntith, dynasty has a guiding
'1t dtnHl�dys •senor'• salesmen and
Ear tet fi (rir 300'• engineers, Their
s
til dlfip neer output; a pro-
6uxet. 'tt5lfree liege pritici-
fiitrinn4 lies in the field
MALIN QUICKEST TIME KNOWN
c,
Yhadsoresun,teh;forreontbs. pklsrrom>
odes fated to heal. Teem 'Soo tha-e .e"
healed them la few days." tales Simard.
"Sootba-Salva" heals sores, butes, Ocoee
e
e
czems i e All.
rash, tichlllt a dru ate.
� 8til
tion of the general public is not in-
terested in figures, and believes they
are not safe at all. This attitude
saddens the bus men. A writer in Bus
Trans+portation, says:
The driver of .the bus knows exact-
ly what his bus will do. He guides
it around curves or through traffic
holes which the less competent motor-
ist would consider impassable. Not
realizing this, that class of motorists
is stricken with the same terror that
a small child might experience under
the illusion that the locomotive would
leave its tracks and chase him.
This is all entirely true but prob-
ably is not reassuring to the motorist
who, for a single desperate moment,
wonders whether the monster speed-
ing toward him directly in his path
while passing another car is really
going to make it.
Taxation and public regulation oc-
cupy the bus men's thoughts in odd
moments. Nobody seems to know
how to tax bus lines. The operators
are particularly galled by the often
repeated charge that their vehicles
use the public highways free, and
they spend considerable time working
out figures to disprove it. Nor are
they grateful to the National Tax As-
sociation for emphasizing the theory
that because railroads pay 6 per cent.
of their gross income for taxes and
,j0 per cent. for maintenance of way,
buses and trucks should pay 16 per
cent. of their gross in taxes. Equal-
ized taxation would be a blow to the
comparative cheapness of the bus ride.
Lesser problems have continually
to be dealt with. Is long distance bus
travel said to be slow compared with
trains? Mr. Lewis R. Freeman, a pro
bus publicist, says that he was able
to travel by bus from coast to coast
in 1929. Is long-distance bus travel
declared impossible at night because
one cannot get Pullman accornmoda-
ing to the wash room. This "rider- tions? They along comes a nite
comfort" problem dogs every step the coach (the spelling is taken from the
bus men take. I official agertisements), an incredible
They have tried putting lavatories
in buses, but such equipment is still
consideral somewheat freakish. And
every time the layman hears of it, he
`;egins reflecting, "What will our high-
ways look like if in addition to be-
ing drenched with gasoline and oil
they are to be sloshed with waste
water from fleets of rubber -tired wash
rooms?" Such speculations as these
do not help the public relations of
the bus industry.
The solution of the problem must
be one of three things—lavatories in
the buses, toilets in the terminals, or
more stops. In nine states the pub-
lic service commissions have already
required bus companies eith :r to have
their terminals equipped u'ei toilets
or to have plenty of stop: for the
same purpose.
The bus industry faces a serious
lack of terminals. The number of
stations is growing, of course. The
world's largest bus terminal is in
Kansas City. It cost $3 000,000 and
its lavatories, free drinking fountains
and baths are the pride of the long-
haul bus world. But good waiting
rooms cost money and involve a su+b-
staritialness and permanency that is
slow to appear in the bus business,
for it is still easy to buy a bus, fill
it up with gas, and start a line.
These lines made casual comfort -
stop arrangements with hotel and
lunch -room keepers. Thus. several
times in the course of a day, a long-
haul bus rolling through the dusty
West will pull up in front of a small-
town hotel, and out will clamber a
crowd of stiff -jointed pilgrims who
made a bee -line for the lavatories.
Observers report that in 90 per cent.
of the little hotels there are locks and
nickel -in -the -slot devices on all . the
doors. So far the first few minutes
there is considerable confusion; folks
fishing in their pockets for nickels,
and if they have- none, going to the
clerk in' the lobby and making him
ohange bills without buying anything.
if they are hard-boiled travelers; or
purchasing a couple of nickel cigar::
if they are more timid; then all rush-
ing back ,to the wash -rooms.
What makes the modern American
traveller such a glutton 'for punish-
ment, when the railroads offer so
much more comfort? Well, people
like bus travel because it is cheaper
than railroad travel. Linked with
this attraction is also the lure of the
open road and the "automobile ride.
