The Seaforth News, 1949-07-07, Page 8TULiA1Thj FRONT
There are quite a number of:
assorted, interesting -4 hope—items
which I've"be•en saving but haven't
got around to using, as yet, So it
looks As though this We'ek's column
might develop into a sort of hash.
(Which reminds me of the old
vaudeville act in which the waiter
was .'taking the customers' orders,
then shouting then out—in langu-
age of his own—to the cook. One
matt ordered hash, "Clean up the
kitchen for one:" yelled. the waiter
• promptly,
qt 5 *
Over in Great Britain they're
trying out a new method of storing
apples and "other fruits, as .well as
potatoes,, using ordinary yoodland
moss to pack the stuff in. Until next
June, when the 500 tons of apples
packed this way as an experiment.
are uncovered, it 'won't be known.
whether the system is suited to..
British climatic conditions— but
they're hoping it will spread their
home-grown fruit supplies over a
nine -months period, Instead of six,
as at present,
* X .
This system of moss storage was
discovered accidentally some years
ago by a Swiss engineer, who want-
ed to get some rare orchids he
had found in the Himalayas home
alive. He lined a wooden box with
damp moss, gathered at random,
then placed the orchids inside, and
hoped for the best. When he opened
the box in Switzerland, the orchids
were in perfect condition
• a *
So next he experimented with
fruits, and found that the moss—
according to its degree of dampness
—had the power of releasing moist-
ure, or of absorbing it from the
atmosphere, thereby maintaining a .
constant humidity. • Furthermore,
because of the evaporation which
took place, it had a endency to
lower the -temperature and hold it
steady, In addition, it purifies and
regenerates the atmosphere, 'be-
cause the moss "breathes"—or ab-
sorbs air.
* 5 *
Now, on the continent, railway
trucks are • equipped with the moss
system of storage—and it has even
been used successfully as a method,
of keeping cheese fresh. The Swiss
engineer has developed it on a com-
mercial basis and is meeting with
great success Sounds like sone -
thing worth giving a trial.
* * *
Th "public opinion poll" boys are
still at it—or maybe this one took
place 'before Idle TrumandDewey
thing knocked them for a loop. Any-
way, several hundred farmers were
askd this qustion-How do you de-
irle whether a man is a "success-
ful farmer?" A good share of them
replied, "He's. the ratan who does a
really good job of soil conserva-
tion," Men who got big yields, or
who made a• lot of stoney, didn't
rank nearly as high in the 'opinion
of their fellow -farmers.
- 5 5 5
Which brings up the tale of the
man who was driving through some
very steep hilly country and, notic-
ing cattle grazing, asked farmers in
the neighborhood just how the
stock did on such "pasture." "They
don't get any feed,' one roan
jokingly replied, "but they sure do
get a lot of exercise,"
5 * *
But 'tenting stock graze on such
land is just about the worst thing
thatcould be done. The cattle crop
the grass short: then the water
slides off the slopes as if the hill-
sidee were greased. That nater
conies rushing down to gouge out
new gullies on the good farmland
below,
The satire man drove a little
further along and came to some hills
that really had a lot of grass on
them. He asked.a Soil Conservation
expert "How comej' "Those
farmers fenced the stock off and let
the native grasses do a come -back,"
was the answer.'"Now.they pasture
those hills only, about two months
every other year." •
* * *
This might be a good tittle for a
reminder that water pipes less than
three feet deep in the ground should
be covered with straw or spoiled liay
to prevent danger of freezing. Also
that'slarrows in poultry houses are
parasite and disease carriers,. The
higher openings in the poultry
houses should have screens.
There have been many warnings
in the past about the danger of
feeding treated seed oats to live-
stock, But there are always a few
farmers who think they, can get
away with using just a few bushels
as feed. '
Well, recently at an American
University a test was made. Eight
pigs were divided into four lots,
Two were fed untreated oats and
water, The others were fed oats
treated with one half ounce of
Ceresan M per bushel for periods
of 10, 20 and 30 clays.
* s: *
What happened? The pigs that
ate the . treated oats for 10 days
• lived through the test. Pigs in the
20 -day trial lived through the test
period, but died later, The 30 -day
test couldn't be completed as the
pigs died before the time was up.
s Y, * *
Which should be just about
enough hash, I imagine, for one
serving.
Car Tires Made
With Soap, Sugar,
Motorists can look forward to bet-
ter tires of synthetic rubber, made
according to new recipes employ-
ing soap and sugar, according to a
prominent Illinois scientist.
