Loading...
The Brussels Post, 1920-5-6, Page 3, -+-. 9ClfCL<",S�'2r �.k��:�?: "� "''"'�Mrc r , p �„'� ,m�Zi '• /ft�i5 Important Mats for New Owners. There aro many owners who free quently are heard to say that they never bother with their cars at all, that the cars keep running and there- fore they don't intend to de any work on them, Owners of this sort usually find themselves after two or three gears with a car so badly worn that it .is hardly worth while going to the expenee of replacing parts. It would be just as cheap to junk -the car and get a new one. Even the owner who actually does no work, but who has the garage do it, should at least know the important things that need periodic doing. Most important of these is lubrica- tion. Every owner should know when to lubricate various moving parts and the kind of lubricant to use. A time may come when it is necessary for the owner to do some lubricating him- self and it is easier to learn how as you go along than it is to attempt to learn it all at once. It means that the lubricating chart in the instruction book should be practically memorized —that is, the various parts should be located and a mental note made of the kind of lubricant it is to get and how often it should receive it. While lubrication is perhaps the meet important matter for the new owner to know, it is not by any means the only one. Take for example the s'mple process of adjusting the fun; belt. How many owners are familiar with the fan adjustment and how many realize the utter helplessness of an owner who finds himself on the road with a steaming hot engine due to a locse belt. The adjustment in' nearly every instance, is so simple that u boy can do the work. Usually it means simply the loosening of a nut • and the shifting of the upper fan pul-! ley. But if you don't know how to do; that you will probably call a garage' mean if the engine is a persistent overltcater. Aces the owner realize that the interrupter points of the magneto or the battery distributer can be adjusted in a few minutes and that improper adjustment of these parts, dirt on the point, uneven points, may cause en -,l gine stoppage? Some owners do not bother to know where the interrupter points are.. Adjustment usually means loosening a small lint which controls one of the points. That is only one of the interrupter points is movable and it is held tightly in place by that nut. It requires a small wrench to make this adjustment and the wise owner always will have such a wrench in his pusseeeicn. The points when fully separated should measure about 1-32 r i' en inch between then. If they are ton close or Inc far apart the breast I willcome at the wrong time and mis-i firing And backfiring will result. Spark plug gaps may need to be adjusted and cleaned. An owner who never has seen the end of a spark plug or does not know the first thing shout the function •of the plug will not be able to do this, Ping gaps if too narrow will cause a weak spark to be produced. If the gap is too wide no spark at all will jump acroee the electrodes. Mislining on the road may be due to just such a cause. In the ordinary plug the adjustment is made by bending the ground elec- trode, An owner driving in billy country or in sections where the clutch is re- quired to do a lot of work Should know that; it is quite possible to burn out a clutch altogether in a few miles of rough going. If the owner does not know how to lubricate the clutch,. adjust it, clean the rubbing surfaces, or treat them to reduce slippage, he may have to remain on the road and wait for la car to tow him to a garage. The very impost tont matter of brake adjustment should bo one of the first things an owner should -learn about How would you like to get no response from the brake pedal or lever just as you see a long steep grade ahead of you ? Brakes may be adjusted at sev- eral places, at the band, sometimes on the operating rod, or at the pedal. The adjustment calls for a shortening of a lever or a rod, that is, its effective length is reduced. Turning of a wing nut of an ordinary nut at the brake band may be all that is necessary to get responsive brake action. Some owners have cars with one brake on the propeller shaft, which means the floor boards must be lifted to snake the adjustment. The turning of a forked member after it is loosened, or the simple nut adjustment may be all that is needed to make that brake hold. On many cat's a pump is used for cooling and it is quite possible that the engine may go dry because one of the packing nuts or glands bas come loose. This nut is packed with rope or special packing. The owner should know first that rope can be used, that any stuffing such as cloth or waste can be used ,in emergency, and second- ly, that the nut must