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The Brussels Post, 1920-4-15, Page 2Buying a Second -Hand Car. The average man runs to two ex- tremes in buying a used car. He is either absolutely ignorant in regard to motor ear troubles, or is one of those experts whose. knowledge ,is, in his own estimation, far ahead of any other mune knowledge. Such men are ttsually ;he easiest victims of the used -car sharper. On the other hand there are men who frankly admit they! know practically nothing about an automobile and that they must rely upon the judgment of the pian who is selling the car. Such men usually xeceive fairer treatment and more A crank -ease filled with oil can make its flinty streamers stretching out mil• consideration from any sort of dealer the engine run quieter than usual. lions of miles into space. than does the man who professes to The electrical equipment of a car may There has been much puzzlement know it all. be doctored until it will demonstrate about the nature of the corona. It When a ,non buys a used car he very satisfactorily. It is even pos- was long surmised 'to be an electrical phenomenon of some sort. But now it is known to be nothing of the kind. It is a vast dust cloud thrown out by WHAT MADE OUR WINTER SO SEVERE '"! DUST CLOUDS AROUND had been newly painted; nevertheless, the top was badly daunaged and unfit for use. It is well to remember that a man's reputation as a dealer is worth much If you are intending the purchase of n used ear. It is also well to remem- ber that you are buying the future service of the cur and not what it has done in the past. A car may have its numbers chang- ed so that it will appear newer than it is. The addition of ground cork to the gears will snake the gears run smoother than they otherwise would, THE SUN. kielting up an unusual quantity of ash dust, Effect of Volcanic Dust. The greater the quantity et dust that veils the eun, Ill0 Ines heat we get from that source, Thus the amount of tettdelivered upon the earth caries, elven so• wo would uhruys be plenty 1 wast enough if it were not tot vol - eaale dust in our own atmosphere. Iivt now and then a mountain seine. When Sun Spots Are1�:uincr- I where• blows its head off, throwing no- oks the Weather on the 1 body knows how many cubic utiles of titles, of course, quickly hell, but fur What has made this winter so SO- mensc quantltiee of line ash rctnutttt vere? Why the long -continued cold? suspended at an elevation of forty or And why was last winter oxceptioual• lift, miles, requiring' perhaps two or ly warm? Um years to reach the ground. In tlto tueantime, they veil the sun .end Dust is the reason. shut off much of its heat. 10 you have ever seen an eclipse of After the great outburst of Krakatoa the sun, you have had an opportunity (a mount.alnoas island between ,l'ava to view the wonderful "solar corona,"and Sumatra), In 1883, there were three years of cold, i The fatuous cold year, 1816—called i the "year without a number," "poverty I year," and "1500 and froze to death" —followed the nighty catastrophe of t Mount Tomboro, on, the island of Sura- baya, east of Java. That explosion killed 56,000 people and blew up so much dust that for three clays there was pitchy darkness for a distance of 300 miles, Instances of the kind might be mul- tiplied, Suffice it to say that one or more cold years invariably follow a great volcanic outburst, no matter where it may occur, and the low tem- perature extends to all parts of the world. Earth is Cold. aspen into the air. The coarser par - should remember that there are sible to demonstrate the car on bat - plenty of ways that a car may be teries instead of en the magneto. doctored. The paint may be good, Skilful handling may cause a car to for a good painter can make almost' perform in a credible manner upon the sun—bright in the sunshine. any old ear look respectable. The the smooth city pavement when it I[ it were not for this solar dust, obstructing the rays, we should get much more heat from the sur. What we call sun spots are tremen- dous fiery storms on the sun. They throw out vast quantities of ash dust. Consequently the weather on the earth may be expected to cool when sun- spots are exceptionally numerous. It is likely to be warm when sun spots are few. This, in the opinion of scientists, is the true explanation ot the influences of sun spots on our weather. top and seat covering may be re- would scarcely pull itself on a s dressed at a slight expense; this is grade on heavy country roads, perfectly fair