Many people think of the bus ride as
a great adventure, similar to the
adventures of the old pioneers tin
stage coaches. Indeed, with a smart
understanding of this psychic feature
many bus operators call their routes
stage lines.
Shrewd motor coach publicists are
not neglecting to inoculate the cross-
country bus driver against anything
like an inferiority complex, a state he
is likely to fall into when mutter-
ings begin arising from cramped,
hungry or scared passengers. "Hats
off to the Bus Driver," "Gallant Cap-
tain of His Bus"—these are some oe
the slogans of hope and cheer being
wafted to the ears of the boys who
keep the buses rolling. The bus driv-
er is made to appear as a sort of
rubber -tired Casey Jones. He deserves
it. Torrential rains descend in the
midst of his trips, washing gaps in
his road; he must drive through mud
and waiter. buck prairie cyclones,
dodge herd's of wild flivvers, wet -nurse
busted .motors; if the bus breaks
down he must get his passengers
safely stowed away in hotels; he
must find assistance if he needs it,
side-step romantic females passen-
gers who twitter at sight of a uni-
form, smooth down bitter -tongued
men who discourse about the rights
of the public, get over the route, in-
cluding detours and traffic delays, in
the running time fixed by sehedtate-
niakers who keep yelling for more
speed; deliver his cargo intact and
get Back ,safely.
The 'bus operators cisaini that theirs
buses are the safest vehicles on the
nations 'hsghwarr, and produce fig-
ures to prove it, but a large proper=
Eaaalislx Attie Xt Weeld be easy to
identtiff, they say.. It was white, eta
usually fine, and the 'contour of its
eeiras'ae Wes of .course made to fit
the feminine form. Furthermore it
had 'three distinct blemishes: a hole
from a crossbow bolt near theslime-
der,
sho
-
der,
a dent from a stone on the hel-
met, and an arrow hole in the cuis-
'sard, which is the part encasing the
thigh. Jean was injured three times
in battle. In September, 1429, she
left the armor on the altar of the
church of St. Denis near Paris. The
'church was later raided by a band
of Englishmen and Burgundians and
the armor hasn't been heard of since.
*
*
Our practically weekly taxi-driver
'story concerns a lady who inquired of
one of them, parked at the curb: "Are
you free?" He raised a calm gray
eye and replied: "Madam, as Plato
'said, 'No man is free.'"
* * *
A little boy who lives in a great big
house in the East Fifties had been
absent from school for several days
on account of illness, and his teacher
called up to find out how he was. The
butler answered the phone. He said
he was sorry, but he really didn't
know how the child was. "I get to
that end of the apartment so seldom,
Mad+am," he said, "that I didn't know
the little fellow was ill."
looking vehicle as big as a two-story
cottage, shaped like a submarine, op-
erating between Los Angeles and San
Francisco. with full-length sleeping
berths, dining -car service and toilets.
Something like this miniature apart-
ment house was bound to follow the
miniature golf course. The builders
have done marvelous things with
space in the nite coach; they have al-
most entirely eliminated it.
The industry's spokesmen declare
"it must be remembered that the
motor bus industry cannot as yet be
classed as one of the country's major
industries." Yet at the beginning of
1930 inter -state buses alone were op-
erating on more than 75,000 miles of
route, and in 1929 they carried 38,-
000,000 passengers. And buses that
do not cross State lines carried ten
times as many passengers.
No one can tell where the industry
will stop growing. All the bus men
want now is to be let alone for a
while to work out this comfort -stop
problem.
TALK OF THE TOWN
Needing a cook, a lady interviewed
one who had advertised 'in the news-
papers, and engaged her. Next day
the new cook phoned: she had a bad
cold, and could the lady wait a few
day for her services? The lady went
on for three or four days, hearing
nothing, improvising during the de-
ficiency in her menage. Then she
started reading the ads again, to find
that the cook she had hired was still
advertising for a job. She thought
this r . ter, bitterly. Then she got a
friend to call the cook up, make her
enteln'g offer, and give her a fair-
', inaccessible false address. After
Itis sere felt better.