not be turned up too tightly. It must be turned up just far enough to stop the leak, and. usually no wrench is needed to turn it that far. I have seen owners apply a wrench and turn until the nut was split open. Gasoline leaks, the gasoline feed system, the electrical system, are other points that the owner should know something about. Suppose as battery connection were loose or' broken, thee stopping the engine.! Under such circumstances you would have no lights nor the use of the starter, and if it happened on a dark night on a country road and you did not know how to correct it, you would be helpless. Yet making a battery connection or tightening a cable is as' easy as tying two pieces of string to-; gether. But the owner must know, also that cable ends must be clean. Such matters as these are not to be learned when trouble occurs, but be- fore that trouble comes up. Your in- struction book is a handy piece of literature and it should be read over carefully. The answer is: Learn and understand what keeps the car going, and attend to the vital parts if to nothing else. A Labrador Detective. Interesting detective methods were once employed to catch a thief who had been stilling deer that belonged to Dr, Wilfred T. Greenfell'e herd in Labrador. The thief's work was so skillful, Dr. Grenfell says in his auto- biography, that even though it was done under tho noses of the herders, there was no evidence to convict the guilty man. It happened, however, that while one of the herders was eat ig a piece of venison that the thief had not been able to carry off, his teeth met on a well -formed .22 calibre rifle bullet. Only three men on our coast had riles of this type, and the police seized all three guns. A piece of meat was now placed at a reasonable distance, also some hags of snow, flour, and so forth; and a number of bullets were fired into them; These bullets were then all privately marked and shuffled up. After mak- ing naking our own deductions, we arrested a man who lived twenty miles away. He brought witnesses and friends, LIP - numbly to impress the court, one of Whom vehemently protested that he knew the owner of the rifle and that he was never out of the house at the Lime the deer must have been killed. In court was a man who for twenty- seven years had hems agent in Labra- dor for the Hudson's Bay Company. He was called up, given the big pile of bullets and told to try by the groove sparks from which of the three rifles each had been fired. Wo then handed Irina the control bullet, andiso put it instantly on one of the piles, It was the pile that had been fired from the rifle of the accused. In testi- fying to clear himself, the suspected mart said that his rills had not been kept in his house but in the house of the vociferous witness, whom wo now arrested, convicted and condeanssed to pay two hundred dollars' flue or go to jail for six months. Protesting loudly, he,went to jail. He did not enjoy repairing roads for our benefit, while those "whowere Just as had as he" went free, and our jailer told him that tine others were laughing at bins for being caught; so a few days later he gave the whole plot away, On the strength of his testimony, four of his friends were also convicted. • COOKING WATER 13y C. A. Stephens. As Mr. 'Wright alto teacbar at our district echool to Maine, sat at Isis desk, setting copies in the writing books, one of the large boys in the back spat where Rufus Cummings sat threw grad -oast unarm It ]tit the mas- ter as -ter squarely on rho top of his head. Naturally Mr, Wright was angry, and, thinking that he had caught a glimpse of Rufua's arm in motion, he called hint out. "Give me your hand," he said, and, taking up his ruler, he began to ferule hint s0 severely that Rufus !molly jerked Isis hand away, Thereupon Mr. Wright seized Rufue by the collar, but in the scuffle that followed the master slipped, fell and struck his forehead against the stove. The bad bruise and burn that he got laid him up and closed the school for a week. The boy who had thrown the acorn was too much of a sneak to own up. On recovering, Mr. Wright summoned the school committee and had Rufus Cummings expelled from school. And that was not all. When Rutile brought his books home that night his sten- father, a stern, harsh man, gave him a severe horsewhipping. As a result of it all, Rufus ran away from home the following evening. Of course he ought not to have done so, but many things had been leading up to 1t, and he had not had fair play. Two days later he was seen in Portland, and all that we could find out about him was that he had shipped as a sailor on a bark, lumber laden, bound round Cape Horn for Valparaiso. That was twenty-five years ago, When one day a year or two ago I saw the name of Rufus