Keeping Men Out of Mischief

1915

To keep its men out of mischief a big coal company inaugurated the garden habit among its miners. Result!

Pay day sees far fewer fights, much less money spent for liquor and a larger sum carried home to the wife and children. I learn from the manager that besides these immediate effects many of the miners are now able to raise a considerable part of the vegetables their families eat.

Some of the large iron and steel companies divert their men with music. C. M. Schwab is patron saint of a great band at Bethlehem.

There are four bands or drum corps at the Cornwall Ore banks, and the Frick company goes the limit in mixing music with coke, having 14 bands at its various works.

Give men something pleasant to do, and they will spend less money and time for things that are unpleasant. — Philadelphia Ledger.


Asbestos

The first use of asbestos was in the manufacture of crematory robes for the ancient Romans.


Trade Secret

"Now the first thing to learn about the shoe trade is this. As soon as a customer comes in take off his shoes and hide 'em."
"What's that for?"
"Then you can wait on 'em at your convenience, my boy. They can't walk out!" — Louisville Courier-Journal.

The Uses of Asbestos — A Wonderful Substance

1896

Being Incombustible, It Is a Valuable Compound in Many Industries

Asbestos is a wonderful substance. The name comes from a Greek word meaning inconsumable. Fire will not burn it, acids will not gnaw it, weather will not corrode it.

It is the paradox of minerals, for it is quarried just like marble. The fibers of which it is composed are soft as silk and fine and feathery enough to float on water. Yet in the mines they are so compressed that they are hard and crystalline like stone.

Although the substance has been known for ages in the form of mountain cork or mountain leather, comparatively little has been learned as to its geological history and formation. A legend tells how the Emperor Charlemagne, being possessed of a tablecloth woven of asbestos, was accustomed to astonish his guests by gathering it up after the meal, casting it into the fire, and withdrawing it later, cleansed, but unconsumed.

Yet, although the marvelous attributes of asbestos have been known for so long, they were turned to little practical use until about twenty years ago. Since that time the manufacture of the material has grown until it can take its place with any of the industries of this country. Indeed, so rapid has been its progress and development that there is almost no literature of any kind on the subject, and, to the popular mind, it is still one of those inexplicable things.

Up to the late '70's nearly all the asbestos used to come from the Italian Alps and from Syria, but one day explorers discovered a rich deposit in the eastern township of Quebec. Companies were formed, and, in 1879, the mines were opened. Remarkable as it may seem, however, although the Canadians started factories, in the operation of which they were substantially backed by English capital, it was an American concern, with headquarters in New York, that developed the industry most rapidly. The company has now grown so large that it has branches in nearly all of the large cities of the country and the machinery used is specially made and peculiarly adapted to the manufacture of asbestos articles. There are also a large number of factories in England.

The veins of chrysotile, as the Canadian asbestos is called, are from two to four inches in thickness, and are separated by thin layers of hornblende crystals. The nearer to the surface the vein runs, the coarser are the fibers and the less valuable. The mining is done by the most improved machinery. Holes are drilled in long rows into the sides of the cliffs by means of steam drills. They are then loaded with dynamite and exploded simultaneously in such a way that a whole ledge of the rock falls at once. Then the workmen break out as much the pure asbestos as possible, load it into tubs or trucks, which are hoisted out and run along to the "cobhouse." Here scores of boys are kept busily employed crumbling or "cobbling" the pieces of rock away from the asbestos and throwing the good fiber to one side, where it is placed in sacks for shipment to the factory.

The greatest work in connection with the mining of asbestos is in disposing of the waste rock and the refuse of the quarry. Only about one-twenty-fifth of the material quarried is real asbestos, and the rocky parts have to be carried to the dumps at great expense.

As the asbestos comes from the mine it is of a greenish hue, and the edges are furred with loose fibers. The more nearly white asbestos the better its grade. The length of fiber is also of great importance, the longest being the most valuable. From the mines the asbestos is taken to the manufactories in the United States. — Engineer.

A Family With Faith in Asbestos

Short Stories
1922

The late Mrs. George Gould hated any desecration of the Sabbath. Motoring one summer Sunday in Lakewood, she encountered a family whose fortune had been made in asbestos. The rich asbestos makers were picnicking, fathers and sons over whisky and poker, mother and the girls with cigarets and bridge. Mrs. Gould drew up to speak to her acquaintances. "Well," she said pleasantly, "I didn't know you Smiths had such faith in your asbestos."

A storyette that dates to the eighteenth century is as follows: Dr. Johnson once met the village postman one summer afternoon. The postman observed that he had still a mile to walk just to deliver one newspaper. "My goodness!" exclaimed the sympathetic doctor, "I'd never go all that distance for such a trifle. Why don't you send it by post?"

Former Postmaster General Hays, as every one knows, is an advocate of the air mail. "Of course, it gets criticized," he said, "and criticism is a good thing, but it can be run into the ground. I am reminded of the vaudeville producer who muttered as he read the press-notices of his program, 'These critics are thorough, all right. They don't leave a turn unstoned.' "

With reference to the millennium, Samuel Gompers recently said: "It is still a long way off, of course, but the workman is not the downtrodden slave he once was." He quoted the case of the tennis pro who was giving a new club member some pointers. "Hold your racket loosely, sir," he said. "Oh! more loosely! You hold it as stiff as if you were a hod-carrier." "But I am a hod-carrier," said the new member mildly.

The southern Californian may think himself an adept making seductive pictures of his end of the state, but he can still learn from the Honolulan, out in the north Pacific. Down there they say a drummer from San Francisco sojourned a month, and when they took him to the homeward-bound steamer and put leis around his neck and sang "Aloha Oi" to him a few times, he cried like a baby and said he had forgotten his wife's first name.