Says Frogs Kept Him Awake

1916

Now Wants $2,000 Damages From Owner of Pond.

OTTUMWA, Iowa — Because bullfrogs made such noise in a pond near his home that he lost sleep during the hot weather, Charles H. Barton, retired capitalist, filed a $2,000 damage suit against L. H. Hughes, wealthy Riverview grocer and postmaster.

Barton charges that the pond was constructed by Hughes so he could fish from the rear step of his store.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 7.

No More Last Forty Winks

1914

Fiend Has Invented an Alarm Clock That Simply Insists on One's Rising in the Morning

It has often seemed, after the announcement of an invention to which the attention of the entire civilized world has been called, that the human mind could scarcely invent anything more and fashion it in material form, but the countless dreams of inventors continue to be realized in astounding numbers.

Every week, every month, the trade journals advertise and comment upon new things in the lines which they represent and publish new ideas which this material labor-saving age seizes and makes its own.

An alarm clock which awakens you with the words of a disgusted wife who has breakfast on the table, and a large vessel which carries submarines over long distances by means of a "pouch" are among the newest offerings.

As an ever present need, the alarm clock will probably be put into more general household use than the ship with the "pouch" for carrying submarines. In the evening before retiring you set the clock for 6:30; at 6:30 you will probably get up. Here is what will waken you:

"Six-thirty, six-thirty, six-thirty; time to get up; get up, can't you? Get up you miserable, lazy man. Get up, get up, get up!"

The first clock of this kind was exhibited in 1900, but it cost $2,500 to make it. The present offering costs $25. If you are awake in the middle of the night and wish to know the time, press a button and the clock will tell you the nearest quarter hour as: "Two-fifteen," if it happens to be 2:13 or 2:18. The phonographic record is on an endless belt and the grooves in which the voice vibrations are recorded run lengthwise of the belt. The belt continues to give out sound until shut off when once started. So far the clocks have been supplied with belts which talk in thirty-five languages.

The Growing Passion for Music

1906

By Rupert Hughes

Whatever the percentage of American musical illiteracy may have been a few years ago, it is beyond denial that there is a tremendous change at work. The whole nation is feeling a musical uplift like a sea that swells above a submarine earthquake.

The trouble hitherto has not been that Americans were of a fibre that was dead to musical thrill. Our hearts are not of flannel, and we are not a nation of soft pedals. We have simply been too busy hacking down trees and making bricks without straw, to go to music school. But now, the sewing machine, the telephone, the typewriter and the trolley car are sufficiently installed to give us leisure to take up music and see what there is in it.

We are beginning to learn that, while The Arkansas Traveler, Money Musk, and Nellie Was a Lady are all very well in their way, there are higher and more interesting things in music. There is an expression which musicians hear every day: "I am passionately fond of music but I don't understand it. I know what I like, but I can't tell why."

This speech has become a byword among trained musicians, but it indicates a widespread condition that is at once full of pathos and of hope. America as a nation is "passionately fond of music." It needs only an education in the means of expression. — Good Housekeeping.



Much Against Being Rich

1906

Bishop Gore was the preacher at the opening of the English Church Congress. "The late master of Balliol," he told the great congregation, "used often to say, in his detached way, that he was afraid there was much more in the New Testament against being rich and in favor of being poor than we liked to recognize."

Electricity in the Home

1901

Many devices are now available for use in the home. They include small hand lamps which light at the touch of a spring; a pocket lamp and battery made flat like a folding camera; ornamental candles with miniature lights at their tip; a tiny lamp attached to the front of a clock, and small lamps for decorative purposes.

A current is introduced in a house to supply power for flat irons, curling irons, coffee mills, ice cream freezers and sewing machines, and heat for chafing dishes and tea kettles. Telephones are replacing speaking tubes in most of the new mansions and also to connect with stables and other outbuildings.

If power from a waterfall or windmill is available the owner of a house can install an electric plant of his own at small cost. In many large country houses the dynamo is run by a gasoline engine. — St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

Now That We Have Caught Your Eye

Advertisement, 1913

NOW
that we have caught your eye

We want to tell you about that new
Electric Iron

Just the thing for hot weather,
no red hot stove on a red hot
day — no walking, no lifting,
easy to regulate. Try one.

ADA ELECTRIC AND GAS COMPANY
Phone No. 78 — 209 W. Main

—The Evening News, Ada, Oklahoma, July 17, 1913, p. 3.