* * r
We are informed by a man with
several odd quirks that after consid-
erable research he has made an in-
terPstinti; discovery in the telephone
-'>ok. There are several Kisses: Kiss
harry, Kiss Emil, Kiss Albert, Kiss
^e, and one Kisser. Looking further
informant unearthed the signifi-
c,r.t fact that Kiss Albert has his
pace of business next door to Hugh
Joseph. All these people meet, pre-
sumably, at the Loving Restaurant,
840 Ninth Avenue.
* *
• * *
Science may have stumbled en
something to help the speakeasy prob-
lem. A man from the General Elec-
tric laboratories tells us about the de-
vice they have invented which opens
a door automatically to anybody who
knows the secret of tapping it just
right. When installed, a small brass
plate is attached to the doer; you tap
on it a given number of times, and
this sets an electrical apparatus to
work and that opens the lock. As an -
added feature the experimenters
worked out a method by which the
signal can be changed at will, hut by
which ,people in the secret can still be
apprised of the formula. Their scheme
is to fasten a printed motto above
the 'brass plate. Persons who know
the ropes will then tap as many times
as there are words in the motto, or
vowels in it, or whatever the under-
standing is. The invention was in-
nocently. intended for frateral so-
cieties, secret lodges, and the like,
not at all for the speakeasy owners
who unexpectedly are showing deep
interest.
Warns All Past 40
to Heed These Signs
Mr. Granesay, curator of arms and
armor at the Metropolitan Museum,
has to answer a lot of questions. Pee -
plant want to know how strong Rich-
ard Coeur de Lion was compared to
Jack Dempsey and whether a knight
in armor could get on his horse un-
aided. The latter question is easy:
some of the boys in the 15th and 16th
century were able, while wearing a
full suit of steel, to vault over their
chargers.
Suits of armor weigh from 50 to
100 pounds, and physically fit a man
of to -day can get around quite hand-
ily in one. Mr. Williac H. Riggs, who
gave his armor collection to the Mus-
eum in 1913, once wore a suit of it
to a ball in Paris. He wore the thing
all evening, but reported that it seem-
ed to grow heavier as the night went
on. Special underclothing with thick
padding has to be worn, -and once you
get everything set right, you can sit
down or lie down and get up with
ease. The mann fault with armor is
that it is badly ventilated and you get
awfully hot dancing.
Much of the armor at the Metro-
politan is a couple of sizes too small
for the average American. Knights
of old, particularly Italians, were
squatty and bandy-legged men; des-
pite legend. they were probably not
as strong as American football play-
ers.
Genuine pieces of old armor ate
still turning up and dolleeters are
constantly on the lookout for them.
Easily the greatest 'prize remaining
undiscovered is Joan of Arc's armor.
Albert Bigelow Patine, who sapent six
v ars in Prance writing her life,
thinks a s stematie search might, gltt turn
it up in some 13urgitirdian cellar or
* * *
We never knew before that Cartier
sold suspenders. Diamond tiaras we
suspected them of, but not bra:es. It
shows how little we knew. A Cartier
catalog has come to hand, and one
of the items is suspenders. Of course
they cost $45 and are gold -mounted,
but presumably they do what they're
supposed to do—gold beingan ex-
tremely reliable metal. With the
stock market the way it is, it is warm-
ing to think that there are still men
who can afford to pay $45 to keep
their pants up.
If you are troubled with burning ir.
ritations, Kidney or Bladder Weak-
ness, scanty' elimination, frequent an-
noyance day and night; swollen feet
or ankles and pains in the back, low-
er abdomen or down through groins
-you should try the amazing value
of Dr. Soi.{,thworth's "Uratalbs" and
see what a wonderful difference they
make! If this grand old formula of
a well known physician brings you
the swift comfort it has brought to
others, you surely will be thankful
and very well pleased. If it does not
satisfy, the druggist that supplied you
is authorized to return your money
on the first box purchased. At all
good drug stares.
* * *
Through our connections with the
underworld, a story about Al Capone's
doings last winter has finally arriv-
ed. One day a large touring car drew
up before one of the smart sports
shops and from it four men descend-
ed. Two of them entered the shop
and halted, with 'a kind of military
precision, just inside the door. The
other two stopped outside the door
with equal precision. By the time
the salesladies had been frightened
nearly out of their wits a fifth man,
Capone himself, walked quickly into
the shop, and 'bought a pair of water -
wings.
* *
The American language: "Now
what's the name?" asked the clerk in
a camera shop as he accepted a pack-
age of films from a customer.