and makes the car sell In buying the used car the abso- to a better advantage, but it may also lately reliable dealer is the only man cover defects that make such pro- to consider. There are quite a few cedure less fair. bargains in used cars, but many of Paint, like charity, covers a multi- the cars would be expensive as gifts, tude of defects, if not actual sins, When possible, it is better to buy a and the man who buys a second-hand small used car of an old model rather car on the strength of its paint alone than the large one of the sante year. stay be in for a peck of trouble. For- Large cars are not so economical of tanately, the majority of second-hand gasoline and oil as smaller ones. An dealers are not so honest, and some old car very likely has an old make of buyers are ignorant. carbureter on it. These old carbur- car dealers are honest; yet some eters, while perfectly good for the Paint on the radiator often covers grade of gasoline in use a few years defects. The radiator may have been treated with compounds to stop leaks and hide damaged 'places. Paint on ago, are of little value when the low grade fuel of to -day is used. If the car has been rebuilt, watch the engine and castings may cover a carefully for loose connections in the weld or a crack. A man in my owzo wiring, and for loose nuts and bolts. neighborhood bought a used car that Go over the car carefully every week had a welded cylinder that had been and tighten these, for it is possible skilfully covered with paint. It gave for even the most careful workman trouble in less than six months, but to leave out cotter -pins. Hemayfail he had no recourse. Another man to get everything just as tight as it bought a car whose top was down should be. Besides, these things have and skilfully covered with a hood. He a way of working loose, and preven- did not suspect the top, for the car tion is better than a break any time. Mystery of Pisa's Leaning At first he refused to go. Arsene Houssaye, however, overpersuaded Tower. him and accompanied him—in order, as one imagines, to make sure that he did not drop into the Cate de la Re- direction of fourt=_en feet, which is genes on the way. He had avoided supposed to be two feet wtthiu the inebriety and was well dressed and tetter of gravity. Thr:, erection of t.liis well groomed, but his temper was the archtterteral mem l ems begun in sullen temper of a man who is doing 1174, :cud tine cOtapleted in 1350. It something he thoroughly dislikes. It is lett feet logit tine fifty feet in di- exploded when Baron James de Roths- anmie„ 011,; the• wails are thirteen feet child strolled into the empress's bon sliinlc. Spivei r lir: with 350 steps are Wait. in tee inside '.ails, The tower ]tar e;elet ,rc'irs, each supported by ilii,1 mere!! ct;lunlle. The top story is t,i 1!: t• ttuu those below, and is bet n:-ct:y ;ere:, laid the heaviest one 00 the chime of ,e:ven bells. weighing 12;00 pounds, is Lurg 00 the high side of the toar Mary writete have diseussed tate reason for tite leaning tower. Some assert that 11 leans because of un- "Madam," he said, "you are as stable fottndatiune, ante one wrote that charming as you are beautiful. I am the inclination had itiereased a foot in very much pleased to read my work in the preseuce of your majesty, but no power on earth shall induce me to read it in the presence of Monsieur de Rothschild!" And he stuck to his point so stubbornly that the emperor himself had to tell the banker to go array. Gibbon, a Natural Gymnast. The ieauing tower of Pisa, built of pure white Cart•art ntcrble, has an in- doir unannounced. "Who is that man?" the poet asked sharply; ant/ the banker was pre- sented to him. "Very well," he said. "I sha'n't road any more. I did not invite M. de Rot.hschild:' "Pray continue, :Monsieur de Mus- set," said the baron. But the poet rolled up his manuscript and turned to the empress with flashing eyes. the lace 100 years, The hanging of the heaviest bell on the high side has been used as an ar- gument for tate theory of unstable routicttl'1118. Other writers assert that it was huilt at the angle at which it Is now sten, and is the most successful • avchiteetetrai whim ever eonetructet, in that it has attracted thousands to see 1t s1to would never have visited Pisa but for the tower. There ase several other leaning towers it. holy, and in the nearby and very beautiful cathedtai there are some remarkable architectural varia- tions froth established standards ap- parent in cut -stone work, and the in- toiler galleries are so made