Color Line in the Schools

New York, 1895

The Board of Education has decided that it will be unable to admit the children of the colored parents to the new school-house at Amityville without the consent of the citizens. Charles Devine Brewster, a wealthy colored man, sent his son to the new school when it opened last Monday. The child was refused admission and sent to the colored school.


They Want Higher Pay

A strike among the riveters and rivet heaters on the big gasometer of the East River gas company, in Ravenswood, is in progress. The strikers number about seventy. The riveters were receiving $2.50 a day and asked $2.75. The heaters got $1.50 and want $1.75. The men are required to work at a height of 205 feet and claim that the demand is justified on account of the extra risk to life and limb.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, March 8, 1895, p. 1.

Collapse of Quebec's World's Greatest Bridge

1916

Quebec, Que., Sept. 11. — The span of the world's greatest bridge collapsed into the St. Lawrence river today with a loss of life variously estimated.

The Company erecting the structure placed the number of deaths at upward of 25, but H. P. Borden, a member of the Quebec bridge commission, expressed the opinion that only three persons were lost. Several hours after the accident happened, at 10.30 o'clock, a special train into Quebec brought 20 men who had been injured.

Nine years ago a similar accident at the same spot took a toll of 70 lives. Today 90 men were carried into the river when the 5,000 ton span, being raised from pontoons in an engineering feat designed to complete the $17,000,000 cantilever suspension for transcontinental railway traffic, plunged a distance of fifteen feet into the water and sank 200 feet below the surface perhaps never to be recovered.

Contradictory stories were told regarding the collapse. The pontoons had been removed and the span was being lifted by massive hydraulic jacks when, according to some of the spectators, the northern end of the span fell with the breaking of girders. Frantic efforts were made to plate a chain rope around the tottering structure, but with reports like shells exploding the remaining supports snapped and the span disappeared with a spectacular splash.

Some of the observers said that the structure buckled at the center as it fell. Groups of men at work slipped off into the water and others were knocked into space by flying debris. Scores of craft containing spectators went to the rescue and their endeavors prevented a larger loss of life.

Toronto, Sept. 11. — The property loss resulting from the Quebec bridge disaster will be about $600,000, it was stated here today by George L. Evans of the Dominion Bridge Company. The accident will delay the completion of the structure for ten months, he said.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 12, 1916, p. 6.

Cement For House Construction

1901

The construction of cement houses is under consideration in Pittsburg, where the millions of tons of furnace slag produced every year could thus be utilized, says the New York Post. It has been shown that this slag can be converted into cement by known processes at a less cost than the $1 a barrel suggested by Mr. Edison as the result of an invention on which he is experimenting.

This cement, it is claimed, can be made fully equal to the best that is known as portland, although a lower and a cheaper grade would suffice for house construction. Pulverized and mixed with lime, the slag has been converted into a superior plaster, showing a tensile strength greater than the ordinary sand and lime.

Cement made from the slag would not only be economical for house construction, but would make practically fireproof buildings. Such use of a product now wasted or used only to fill ravines would also be preservative of the forests.

Spitting Blood Not Sign of Consumption

1919

Most Tuberculosis Patients Never Have This Symptom.

There is no need to become alarmed if one spits blood. It is not, as so many think, a sure sign of consumption, for the overwhelming majority of tuberculosis patients never have this symptom, and the blood may come from the larynx, pharynx, teeth, stomach or even the small intestines.

Dr. H. Rabinowitsch of New York points out in the Medical Journal that when we consider the great size of the arteries that enter the lung and their minute ramifications on the surface of the delicate air cells we should not wonder if blood is sometimes coughed up from the lungs. Severe coughing or straining may easily break a small branch of one of these arteries.

Dr. Rabinowitsch says the hemorrhage itself is of slight moment. If it comes from aneurism, death is almost instantaneous; if it comes from a congested area and is limited, it is in some ways beneficial by relieving the congested area. It has another good effect — making a recalcitrant patient obey the doctor's orders.



Nail Illustrates Progress.

A common nail is an excellent illustration of the difference between old and new methods. Formerly the metal was cut into strips and then forged into shape with hammers. Today they are made of steel and are lighter and stronger. Strips are cut with steam shears and fed into automatic nail machines.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 9.

A Brick Carrying Record

1910

Edward Ashbee, an employee of the High Broom Brick Company, near Tunbridge Wells, holds the record of having carried considerably over 40,000,000 bricks on a wheelbarrow in the past 30 years.