The quality of GR -S, the synthe-
tic rubber blended with natural
rubber in all tire treads, has been
greatly improved by the recent de-
velopment of an amazingly rapid
'redox" process, according to Pro-
fessor Marvel, who directed an im-
portant phase of the World War II
research on synthetic rubber.
This new method makes it pos-
sible to manufacture rubber at
freezing or subfreezing tempera-
tures instead of at 212 degrees
Fahrenheit, the conventional tem-
perature, he said, asserting that the
quality of GR•S and similar rub-
bers seems to go up as the temper-
ature goes down.
GR -S is essentially a combination
of two liquid petroleum com-
pounds, butadiene and styrene,
which are made to unite (pelynier
ize) by a chemical stimulant (a
catalyst). In the redox process, the
compounds are first emulsified with
a soap, and the reaction is started
by a type of sugar, which is .called
the activator.
Life's Like That
' Everytime I come to one I just
close my eyes and step on the
gas"
CHRISTMAS WEEiM, BEDTIME
SAYS Go0D•NIGHT TO WIFE
AND SETTLES FOR SLEEP
VERY TIRED FRo&t
CHRISTMAS.S"t'
'r.
it
I •�
WIFE ASKS 13 HE
ASLEEP YET, SHE'S
TRYING TO DECIDE IF
A CARD IS ENouGH To
SENO THE u;ItnPLES
By GLUYAS WILLIA
15 JUST DROPPING OFF
WHEN WIFE MURMURS
HE'D BETTER GET SOME
MORE ORNAMENTS FOR
THE TREE, MOST OF
LAST -YEAR'S GOT BROKEN'
gqp
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ABOUTALSO
VIHG A PRESENT
TO MRS. ME LING WHO
SOMETIMES GIVES aro
SOMETIMES DOESN'T
MUTTERS Tp REMIND
HIM IN THE MORNING
AND apses eves
FIRMLY
AT 1'H S POINT Wl14
BI-11
OAIDD NG
THAT SHE'S FORGO TAN
OOUSIN EFFIE
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TO GET TO AT LAST BY TURNING 104E WIDE AWAq',
1 L 'NIFE OVER AND PRETENDING' WITH THE TNOUGH
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cooprsOA, 101ti Tram soraE •alar,. ;, PDP% Pt?b 46?
• That's Orson and Tyrone, All Dressed Up—While malting a
movie in Rome—based on the life of Cesare Borgia, Orson -
Welles, left, and Tyrone Power, right, wear the colorful cos -
tunes of the Fifteenth Century. Actor between is unidentified.
"Our ,Gracie" Works
With All She Has
Everyone - knows Gracie Fields,
"Our Gracie," the large -hearted,
humorous character, who interspers-
es comedy songs with serious ones,
sings Schubert's "Ave Maria" after
"Turn Herbert's Faee to the Wall,
Mother:," and gets away with it; the
Lancashire mill girl who, with no
pretence at being a lady or "talking
posh" has endeared herself to mil-
lions of people everywhere by her
inimitable personality and inex-
• haustible vitality. That is the
Gracie heard on the air and seen on
the stage. But what is she like at
rehearsal?
She is amazing when she is re-
hearsing in a radio studio; she
works hard; never questions the pro-
ducer's decision, sings each song
as many times as he wants without
complaint, and accepts cuts, or
sings extra choruses ,without a
word of protest. When the orches-
tra is reharsing alone she sits quiet-
ly resting, sometimes pushing her
hand through her blonde curls, or
perhaps playing with the black beret
site often wears.
But when she gets to the micro-
phone the fun begins. She will prob-
ably go up the few stairs to the
stage bent almost double, lifting her
legs ,vitlt her stands as she makes
awful clicking noises to symbolize
the creaking of her ageing joints;
she will sing a serious song and,
noting somebody passing at the
back of her, will stick out her foot
and trip him; she will fling out her
arms in a graceful gesture when she
gets the feel of a popular number
and a moment afterwards sway
from side to side like a woman hav
ing a fierce argument with, her
butcher. She cannot resist guying a
straight number and for a really
comic one Will crush on the beret,
wearing it at some peculiar and
most unorthodox, angle and, letting
herself go at full tilt, steps back
from the microphone and screams
raucously "What 'as SHE got, that
I 'aven't got?" Immediately after-
wards as she is singing a really sen-
sational number, she will push the
beret over her nose and pull a hide-
ous face yet, so powerful is her con-
trol over an audience—which in this
case is the orchestra, a few engine-
ers and one or two others, that no
one laughs, although she is looking
extremely funny,
Guying her songs is part of her
personality and trot just put on for
the occasion, for when Gracie ']las
an audience, no matter how small a
one, she reacts to it like a flower to
the sun. At rehearsal she doesn't
bother to put on any glamorous
stuff; there she is, the strapping,
big -boned Lancashire lass, singing
away like a lark—or a jay. Audi-
ences in the theatre, or on the air,:
can either take her or leave her;
the vast majority take her.