as to pro- duce increased perspective effects, makitt;i it seen[ to be an attractive arohfteetural freak, Independent Poet. Literary men under the seccnd em- pire In France were by no means un- aware of their own merits. They did not truckle even to royalty itself. There is told tin amusing stcory in this relatipn of a visit of Alfred de Musset to the Tuileries, where he was invited to read his poems before the Empress Eugenie, The gibbons—native to southern Asia and the Malay archipelago—are the smallest of the manlike apes, be- ing only three feet high when they walk erect, as they commonly do, They are marvelous acrobats, fling- ing themselves long distances from tree to tree, and often turning somer- saults in the air as they do so. A party of them seen traveling, in this fashion through the forest presents a remarkable spectacle, It is only at night that they come to the ground and venture into open country. They drink by dipping their fingers in water and then licking them. It is stated on excellent authori- ty that mother gibbons have been seen to carry their babies to a stream and wash their faces. The Chinese begin dinner with the dessert and end it with the soup. There is also in some years a great deal of volcanic dust • in our atmos- phere—enough at tines to shut out as much as one-fifth of the heat we ought to get from the sun. If it were not for the great reserve stores of heat in the circulating currents of the oceans, we should be likely at such periods to freeze to death. Summed up in a word, it is ash dust in the sun's atmosphere and vol- canic dust in our own atmosphere that, varying in quantity from year to year, together influence importantly the temperatures on the earth, making some winters colder than others and some summers warmer than others. Ice Age Nearly Over. As for the prospect of cooling by voleauic dust, predictions are easily based upon news of big volcanic out- bursts, such as occur every few years somewhere in the world. It does not matter much where the volcanic explosions take place. If they threw up much dust, the latter will soon be carried by atmospheric currents to all parts of the globe, veil- ing the sky of every continent, The effect of an outburst iu Japan is soon manifest in Canada. If great volcanic explosions were five or six times as frequent as they are, the veil of fine ashes suspeuded high in the atmosphere would remain continuously there, and temperature would be so far reduced that before long another glacial epoch might be upon us. A sheet of ice thousands of feet thick might spread over North America, as It did only about 30,000 years ago,, As a matter of fact, that glacial epoch has not yet come to an end. We are stili living in it, although it is passing away. The ice is slowly re- treating, but it has not departed. A Baboon Switchman. From time to time numerous amaz- ing stories have been told of the sa- gacity of members of the monkey tribe; but the following account is so particularly extraordinary that it would cause doubt in the minds of the most credulous were it not told on the authority of Mr. W. C. Scully, The most remarkable instance of simian in- telligence that bus come under my personal observation, says Mr. Scully, was that of a baboon that actually did regular duty as a switchman at an important railway junction at IIitenhage, in the Cape Province, South Africa, The animal was owned by the man who worked the switches, but who had lost both legs in a railway acci- dent. On the platform, in his charge, were six levers, to each of which was given a name. He sat in a little wood- en cabin. with his understudy, and when a lever required shifting he would call out its name. At once the baboon would swing the lever over. After the baboon had been thoroughly Instructed, it was never known to stake a mistake. In the morning it ran its master down to the scene of his work on a little hand car, which it shifted from the rails and stowed away. Most of the journey to the switch was down- grade, and on reaching the slope, the baboon would spring on the vehicle and evince the liveliest satisfaction as it skimmed along by gravitation, At night it replaced the ear on the rails and, when its, master had taken his seat, pushed him home again. Occasionally the animal was brought to a certain hotel and induced to act as waiter. It would carry a large tray and serve the customers, but it in- sisted that its own portion should be placed oa the tray. On entering the roost where the guests were assemb- led It would set the tray down on the floor and consume its share, then walk with the tray from one guest to another. 