Galen Cum- mins mentioned in a Melbourne, Aus- tralia, newspaper, as a candidate for a high office at Perth, it occurred to me that since Galen is an unusual name the man might possibly be our long -lost Rufus ; and on chance I wrote a letter to this Rufus Cummings. Three months passed, and then in reply to my letter I received a long and intensely interesting narrative. For sure enough it was our long -silent Rufus; and he had recently been elected to the office for which I had seen his name proposed. He began by telling me how glad he was to hear from his old Maine home. He bad never written, because he felt that he Left Maine under a cloud, and he doubted that anyone cared to hear from him. From Valparaiso he had gone on a whaler to the Australian whaling grounds. It happened that the vessel put in at the mouth of the Swan River, near Perth, for water and fresh food at the time of the gold rush to the Coolgardie region in the desert. Almost all the sailors on the whaler deserted; and at last the captain laid his vessel up and joined the gold. seekers himself. Rufus, now in Isis eighteenth year, set off with others. On the way he tell in with a prospector named Bas- sett, an Englishman, who gave Rufus his meals in return for the boy's lead- ing the two camels that carried Bae- sett's mining outfit, Since the only water in the desert was that of shallow sat% or alkaline )ekes, which had to be distilled before it could be tired, a part of the outfit consisted of a large sheet -iron furnace and caldron for condensing water, with a coil of.copper pipes, a cooling pan and a tank. 11 was in January, which is a sum- mer month in that southern part of the world, and the temperature usual- ly rose very high by noon; yet so chilling was the desert wind at night that the men had to burrow into the sand to keep warm. On the fourth day out Bassett set up his condenser on the shore of a salt lake where a grove of old dead guru trees offered fuel for the furnace; during that night he and Rufus distilled thirty gallons ofwater, moat of which the camels drank, Attracted by the sight of the fur- nace fire, other gold seekers with thirsty animals came to Bassett's camp and offered hips sixpense a quart, and oven a shilling a quart, for water, The trade proved so profitable that Bassett decided to remain at the lalto for a fete days, distilling water and selling it to those who had not brought along condensers. It was Rufus's job to out fuel for the furnace from the dead gun trees and to break a path through the dried, white, crusted mud of the lake shore for two hundred yards or more out of the shallow salt water, which he fetched in buckets for the caldron. Hard, trot work he found 1t under that broiling sun, During the second day that they cooked water, as they called it, a tragedy occurred that left Rufus alone at the salt lake. At nightfall three prospectors with a camel reached the lake and, consir'i to Bueeett's camp, begged for water. Bassett offered thou avatar at a shillia a quart, but g they loudly declared that the price was excessive. While they were an- grily disputing, the thirsty camel thrust its head into the tank and be- gan to drink. Bassett ordered them to take the beast away; and when the proepe0tors refused to do so, Bassett, who was a harsh, passionate man, rushed to the tent and, snatching up his carbine, shot the camel dead. A fight ensued, in the course of which one of the prospectors dealt Bassett a heavy blow over the head with a pick, When Rufus, who had been out at the lake, came up, Bassett lay there, dead. The three strangers coolly appropri- ated loth of Bassett's camels in place of the one Ise had shot, and as they proceeded on their way one of them intimated to Rufus that, if he valued his life, he bad better say nothing of what had happened. While Rufus stood there, bewilder- ed and not a little terrified four young Englishmen on their way to the mines with brumby ponies and an outfit came round the lake shore and asked for water. When they saw what had occurred, they asked Rufus to des- cribe Bassett's murderer, made note of the facts and told the bay that, if they could, they would certainly see that the men were brought to justice. While Rufus was kindling the fire to condense more water, the four new comers, who were prospectors of the better class, buried Bassett in the white -crusted mud, and one of them read the service over the grave, They also buried the camel. When Rufus had distilled enough water for their ponies they measured it out correctly and gave him sixpence a quart for it. "You better go on cooking water," one of them said to Trim at parting. "Water is the thing we need most here." - The dead guns trees made excellent dry fuel, and thirty of the old dead trees, some