"Boyd." said the customer.
"Ah," asked the clerk eagerly, "any
relation to the explorer?"
And also: A governess is striving
to improve the pronunciation of her
charge, a small boy whose parents
recently transplanted themselves from
Indiana to East Sixty-second Street.
Broadening the young man's "a" is
her principal difficulty. Not long ago
she came upon him shouting out of
the window at a neighbor's child,
"You big sap!" "William!" she cried,
in horror. The little boy looked guil-
ty. He undertook to correct him-
self. "You big sahp!" he shouted out
;f the window.
THE SOW THISTLE FIGHT; SOME
PRACTICAL INVESTIGATIONS
In order to get more definite infor-
mation on the control of sow thistle,
some co-operative work was done dur-
ing the past year by the Ontario
Agricultural College, the Crops and
Markets Branch of the Department
of Agriculture, and Mr. W. D. Hislop,
a farmer near Stratford, Ont. Part
of Mr. Hislop's farm was very badly
infested with sow thistle, so it made
a good place for the experiment. In
all, four plots of about two acres each
were used, and on these the effects of
several methods of cultivation as well
as the effects of fertilizer were tried
out.
Definite conclusions cannot be
drawn from a one-year test but the
plots gave some very interesting in-
dications.
One one plot an effort was made to
grow two successive crops of buck-
wheat in one season hi the hope of
completely smothering out sow this-
tle. The first crop was seeded on
May 9th and plowed under as a green
manure crop about the first of July.
The second crap was seeded soon af-
terwards, but on account of the dry
weather made slow growth, and even
with a very reasonable fall did not
mature. There was, therefore, no
crop return from this plot. and it is
doubtful whether two crops of buck-
wheat can be procured in on'e year.
There was, however, a very material
reduction in the amatint of sow this-
tle.
On two other plots, a crop of mixed
grain was grown in 1930. One of
these plots had been diseed in Sep-
tember and ,plowed. in Oetabsr•, 1929,
whi'l'e the other had been plowed' in
July and cultivated in August, 1929.
A crop of mature grain was taken
from each of these plots in 1930. The
ane, plowed in Jui%r and' cultivated in
August had only about half as much
the time, purchasing a newspaper, and
't was during her ten-minute absence
that the murder was oomumitted. Re-
turning from her errand the servant
found a young man named Adams
at the Gilchrist door, ringing the bell.
He wasfrom. fl He and
f mn then at 'below.
his sisters had heard a noise above
and a heavy fall, and he had been
sent upstairs to ascertain what had
happened. The servant opened the
door with her key. Then as they hes-
itated on the threshold, a man ap-
peared from within, who approached
them 'pleasantly, seemed about tro
speak, but instead passed them and
rushed down the stairs. In the din-
ing room the body of Miss Gilchrist
was found, bhe head 'brutally beaten
in and covered with a rug.
In spite of the fact that Miss Gil-
christ was the possessor of a valuable
collection of jewelry, robbery would
appear not to have been the motive
for the murder, since all thaL•.was.
missing was a diamond brooch worth
possibly e50. A box of papers had
been broken open and the contents
saw thistle, and yielded' almost twice scattered. The description of the
as much grain as the ane diseed in man seen by Adams and Helen Lam -
September and plowed in October. bie was not particularly good; they
In addition to this it may be said were in some disagreement; and it
that 400 pounds per acre of 2-12-6 was not at all the description of Os -
fertilizer was applied to half of each car Slater, a German Jew, who was
plot. On all plots there was a very ultimately arrested and condemned
large increase in yield of grain where for the crinis.
the fertilizer was used, as well as a The apprehension of Slater came
noticeable weakening and decrease in about because he had pawned a diem -
number of sow thistle plants. and brooch just before starting for
America. He was arrested in New
York and returned to Glasgow, where
it was discovered beyond question of
doubt that the brooch in question had
been in his possession for years and
never had belonged to Miss Gilchrist.
The public had lost its head. how-
ever. and the police were in a similar
state. Slater was poor. and without
friends. His morals were shown not
to have been of the highest, and
Scottish virtue was shocked. The,
description of the man seen by Ad-
ams and Lambie WAS amended to fit
Slater. He proved a clear alibi, but
as his witnesses were his mistress and
his servant girl, it was not allowed.