1f anyone attempted to help Greenland is stili covered by un ice himself from the. tray before the ba - cap. All of Antarctica (a cantiuent I boon had finished its portion, it would nearly as big as Canada) is ON become violently enraged and scatter by a sheet ice. These ore the two the contents in every direction, The great glaciers that remain. But there remarkable animal died after a lin- are scattered remnants on many .gering illness induced by a blow on nlounteiretope, which still have an the back of the head that was inflict - Arctic flora and fauna, ed by a drunken man with an iron We may expect, therefore, that eli bar, mates all over the world will become steadily, though very gradually, warm - What the World Needs en In the intervals between glacial W epochs there are long periods of The Bishop of Carlisle, in a recent warmth everywhere, lasting tens of message to his diocese, hit the nail thousands, perhaps hundreds of thou- on the head very nicely when he said: sands of years. Once upon a time "I am persuaded that until worst and Alaska had temperatures like those of love are firmly established as the Alabama to -day, In the neighborhood foundations of human life and society of Quebec City, and even much fur- the world can never be a happy world, ther north, are found beautiful fossil remains. As everybody knows, corals cannot live except in warm waters. It has been observed by astronomers that the corona of the sun is much more extensive at times when there are many and big sun spots, This means simply that the solar orb is NY CERTA►NLY MRS. KELLY! SEND TME BABY RIGMT OVER— I'LL BE ONLY 100 GLPtP To MiND NIM nor individuals be restored to the image and similitude of God. An um loving or an idle Christian is as much a contradiction in terms es an unlov- ing or idle Christ A maxi- mum wage is a beneficial idea, but a maximum of excellence in work is an Ideal more beneficial still. RipplitteRhg Mks The Garden. N vas' conunon wcrltday duds to the garden I repair, and I Plant same lueolous spuds and some baneleee nutmegs there. And I see my neighbors gay born the costly gasoline, while I plant my bales of hay, end the early Lima bean. And they go, all printed with cash, to the moving picture shows•, while I sow succotash, Brussels sprouts, and things like those. They'll be buying costly eats (and the price will matte them cry), while I pluck my home grown beets, and consume the rhubarb pie. I've a little plot of soil, fifty by a hundred feet; there'll I raise, by honest tail, all the things I wish to eat. I'll have pumpkins I can sell, squashes till you cannot resit, and young onions that will smell much like Araby the blest. I'll have things to boil and bake, I'1.1 have cauliflower to spare, and my cabbage -heads will take premiums at the county fair. 1'11 have growing greens enough all my family to keep, and the Cost of Living stuff will not rob me of my sleep. If the boys would fall in lino, raising garden sass this year, they might drop the plaintive whine, "All we oat is so blamed dears"' VIlf MOW The Disabled Soldier. These fines were written by a Con- gregational minister in Sydney, Aus- tralia, when the first Anzac wounded had started for. home, Danny Morny's coming home— Starting home to-morrow— Face the the tint of washed out loam, Boot he had to borrow; Got one leg instead of two, One eye's lost its living blue; Arm—a dum-dum chortled through; Coming home ,to -morrow, Yet he's. twice the man who went Marobing in December, Though he's coming white and bent, With a wooden member; For he's been where things are done, Things of heaven and hell in one, Things that made the blazing sun Quiet to remember. Treat him, them, just as like— Good old one -eyed Danny, He is not the man to strike— He will not "ca' canary." But be sure you take this, too, Law it is, and stark and true— All God's years will deal with you As you deal with Danny. Gazelles, though extremely shy, can be easily domesticated if captur- ed when young. Peacocks were regarded by the ancient Romans as one of the table's greatest delicacies, Never Trap During the Breeding Season. Many a novice in the trapping game, tend sometimes u thoughtless old- timer, will trap breeding females and take the pelts, and each feels that he has done no Marne. One is carried away Perhaps by his enthusiasm, an- other by the fear that some other fel- low may get ahead of him. But under whatever delusion they may labor, they