of them almost six feet in diameter, stood along the lake shore. But they were hard to cut; and .parties of prospectors, demanding water, cause up so frequently that Ru- fus had to work almost night and day and catch a nap when he could. As a rule, the gold seekers cheerfully paid the price that the young Englishmen had set. On several occasions some of the travellers of the rougher sort, guess- ing that Rufus had saved money, tried to rob him and ransacked his tent. But Rufus had hidden his grow- ing hoard of sixpences and shillings beneath the root of one of the old gum trees, at a distance from the tent, and in a large hole in the old tree stub he kept Bassett's carbine. When he suspected foul play, he ran thither and stood the would-be robbers off. Once out of spite some rough fellows kicked the condensing appat- atus about and temporarily disabled it; but the next party that came along helped hies put it to rights. When the supplies that Bassett had brought from Perth had given out. Rufus supplied his needs by exchang- ing water for canned meats, hard biscuit, coffee and sugar, with parties on the way to the mines. Rufus was at the salt lake in the desert for thirty-two months. They called the place Cui'nalpy, and as time passed it cense to be known all the way up the country frons Perth as the camp where water could be obtained. Very often the demand for water was greater than Rufus could supply, and it was always a hard task to clean the daily accumulations of ,salt and alkali from the caldron and pipes. At last he laid a pipe out over the salt flats to the lake and pumped water to the caldron, instead of carrying it in buckets. The really hard worit was cutting and fetching wood for the fire. It seems almost incredible, but Rufus as- serts that during the time he was cooking water he cut more than a hundred and fifty cords of that hard, dry gumwood, a stiff task for a young fellow, even though he was accustom- ed frons boyhood to plying an axe. Flo estimates that during the thirty- two mouths he meet have distilled al- together at least twenty thousand gal- 1 encu„pea Walt Masan Interruptions. IIAVE a bundred tasks to mind, a hundred useful chores; e I have the eight-day duel( la wind, the cat. to than outdoors. I'm planting rhubarb, that our pies your'll prtslse 1u glowing terms; and goon I'll have to swat the flies, and boil uncounted germs. And so it makes me tired and sad when some one takes my time, to boost some patent liver pad that retails for a dine. Oh, when the agent coshes along (you know how 'tis yourselves!) and springs his old accustomed song concerning six-foot shelves, and when I see him from his grip itis large prospectus draw, the cup of sorrow then I sip—there ought to be a law, For I have many things to do; I have to fix my lyre, and patch up the defective flue that spoils the kitchen are. I have to prime the cistern pump, and make the mower run; however briskly I may hump, I never will get done. And so it makes me tired and sick when I am asked to pause, and listen to some windy hick --there ought to be nine laws! lona of water, for which he had re- ceived more than two thousand pounds in English money, which he had sent to Perth for deposit. Ae one tragedy had left Rufus alone in the desert, another tragedy was the immediate cause of his leaving Cure- alpy. A Scotchman named McRae, on his way back to Perth from the mines, came to the place one night, ac- companied by two blacks leading four well -laden brumbies. McRae wanted water and camped near the condenser; Rufus noticed that he was well armed and that he appeared watchful. Late in the night Rufus was waken- ed by a shot, followed by two or three more, then shouts and groans. He sprang up, but on emerging from his tent he himself was fired on twice. As he ran for the hollow gum tree, where he kept his carbine, several other shots were fired and he heard the blacks calling out to each other. The outcries continued for some time. It was dark, and Rufus Judged it safer not to leave his post by hie kid- ders hoard or to mix in a quarrel of which he knew nothing. At daybreak, when all seemed quiet at the camp, he went back. There, to his horror, he found McRae and another white man of rough appearance lying dead; the blacks had apparently fled in alarm. From what came out later, it seems that a miner, who had had a quarrel with McRae at the mines, had followed hiss and attacked him. But McRae, though mortally wounded, had been able to shoat his assailant. Rufus thus found himself there alone with the bodies of two dead men; and that afternoon he buried them. In McRae's saddlebags Rufus found two buckskin sacks that contained a large amount or loose gold. The Scotchman had evidently done well at the diggings and was on his