No attempt was ever made to show
a connection betwen Slater and any-
body in the house occupied by Mis;
Gilchrist. He was a stranger in
Glasgow. .At the trial he was not
too well defended, and the Crown
ultimately won the conviction—under
Scottish law-.-lby a vote of nine to
six. Slater was condemned to death,
the scaffold was erected, and two days
before the day set for the execution
the sentence was commuted to life
imprisonment. He was serving his
term when Arthur Conan Doyle be-
came interested in his plight.
In Sir Arthur's 'brilliant pamphlets,
"The Case of Oscar Slater," there is
all the fascination of a tale from
Sherlock Holmes. Sir Arthur ques-
tions whether the murderer was af-
ter the jewels at all.
"When he reached the bed room, ho
did not at once seize the watch and
rings which were lying openly expos-
ed on the dressing table. His atten-
tion was given to a wooden box, Were
the papers his object, and the final
abstraction of one diamond brooch a
mere blind?" He remarks on the
fact that the murderer knew enough
to go straight to a spare bedroom
where the jewels and papers were
kept, and points to a line of investiga-
tion: "What men had e'v'er visited the
house? The number must have been
very limited. What friends? What
tradesmen? What plumbers?"
Surely that is all good Sherlock
Ho'm'es, as—even more brilliantly,—
When you 'buy new china, soak it is this: "How did the murderer get
in cold water for twenty-four hours. in if Lambie is correct iri thinking
It will keep its glaze better and will that she shut the doors? I cannot
not crack so readily. get away from the conclusion that he
had duplicate keys. In that case all
becomes comprehensible. for the old
lady—whose faculties were quite nor-
mal—would hear the lock go and
would not be alarmed, thinking that
Lambie had returned before her time.
Thus she would only know her dan-
ger when the murderer rushed into
the room and would hardly have time
to rise, receive the first blow, and fall,
as she was found, beside the chair
upon which she had been sitting. But
if he had not the keys, consider the
difficulties. If the old lady had op-
ened the flat door her body would
have been found in the passage.
Therefore, the police were driven to
the hypothesis that the old lady heard
the ring, opened the lower stair door
from above (as can be done in all
Scotch flats), opened the flat door,
never looked over + the lighted stair to
see who was coming up, but returned
to her chair and her magazine, leav-
ing the door open and a free entrance
to the murderer. This is possible,
but is it not in the highest degree
improbable Miss Gilchrist was nerv-
ous of robbery and would not neglect
obvious precautions"
OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US;
Ontario Agricultural College Makes
Record at Chicago.
The following letter recently receiv
ed at the 0. A. C. from Mr. B. H.
Heide, General 'Manager of the In-
ternational Live 'Stock Exposition,
held annually in Chicago, should be
gratifying to the people of Ontario:
"The Ontario Agricultural College,
Guelph, Ontario.
Dear Sirs:—
I desire to take this opportunity to
congratulate and thank you for your
splendid educational exhibit at the re-
cent International Live Stock Ex -
pc sition.
You have earned such a reputation
for presenting outstanding exhibits
at previous Internationals that our
visitors take it for granted that you
will have something of unusual value
for them each year. I am sure that
they will all agree with me that you
fully lived up to their expectations at
the 1930 International, and that thou-
sands of farmers carried home prac-
tical information concerning the al-
falfa crop of Ontario.
Thanking you for your hearty co-
operation, I am
Yours very truly,
B. H. HEIDE: (Signed).:"
The above letter refers to a series
of four educational exhibits placed at
the International during the past four
years. The first one referred to the
use of Legumes (especially Hardy
Alfalfa) in Crop Rotations; the second
to the development and usefulness of
the Canadian Type of Bacon Hog;
the third to Canadian Lamb, and the
fourth to Hardy Alfalfa.
These exhibits have not only been
of •outstanding educational value at
the big Exposition, but have also been
a splendid medium of advertising for
Ontario products. The College is to
be congratulated on the very useful
work it is doing in, this connection.
sl
alit—trod seized' the Culprit,. 10110 be
(Sir Arthur) had, got no farther, than
the Holmesaan ooneiusion that the
man was left-handed 'and' had nails
in his Shoes.
Even in his spiritualistic investiga-
tions, which occupied lis later years,
Sir Arthur was at all tiniest, the de,
tective, applying the methods of his
fictive character to psychic phenom-
ena. To the end he was a remarkable
example of the scientific invetigator
tcuched with the curiosity and, cred-
ulity of a child --an admirable blend,
it would seem, for the perfect sleuth.