are committing the penny wise but pound foolish axiom of the outdoors. Trapping during breeding seasons does not pay, and the man who traps then, robs himself. He kills au ani- mal that should be allowed to live and propagate its kind. Takes Smut Out of Wheat. Wheat smut may be eradicated by hot-water treatment, and the only dif- floulty is the labor of bathing the grain, An Indiana county agent has greatly simplified the process by ar- ranging a galvanized -iron drum of 5-bu. capacity, on a horizontal shaft, so that It can be lowered into a water tank. After soaking for five hours in cold water, the wheat is placed in the drum and bathed for one minute in water at 120 deg. F. Then it Is lifted out, the ivater heated to 129 deg„ and the bath resumed for 10 minutes. After partial drying, the swollen grain is planted with an oat drill, The Gift of Fo ley to Science Along the road that leads to know- ledge are scattered many fake -shops, which as a rule do a flourishing and profitable business. For the chief weakness of the human mind. is credulity. But, by a curious paradox, the fool- ishness factories every now and then produce something that proves of sub- stantial usefulness to science, For example,. in the New England States many years ageea man named Perkins invented what he called a "magnetic tractor," for drawing dis- eases out of folks. It was shaped like a pair of compasses, with one leg of silver and the other of copper. When the two points wore passed over the afflicted part of the body the in- strument was supposed by some elect- rical means to alleviate or care the, trouble. - The "tractors" undoubtedly did benefit many people; also Perkins, Who sold them for $5 apiece. They made such a sensation that scientists took the matter up, investigating it thoroughly and proving that invagina- tion did the work, Blindfolded per- sons were relieved of pain by the con- tact of a couple of pointed sticks of wood, which they mistook for the in- strument in question. The whole, business was plant fool- ishness.. Nevertheless, the interest it awakened led to the first opening tip of the field of electro -therapy, dia. oover•ies i11 which have proved 0f such immense importance to medical science. To -day, as the newest contribution to pseudo -science, we have the im- plantation of goats' glands in human tissues, which is declared to have a "REG'LAR FELLERS"—By Gene Byrnes THANK `fou so MUC11 MRS. DUt p,N, You DONT KNOW V'IOW 1 APPRECIATE -THIS JIMMIE., GO tt 51DF. AND ReicK MRs. KELLY'S BAI3Y -o SLEEP rejuvenating effect. One man who submitted himself to it writes: "There was an immediate improvement in my entire system, and that vigor has con- tinued. I am now nearly fifty years old, but I feel as young as I did in my twenties," - Other current news relates to the discovery of an elixir ot life ---a Here - don of the thyroid gland which pro- mises to restore youth and extend the term of human life. Most of this is really old stuff. It harks back to the famous experi- ments of Doctor Brown-Sequard, who more than twenty years ago was con- vinced that he had obtained from ani- mal glands (not the thyroid) a true elixir of life. Doctor Brown-Sequard's discovery was proved to be an absurdity. Never- theless, the interest awakened by It led directly to investigations that re- vealed a whole realm of facts in re- gard to the so-called "physiologic clregs, which have proved so wonder- fully valuable as medicines. Certain glands in the human body secrete substances, which are true drugs and which aro necessary to the physical economy, controlling certain functions.. Thus, for example, a se- eretion of the "adrenal" gland (on top of each kidney) governs blood pres- sure. In medicine (derived from. the corresponding ,gland of the sheep) it is used to control blood pressure and toprevent bleeding in surgical opera - Nona. Other important uses are found for drugs derived from the thyroid (in the throat), the pituitary gland (in the brain), the pancreas, etc. But none of them renews youth, ALL RIGHT MOM – GtIMM- ?HE RocK La Values. All our lives we must be pickers and amassers, and in the latter part of our days we shall be extraordinary It we do not loop back ruefully upon many a failure in the earlier years to See what was futile and what was worth while, The chief' and of all the les- sons taught us then was to provide 115 with right principles of choice, whether the choosing was of a career, or of a friend, or of a policy, or of an act. In the retrospect over the way that we cannot