way home. Rufus judged that the two sacks weighed fully sixty pounds, and he was at a loss to know what to do with them, for he feared that other enemies of the dead man might ap- pear. At last he buried the sacks in the dried mud and passed the nights at his refuge in the old gum. But the responsibility of taking care of all that gold weighed on him. He dared not mention it to the miners who were coming and going; yet he felt that McRae's heirs ought to have it and be informed of his fate; and so, as his supply 02 gumwood for fuel was running short, he resolved to re- turn to Perth and to take the gold with him. He loaded up McRae's brumbies with the pack saddles and what water they could carried and started. The old condenser he aban- doned. On the day after his arrival at Perth Rufus went at once to the government building to tell his story to the gayer - nor of the colony of Western Aus- tralia. He obtained an audience and after describing the circumstances of McRae's death asked assistance in finding the dead man's heirs and in )raving justice done, The governor at once had the gold weighed and rated; the proceeds, more than three thousand pounds, were deposited in one of the banks, pending a legal disposition of it, which was at last made in behalf of McRae's aged parents and two sisters in Scotland. The governor was a man of re- served speech and manner, but after the business had been transacted he said, "Mr. Cummings, you were, you tell mm, quite alone therm the day af- ter these homicides had occurred?” "Yes, sir," replied Rufus. "There were no witnesses, not even the blacks?" "No, sir," "Did it not occur to you that you might keep that gold yourself and no one be the wiser for it?" "I may have tbought of that," re- plied Rufus, reddening a little. "But it would not be just any way of doing things." Tho ofacial regarded him for a mo- ment In silence. "I hope you will become a resident of Perth," he Bald at length to Rufus. "We need lust such young men as you are here in this community." A few months later Rufus purchased a schooner with the money he had saved and embarked in the lumber business betwesu Perth and the mouth of the Fitzroy River, farther up the west coast of Australia. Some years elapsed, and then one day the governor sent a messenger to request Rufus to call at the colonial offices. Rufus at once presented himself, and the governor greeted him cordially, "Mr. Cummings," he said, "I have taken the liberty of naming 'you to the council for an important fiscal of - fico that is now vacant. I hope very much that you will take it," Naturally Rufus felt greatly flatter- ed at this proof of esteem on the part of the government. "But I might have trouble, sir, in procuring bondsmen for such an office," he replied. "I am American -born and have no influential connections here." "That need not disturb you," re- plied the governor. "I will be one of your bond ,men myself. I have not at all forgotten your conduct in that matter of McRae's gold." Two weeks later Rufus was con- firmed as a official of Western Aus- tralia. it was the beginning of his official career in that distant quarter of the world; and there is in the story of his success, I think, a good, whole- some lessou for every boy who reads this paper. (The End). Bride's Orange Blossoms. Various theories have been given regarding the use of orange blossoms as bridal ornaments. The custom is supposed to have been brought to Europe by the crusaders frons the East, the Saracen brides beteg ac- customed to wear orange wreaths at their marriage, To this objection was raised that although the orange tree was brought to England as early as 1290, it was long before these was any real cultivation of it even in green- houses. A second theory is that orange blossoms cams to be worn by brides on their marriage because they were not only scented, but also were rare and costly and so within the reach at only the noble and rich, that indicating the bride to be of high rank, A third is that orange bridal wreaths had their origin in Spain, whore oranges have been cultivated for centuries. Thence the fashion passed to France, and by means of French millinery was spread to other lands, "REG'LAR FELLERS"—By Gene Byrnes DOWANNA. CALL FOR HIM ME'S A DUme,ELL -- H� DoN'T KNo*J 1 °MN' KNov3I4. WAS AS DUMB AS71-iAT^Atl`(60D'! min KNOWS M16K 6Rout.1S IN t p-riLES A :Strange Customs. In Louncoaton, it small Lown 1tt Corn- wall, one mage and one old ctuctoln have remained In spite of the Ptui- tans, says a contributor to London Country Life, who relates a curious survival of the old days when Oliver Cromwell and his image -smashing sot, Biers ruled England. Perhaps it was because the image waft of granite and perhaps because the Cornish did not take kindly