The weight of the bricks is estimated at nearly 130,000 tons, and in the course of his work he has walked nearly 56,000 miles, or more than twice the distance round the world. Ashbee is a man of fine physique and looks much younger than his fifty years. — London Daily Graphic.

Italy, the Most Famous Source for Marble

1919

Italy is one of the world's most famous sources of supply for both art and building marbles, and marble, granite and building stones are the common materials used for buildings in that country. Venice is a fireproof city, built of stone of Istria and marble; and the foundations and first courses, at least, of all palaces, public and municipal buildings, government and business edifices are of these materials.

The most important quarries in the Veneto are at and near Verona, the Veronese red and yellow marbles having been favorite building stones since the time when the Coliseum at Verona was constructed. For building, they rank next to the stone of Istria in popularity, and are true marbles, while the stone of Istria is not a true marble, although a very hard limestone, that is much used in Venice, because it resists the action of salt water.

Besides their value for construction, the Veronese marbles are in great demand for decorative work. Among the names of the several varieties of Veronese marbles are white nembro, coral pink, white peach, partridge eye, yellow snail, yellow azure, and paradise.

Wood for Resisting Fires

1896

A report from Consul Robertson on the free port system of Hamburg, just published by the State Department, contains the curious item of information that in the great new warehouses constructed in the German port wood is being substituted for iron to secure better protection against fire.

These buildings were originally provided with iron beams and girders, but when one of them was burned some years ago it was found that the iron had been so bent and twisted by the heat as to become a source of great danger to the adjoining structures. "In all the warehouses, therefore, which have since been built," observes Mr. Robertson, "it has been deemed advisable to substitute wood for iron as much as possible." Probably a heavy wooden beam, imbedded in some non-conducting material that would exclude the air, would be as nearly fireproof as anything except brick or stone. It might be charred on the outside, but the interior would probably remain sound in any ordinary heat.

It is a curious speculation to imagine what would have happened if the present method of construction in Chicago had been in vogue before the great fire. A twenty-five-story, steel-cage building warping into a corkscrew and boring a hole in the sky would be a spectacle worth going miles to see.


Derivation of Whiskers

The word whiskers is derived from whisk, and the Anglo-Saxon wisch, which means a slight brush. Less than a century ago the expression was unheard of, the whiskers as well as the mustache being spoken of as part of the beard. It was only when the latter was divided, and the true whiskers disappeared as well, that their name was changed to the mutton chop part of the beard left on the cheek.

Was Entombed Fifteen Days

1906

Bakersfield, Cal., Dec. 24. — Lindsay B. Hicks, released from an entombment of 15 days in a caved-in tunnel, appeared well and happy after his gruesome experience, spending much time in receiving congratulations of friends and neighbors, to whom he related as best he could the feelings he underwent within the dark, close quarters of his tomb-like prison near the dead bodies of five less fortunate companions, while scores of men worked like beavers day and night for more than two weeks to save him from death by digging through many feet of earth and rock.

Hicks' bravery under the trying conditions won for him the admiration of hundreds of persons who watched the progress of his exhumation. So strong was Hicks at the finish that he helped to scrape away the last barrier of earth, and crawled, with slight assistance from death to life.

Hicks was not emaciated. He was so strong that the stimulants that had been prepared for him were not needed.

No sooner was the last segment of debris removed and the way left open, than Hicks began to scrape away the rocks and earth and crawl toward the opening. With arms in front of his head, he went into the miniature tunnel and began to work his way slowly through to the other side of a dump car, near which he has remained during the excavating. His arms were seized by Dr. Stinchfield and a miner. The two, exerting all their strength, pulled the miner into the main tunnel, where he was placed in a sitting position. The blindfold that Hicks had been ordered to put on was removed, as the tunnel was only dimly lighted by candle.

And there, 100 feet from the face of the mountain and within a few steps of the place where the miner had lain entombed for nearly 16 days, there occurred a pathetically joyful scene. Dr. Stinchfield, with tears in his eyes, and his hands laid affectionately on Hicks' shoulders, said: "Well, how are you, old boy?"

And there were tears in the eyes of Hicks as well, the only tears that he had shed in all the days and nights since he was entombed, as he replied: "I am feeling fine. I can never thank you, doctor, for what you have done."

While working on a tunnel that was building by the Edison Power company near Bakersfield on December 7, the vertical walls of a deep cut fell in on Hicks and five fellow workmen. It was at first thought that all had perished under the hundreds of tons of rock and earth.