PROTESTANT GENERAL WHO
ru 'r?I
LED FRENCH ARMY
It will be said that Joffre was one
of these soldiers who became world
figures and w'ho, but for the Great
War, would never have been heard
outside their native land. A profes-
sional soldier all the days of his life,
he entered ,the French army by way
tf the engineeeing corps. As a young
officer he saw service in Cochin China
and the Sudan, and later was ap-
pdinted professor of military con-
struction, in which capacity he had
something to do with the military ed-
ucation of thousands of officers who
later were to serve under him. As
chief of the general staff, the first
Protestant to hold that office, he ere-
ated a sseneation in 1913 when after
the French manoeuvres and a tcur of
inspection he abruptly announced the
removal of five generals and two col-
onels. It was the first glimpse which
the French people generally had of
an officer who was a stern disciplinar-
ian and would tolerate neither inef-
ficiency nor political influence in the
army. In December, 1913, his retire-
ment was semi -officially announced,
but it was postponed. As late as
May 25, 1914, the news that King
George had conferred the Grand Cross
of the Victorian Order upon General
Joffre was contained in a tiny, unheed-
ed paragraph in the Landon Times.
Less than three months later his
name was to be on every tongue, for
he was in command of the, French
armies when they took the field, and
remained in charge until superseded
by a younger man. Pro'hably the evi-
dence is all available now for the ex-
perts to examine the .parts played 'by
the various generals and classify
them according to their abilities. It
is not a task for which the layman is
oom,petent. But laymen know enough
about the war to be convinced of the
fact that it was not the genius of
the allied leaders which saved the al-
lied cause in the first few months of
the war. It was the courage of the
allied ,soldiers. I•t was said a year or
so after the war began that the Ger-
mans were the professors of a new
science and that the allied generals
had to wait to learn it from them.
There is probably a good deal of
truth in this. After they had learn-
ed their lessons the .allied leaders
were able to point out the path of vic-
tory. While they were learning, the
blood and 'bones of the common sol-
diers bravely barred the way.
Yet if the allied' generals at the
'beginning of the war were faced with
a task too difficult for them, it was
the German generals who made the
more fateful blunders. The march of
the German armies through Belgium
and France to the Marne remains one
of the great military masterpieces
Considering the size of the armies
moved, it had no parallel in previous
histqry. Happily for the Allies the
blunders of allied generals in the first
important engagements were matched
and more than matched by German
blunders. Fate hovered over t h e
Battle of the 'Meuse, the first major
engagement in which the armies
under Joffre took part. Given genius
'on either side, the war, so far as the
western front was concerned, might
have ended there. The Germans were
outnumbered. The French were ill-
informed, and the French soldiers
were actually reluctant to fight. Had
they fought on the Meuse the way
they fought on the Marne the war
might have ended as swiftly as the
Franco-Prussian war,
This is not a German opinion. nor
the opinion of anyone who under-
rates the French armies. It is to be
found frankly expressed in the writ-
ings of Poineare. He was at that
time president, without real influence.
He was kept in the dark, for appar-
ently nobody was under obligation to
give him immediate news and listen
to his criticisms or orders. On August
23rd. the Battle of the Meuse was
fought. There was no news' in Paris.
The evening came and finally an at-
tache with a grave face Waited on
Poineare, who asked: "Is it defeat?"
The answer was "Yes, Monsieur le
president." Some time latejr Poin-
All in all the document rings with care had an interview with Joffre
the inflections of 'Holmes himself. who was raging. He said that he 'had
However, it was to no immediate experienced the bitterest disappoint -
purpose. The novelist's newspaper ment of his life. The French sol -
campaign stirred England and even diers, though outnumbering the Ger-
brought about another government mans, had not shown in open country
commission to inquire into the affair; the offensive qualities that had been
but nothing came of it, and Slater expected of them. This had made
was allowed to languish in prison. necessary a total revision of his plan
There, for years; the unhappy at- of campaign, he said. "We are con -
fair rested. From time to time, as demndd to a defensive. Our aim
Slater^s incarceration lengthened, ef- must be to last as long as possible in
forts were niede to reopen the case, order to weary the enemy"
and Sir Arthur's own labors were un-
remitting, but it was 19 years after
the conviction before his efforts, were
suecesscful. Then, at long last, Slater
was released—a short two years ago,
in July, of 1928. According to news-
paper reports, he accepted at govern -
men offer of $30,000 es compensation
for his wrongs; then, with strange in-
gratitude, refused to repay a sem of
money—$1500—guaranteed by Doyle
before the retrial at which the prise
mere was acquitted. Slather, smoking
a large cigar at a Brighten hotel, af-
ter a couple of rounds of golf, mere-
ly shrugged when asked for the re-
payment. "I cannot pay," he said.