How "Swat -the -Fly"
Campaign • Began
In the Kansas of 1905 there were
too many cases of typhoid fever,
too many deaths from it, and far.
too many flies. Residents of 'the
State took flies for granted. They
called them a nuisance, and let it
go at that. How could any doctor
convince them that the insects
carried typhoid germs, and could
even cause epidemics?
To persuade all Kansans to join
in a war on flies was the job of
Samuel J: Crumbine, intrepid To-
peka public-health expert, who had
learned through the Spanish-Am-
erican War that flies meant to
medicine, Crumbine published att.d-
distributed a "Fly Bulletin," ex-
plaining the menace of to inhsect.
He advocated house screens, and
mailed out recipes for staking fly
paper.
A Slogan Born
Then came what Crumbine calls
"the most productive diary of my
life." He was ur rching the West-
ern League baseball club's opening
of the season. With one man out
and a runner on third base, the next
batter came to the plate. Excited
fans yelled "Sacrifice fly!" When
the batter' swung -and missed the
first ball, a tentorian voice boomed:
• "Swat that ball I"
An idea began to emerge in
Crumbine's brain. ' "I have it," he
yelled. "Swat the fly!" Taking alt
old envelope front his pocket, he
jotted down the slogan that was to
sweep the country and become part
of the American vocabulary.
Crumbine was born in 1862 in a .
log cabin. He worked his way
through two years of medical
school and then hung out his
shingle in the cow -country capital,
.Dodge City, Kansas.
Always A Crusader
In those days the West was the
•haven of tubercular Easterners.
They travelled across Kansas in
trains or wagons, :bearing jugs of
"rock 'n' rye," the only medicine
prescribed for the disease. Crum -
bine, as secretary of the Board of
Health, began to investigate the
cause and transmission of the
White Plague.
One hot day in 1907, while riding
a Missouri Pacific train, Crumbine
went to the water cooler for a drink.
Ahead of hint was a tall, thin man
with a racking cough, and a tow-
headed 5 -year-old girl. Tjie man —
filled the train's only drinking cup
with water and drank, Then the
little girl eagerly swallowed from
the same cup.
Crumbine was on his way to in-
vestigate a smallpox epidemic, but
the scene on the train made that '
trifling, There should be a law for-
bidding the tin cup, attached to the:
chain, in every coach. The doctor
went to work, The railroads ob-
jected. It took two years, but in
March 1909 Kansas passed a law
prohibiting the coniinon drinking
cup. • Soon after that, the, roller
towel also tmet its end.
With the Movie and Radio Folks
By ' Grac
Right after hearing Fred Allen's,
• first radio program—the one in
which he did that screairtingly funny
burlesque of"Stop the Music"—I
,wrote something to the effect that
while that sort of thing was O.K.
for a"'si"shot", keeping it up
would be angle mistake. Talking too
muds about.your competitors' goods
is a bad thing in merchandising—
tending to "back -fire" on your own
wares—and the same thing goes in
show business.
Now it's reported that 'Baggy
Eyes"- may abandon his insurance
plan which guarantees listeners
against -loss on "Stop the Music".
payoffs while they're tutted- in to
theAllen show—and I hope its true
because, from the way I look at it,
such an' offer should never have
been made. No claims for such in-
surance have been made as yet—at
least not legitimate ones, More than
that,' Fred's stunt hasn't affected. the.
• giveaway show's popularity, which
is •still ahead of Allen's.
And now they say that "Stop the .
Music" is considering a plan to
• offer—justas a gag,,,of course -
copies of all the best jokes Allen
puts on the air -waves to 'its own
listeners on request. Sounds to me
as if both sides would be better to
try and"act their ages."
*
*
They've tirade -movies about the
doings of practically every famous
personage, from Cesare Borgia -to Al -
Jolson, now comes one about a
fatuous horse—the great pacer, Dan
Patch. Charlotte Greenwood will
have a big comedy role in the flick-
er;
icker; and if the horse that plays the
part of "Dan Patch" is as good an
actor as the. original, Charlotte will
have her work cut out to "top" him.