Three days later a tapping on the rail of the little tramway running through the drift gave the first intimation that a man still alive was buried beneath the debris. A 70-foot pipe, two inches in diameter, was immediately forced through the debris. It reached the spot where Hicks was entombed. A heavy dirt car had become wedged in the debris in such a way as to keep the immense weight from crushing him.

When Hicks pulled the wooden plug from the iron pipe and called to the men above him his voice sounded like one from the grave. Through the pipe the men working on top learned from Hicks that for several hours after the cave-in he had talked with his companions, but that they had become silent and he believed they were dead.

By means of the pipe Hicks kept in communication with a big force of rescuers which was at once organized; milk was poured down the pipe. This was the only sustenance it was possible to give the man for nearly two weeks. During the first two days Hicks said he had existed on a plug of tobacco he had with him at the time of the cave-in.

He had just exhausted this when the pipe was forced into the crevice in which he was pinned. Every day gallons of milk were poured down the pipe to keep him alive.

In a narrow space under the car there was just room for Hicks to lie down. His prison did not allow of the slightest freedom of movement, and for days the man lay on his back, not daring to move lest he might disturb the car overhead and bring down upon himself an avalanche of dirt that would mean his death.

Through the pipe he directed the work of rescue, guiding the course of the tunnel the miners started toward his prison, so that it would not by some chance disturb the equilibrium of the car, which was all that lay between him and death.

—New Oxford Item, New Oxford, PA, Dec. 27, 1906, p. 1.

How Wealthy Woman Is Trying to Evade Witch's Hoodoo

Washington, D.C., 1905

HOUSE WITHIN A HOUSE.

How a Wealthy Woman Will Evade Witch's Hoodoo.

Washington Star: A palace built literally around a superstition is Washington's newest marvel, and one may safely say that nothing to match it has ever been seen anywhere. Baronial castles, as well as edifices of other kinds, often gain resident spooks or acquire curses as incidents of their history, but it has not been the fashion hitherto to provide in the architect's plans against such troubles, and the notion of embodying a hoodoo killer in the very fabric of a mansion is wholly novel.

The owner of this remarkable house, which as yet is not quite half finished, is Mrs. R. H. Townsend of Philadelphia. Before her marriage she was Mary Scott, a daughter of the late Col. "Tom" Scott, of Pennsylvania railroad fame. Her wealth runs into the millions, and the mansion aforesaid will cost her about $400,000. It will be nearly twice the size of the famous Leiter house, on Dupont circle, being 125 feet in width and 123 feet in depth. Mrs. Townsend is building it, she says, for her youngest daughter, now 17 years of age, and almost ready to enter society. It will be the scene, doubtless, of some of the most gorgeous entertainments ever given at the national capital.

Now, once upon a time — a very proper way to begin such a story as this — Mrs. Townsend interviewed a witch. It was a remarkably clever witch, and, in revealing the future to her lady patron, she predicted a number of events since realized with astonishing accuracy in Mrs. Townsend's life. It was a very bright and cheerful picture she drew, on the whole one may command a good deal of brightness and cheerfulness if one possesses millions of dollars — but there was one unpleasant prognostication. This was that if Mrs. Townsend ever occupied a dwelling which had never been lived in before she would die within six months after moving in.

This prophecy struck Mrs. Townsend as grewsome, to say the least, and up to now she has carefully avoided all risk of incurring the penalty suggested. Though anxious for some time past to move her residence to Washington and build a home here, she has been restrained from the accomplishment of this desire by the witch's ominous vaticination. She had thought of buying a house, but could find none that was large enough or adequate in other respects for her purposes. At length, however, she hit upon an ingenious method of evading the hoodoo and getting what she wanted at the same time. She decided to purchase the old Hillyer mansion on Massachusetts avenue, and to construct a palace around it. This she is doing in such a manner that while occupying the new mansion, she will actually live in the old Hillyer house, the skeleton of which is retained as a middle portion of the revamped structure. Her bedroom, her dressingroom and bathroom and her boudoir will be in the ancient dwelling, the original floor joists and framework, as well as the roof, being kept intact.

Thus the hoodoo will be defeated, inasmuch as the construction on which the builders are now engaged comes under the head of "alterations," technically speaking, and Mrs. Townsend may consider herself safe against the fulfillment of the conditional threat recorded against her in the book of fate.

—Daily Iowa State Press, Iowa City, IA, Nov. 3, 1899, p. 2.