take a second time we wonder what would have happened if at the forst we had taken the other road. Were eirenmstancos too touch for us? Or, in the freedom of the will, did we matte the wrong decision? We often blame on fate what was our own. fault. Wo do not caro to admit that [hero was a flaw in character, Willing to justify ourselves, wd try to save our self-esteem with plausible pretexts that may deceive others; but we cannot deceive ourselves. One man's scale of values is not an. other's. It is strange to find how much painful concern is given by the materialist to perishable cotmnoditieL He takes his pride in the house he built, the business Ise reared, the pos. sessions wherewith he enringed him- self; imself; and he deems his life a success because of the money that he trade. To the goal of material prosperity his whole career was pointed, and all his choices were made. Ile sought the friendship of those who could be use- ful to him for his advancement. He took every step with circumspection from a coolly calculating worldly point of view, Another has different standards of values. Ile does not particularly caro to amass a fortune, It money comes to him in honorable ways he will not score its power. But his first interest is in the higher purposes for which a man may be—and so often is—the thoughtful steward of affluence. The day has passed for indiscriminate de- nunclaion of the rich. They may be public servants, too; they may be consecrated men. But their allude must dwell on manhood as a thing ahead of money and on public good rather than on their private goods. The ratan the world admires and hon- ors is the one who—never courting adulation, never halting to slake a thirst for notoriety --has served the race, Protecting Birds. We all love to wake up in the morn- ing and hear the birds twittering and singing and chirping about our win- dows. Did you ever stop to think that there is a mama why the songbirds build near the house? They deliberately seek the safety of buildings whore human beings 'reside, so as to escape from their enemies and the squirrels and the craws. You know the crows will destroy the eggs and oftentimes will eat the young, tender birds unless they are driven away. Sparrows are not as well-mannered as they might be, for they will watch sometimes and as soon as the robins fly away from the nest they have matte they will take possession and re- arrange the inside of tite nest to snit themselves until oftentimes the origin- al owners become so discouraged they abandon the nest and go elsewhere. Another enemy which the songbirds have to guard against is the house cat, You know pussy has a special fond- ness for bird flesh and she feels that the mare songbirds there are the bet- ter is the hunting season. Yet this is hard on the birds and on us, too, for we coed the birds to cheer us up and to eat the insects and to devour the seeds of the weeds by the way- side, Besides, puss is just as fond of a nice fat mouse, and is also often- times generously fed In the ]tome kitchen, Do you want to do something to pro- tect the birds this slimmer? It is said that oats have a special dislike for barbed wire and that if four or live strands of it are wound around the tree trunk and the ands twisted at otto side site will not cross then[, Of course, this doesn't hurt the tree in the least and can be removed by simp- ly twisting the wire atter the little birds have left the nests. In the meantime the feathorea tenants among the branches will be safe from the de- predations of the neighborhood ori:,. Wise Men Say -- That 11 18 better to be short ot cash than short of character, That the man who gets the most of it may not get the best of it. That the Iran Who has no secrets from his wife has either no secrets or t10 wife, That patience and determintttlon tvill win for nest of us nine battles, out of ten. That it is a tine thing to have a good apielon of yourself, but it is a better thing to deserve the good opitlioll of others, That work hts'pirea, e111powet'e, glad- dens, produces, thrills. Worry tires, sours, widens, redaoes, kills, 1Vorls is the bnttt tnnt% Music's Effect on Monkeys. The effect of music on animals was once tested by a violiulst in It men- agerie. Tho influence of the violin was greatest on the puma, which became nuteli excited when quick time was played, but Was soothed by slower ltteaeuree, Waives showed an appreciative la. torost, lions and hyenas were terrified, leopards were unconeerttetl, and nt0n4 keys stared In wonder at tile pot. sonnet,