to Ilse Puritan spirit, eon- tinuea the writer, but the Magdalen of Launcestuu remains and the people of Launceston still believe in her power for good and evil, The figure, which rests 11, 0 canopied niche be. iween the centre of the three win- dows at the east end of the parish church, is a Iittle Less than lire -size, and represents tate Magdalen as lying face down in an attitude of grief. By her nide is what is described as a a.kull or the box of ointment. What is still more interesting is tite large number of stones, pebbles and pieces of slate always to be seen scat- term' canterm' and untidy on the back of the figure or upon the sill of the window above. They represent the triumph of custom or superstition. The people believe that if you cast a stone up at the figure and it remains upon it you will get your reward. If you treat the same with disrespect you will suffer. The stones on the window sill repre- sent failuure, those on the figare. suc- c.eas. The people of Launceston are reluctaut to talk about this belief of theirs- If you ask, they will half ehy1y tell you that the children believe it, anti that they remember that when they were children they threw :c etone up when they wanted a new pair of borts or a treat of some kind. "And did you get 11?" you at•k. You will generally he told, "Yes." If you watch, you will see that the child- ren still believe it, and that sorra of the "children" have long since passed school age. The stones are always there, always increasing. 0f the many stories I hoard of the ;Magdalen of Launceston one was of how the nar- rator, when a boy, many years ago, came running home from school and, passing the statue, jumped at it to hit its face. He told mo with a smile that it might have been that or it might not, but before he was out of the churchyard he slipped, sprained his ankle and was in bed for many % ys. No one seems to know Trow old the custom is, but the statue itself is not old as ecclesiastical figures count ego. Airplane Flare Was a Giant Rocket. The most remarkable military fire- work used by the Allied forces during the way was a giant "flare," dropped from airplanes to illuminate the scenery. It was attached to the under side of the plane, so as to be easily re- leased by a push on a lever, and weighed nearly fifty pounds. The c.sn- teener, a cylinder of tinned steel, was three and one-half feet long. Inside the container was a case of heavy paper (of several thicknesses), packed with an illuminating composi- tion of barium nitrate with aluminum and sulphur. The paper case was meant to burn with tan contents when ignited. Tire paper case, weighing thirty pounds, was attached by a steel wire to a parachute of very light Japaneee silk (likewise held in the container) which was rolled compactly as pos- sible. This was done with great care, so that when thrown out of the con- tainer it might not become entangled and fail to open properly. The steel cylinder was provided at its upper end with four steel fine, to steady it and snake it drop perpendicu- larly, As it started to fall, a tiny pro- peller -like wheel at its lower end was set in motion by the upward rash of air against its blades, revolving at high speed. The stens of the wheel, revolving with it; ran up a screw. thread until it struck a cap which ig- nited the firing charge, thereby ex- pelling the contents of the cylinder and simultaneously setting fire to the composition in the paper case. The firework was dropped usually at a height of 4,000 feet, the liberated parachute opening and floating at 2,500 feet, with the burning paper case dangling beneath it by the steel wire, For about seven minutes the charge of composition would continue to burn, giving out a white light of 350,000 candle-power. So intense was the illumination that a large area was lighted sufficiently to permit photo- graphing and bombing. Fijian Loves Leisure. In the Fiji Islands physical activity is synonymous with heartlessness, all things being done slowly. Everything there is "malua," that is, no matter what is wanted, or whom it is wanted from, "wait a bit" is the process. There Is no use of rushing anybody, is the islanders' Idea. When the Fijian works, however, he is as indifferent to big as to little tasks, The Indian, small and wiry, who seems too delicate for any task, and is stopped by none, acts as a re - enforcement in the South Sea labor market, including the F1ji islands. Lai bon to borne unevenly, the white men looking on and commanding, while the Indian alinke about and slaves. Ali the Walton and labor of the islands Inas passed into the haude of the Indian, who is tailor, jeweller, grocer and gardener. The incline works the plantations and the fac- tories, and is gradually buying up land. Buy Thrift Stamps.