* * * .•
For although I don't remember
7tini personally, those that know
tell me that the real Dan Patch—be-
sides being a wonderful pacer -had
a huge streak of "ham" in Ilium, After
leading his opposition to the wire
he'd parade past the crowded stands,
actually "bowing" in response to
the applause.
* * * •-
Once, when he "broke" coming
through the stretch—whatever that
means—Dan Patch was so ashamed
of himself that he refused to face the
spectators but, instead, ducked
through an exit and headed for the
stables. And it said that there was
a standing bet that no camera man
•
Just For Fun
The teacher, explaining to her
young pupils that the earth was
round, asked questions to bring
out her point. "Herman," she
aslced, "coulc' you walk around
the earth?"
"No, ma'am," . promptly re-
plied little Herman.
"V,'hy not?" asked the teacher.
"Because my mother Won't al-
low me' to leave the back yard."
"No," the youngster replied,
"but I have two brothe'r's and
they have a sister." And then she
joyfully added, "And I'm the
sister!"
e Sharp
could take a picture of the Mese
• that showed him otherwise than
facing straight into the cameric He
• seemed to sense the presence of a
camera—and try as they might to
catch him sideways; before the shut-
ter clicked, Dan wotfid be staring
proudly straight to the lens.
So, as I. sabefore, if thec new -
Dan Patch isid anything l ke the
actor the original was, long-legged
dharlotte• Greenwood will have an
awful time "stealing" any •'scenes
from the pacer.
Back to the screen, after an ab-
sence of six years, comes Anna May
Wong, one of my real favorites of
yore, She'll' be appearing i11 an opus
titled "Impact" along with Brian
Donlevyand Ella Raines. Just why
she's getting a chance to do this
comeback through one of those
'queer switches that could take place
only', out in California.
* 5 *
The part was originally that of a
Svedish.> maid, Then the producer
decided to use San Fransico's
Chinatown as a background—so in-
stead of a "Yetta Yensen" type they
decided to use the Chinese-Ameri-
can darkeyed beauty. At all events •
'I'm glad that we're to haye another
peek at Anna May, and imagine
`there are plenty more like. me.
Which will have -to, be all, for just
now. s
Great Lake of Pitch
Source of Unlimited
Supply of Asphiltt
•
One of Nature's strangest phen-
omena is Trinadad's famous Lake
of Pitch. During the past one hun-
dred years or so, millions of tons
of asphalt have been dug out from
its surface and exported to pave
the streets and highways of most
of the world's principal towns and
cities. Yet, for all this, the quantity
of the asphalt in the lake shows no
visible signs of diminishing.
Up to the present, no Satisfactory,
mechanical device has been found
for extracting the asphalt. Every
pound taken from its 114 -acre sur'
face has to be laboriously dug out
by hand -wielded pick and shovel.
As the asphalt is removed .ton by
ton, pits . and breakages are left in
its even surface. Yet within- a few
:days they are filled with new pitch,
pushed up from below from some
hidden and apparently inexhaust-
ible source.
The surface of this lake is al-
ways 011 the move, although its
movements are so slow that they
escape the eye. Its mass turns and
folds over upon itself continuously.
Sometimes it claims for its own any
object that may have been care-
lessly left on its surface, and at
other times some ancient fossil or
-.long-lost treasure that had disap-
peared many years before is ex-
purgated. •
It is because of this dangerous
movement of the lake's surface that
the dight railway which runs- out
across it to carry away the asphalt -
as it is dug has .to be relaid daily, •
so that it, too, shall not sink out
of sight.
Scientists have not decided on
the origin of fhe lake, but they
agree that the pitch is sufficient
to supply tlic world's needs for
many generations.
You Just Cut Thein Out and Blow Therm Up—It is 'customary
for Canada to import nett/ ideas in `children's toys from south
of the border—but this time it's different. These new Walt
Disney character toys not only show children how to use the
scissors carefully but also furnish then with a lot of fun. Made
of strong Vinylite plastic, each toy is equipped with a novel
self-sealing valve. Of Canadian design. and manufacture, the
toys will soon be marketed in the United States as well as
throughout the Dominion. .
rr'rLiir REGGii
-79
LOOK ' AT MR5 "
' . 4 GNTOAIIER'S LAWN
WIRES NOT A
LEAP ON IT I
..AND WREN Y'GET
HOME. ,YOU NAVE
EVERY' LEAF GONE
By Margarita
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