"All my money is invested and though
I made $10,000 from newspaper art-
icles after, my release, Doyle did
nearly as well."
Minor eases were presented fre-
quently for Sir Arthur's solution, and
it was often his pleasure to put his
wits to work on them, usually with
success, /hit sometimes he was un-
successful. He relates 'with great
gusto, in his autobiography, how, on
the occasion of a burglary within a
stone's throw of his own home, the
village constable—with no theories at
* * *
To Freshen the Garbage Can.
To freshen the garbage can after it
has been emptied, burn some old
newspapers in it. This will remove
any grease, it will dry out the can
and leave it without odor, an advant-
age when the garbage can nest be
kept in the house.
THE REAL SHERLOCK HOLMES
The greatest detective of the mod-
ern world is dead at last. Sherlock
Holmes has gone upon his final quest,
the most mysterious of all his strange
adventures.
There can be little doubt that the
real Holmes was Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle himself. In innumerable ways
throughout a life of extraordinary
service the novelist demonstrated the
truth of the assertion. From first to
last—as student, physician, writer,
spiritualist, and prophet of the war
—the was always the private detective,
the seeker after hidden truths, the
hound of justice upon the trail of in-
justice and official apathy.
To be sure, he has told us, time
and again, that the model for the
immortal detective was Dr. Joseph
Bell, of Edinburgh, his one-time in-
structor in medieine; but Bell was
only the suggestion. Latent in Doyle.
him'se'lf, was all that went into the
making of Sherlock Holmes.
In the circumstances, and after the
tales had become known, it was in-
evitable that the author of the
Holmes sage would be called upon to
enact the role of his fictional char-
acter, and not infrequently he accept-
ed the implied challenge. Twice in
his career he undertook cases requir-
ing heavy call upon his time and en-
ergies, because he believed that jus-
tice had not been done. The cases
of George Edalji and Oscar Slater
were notorious in their day; and the
thunder of Doyle's denunciation cross-
ed the Atlantic.
In the first of these cases Sir Ar-
thur secured the release from prison
of a young man who had been given
a seven-year sentence for the crime
of horse -maiming. By showing, in a
series of articles based en his study
of the records of the case, that the
police, "all pulling together and
twisting things to their end," had
convicted Edalji on incredibly weak
evidence, Sir Arthur brought about
the appointment of a 'government
committee which reviewed the case
and gave Edalji his freedom.
The 'Slater ease, the celebrity of
which was greater, had for its vic-
tim it 'Mies Marion Gilchrist, an el-
derly spinster living in Glasgow. She
was murdered in her flat on the 21st
of Deeember, 1903. Her servant, Hel-
en Lambie, was out of the place at
If the French armies had then
shown the quality which later was
to make them the admiration of the
world, it ,seems probable that they
could have inflicted upon the Ger-
mans at the Meuse a defeat which
would have paralyzed their whele
campaign. and .perhaps forced them to
retire to bhe Rhine line of fortifica-
tions. At the 'Mame, again under
Joffre, the Germans were foiled when
they seemed on the point of march
ing into Paris and puttying the French
out of the war. ,according to their or-
iginal plan. Jaffre himself, was seen
and heard by many Canadians. They
will agree that in appearance he was
the ideal soldier. a man of the Hin-
denburg type, solid,,taeiturns Tender.
heath a forbidding exterior there was
a warm heart and a gift for comr'ade-
shin that endeared him to the officers
end men who came into contact with
him. 'He categht the puibile imagine -
tine, more than did Foch. It was up-
on him that the French people be-
stowed' the loving diminutive "papa."
and Prance to -day mourns him es it
to rnii.ned: 'Clenne'tfcea'u, "the Father of
Victory;"
515
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