Glassmaking.

1895

Much mystery has in times past attached to the art of glassmaking. It was formerly the custom for the workmen, in setting pots in the glass furnace, to protect themselves from the heat by dressing in the skins of wild animals from head to foot. To this queer garb were added glass goggle eyes, and thus the most hideous looking monsters were readily presented to the eye. Show was made of themselves in the neighborhood to the infinite alarm of children, old women and others. — Boston Herald.


In 1920.

Mrs. New Woman — Be calm, my dear. I think there's a woman under the bed!
Mr. New Woman — Oh, Maria, do be careful! If you shoot her, try not to hurt her very much. — Brooklyn Eagle.

In 1901

1895

Mr. Shandy (petulantly, from his pillow) — Ethel, I know I heard a noise. I'm sure there's a woman in the house. I won't sleep a wink unless you go down and see!
Mrs. Shandy (exit, with revolver) — D—n it all, Willie, if you bother me like this again, I'll send you back to your father! — New York Herald.

Note: The point here seems to be that women are asserting themselves more and more and that men are standing by doing nothing about it. It's getting so bad that by 1901 we might humorously picture a complete reversal of gender roles.


The Bengal Grosbeck

The Bengal grosbeck builds a nest shaped like a bottle and always selects for its support a long, lithe limb, overhanging a stream of water. The entrance is beneath, and from the situation and peculiar shape it is absolutely impossible for a snake to gain admission to the nest. One naturalist records seeing 14 attempts on the part of serpents to get at the nest, but the hungry snakes always fell off into the water.

What Children Talk About

1895

The Boys Talked or Girls and the Girls of Their Studies.

"I once occupied two rooms on the ground floor of an old fashioned house which stood on a corner where a large number of school children passed," said a lady recently. "One day it occurred to me that it would be interesting to listen to their conversation. So, as the pupils reached my front windows, I walked with them to my side windows, and so to the length of the house, I being unobserved behind blinds and sash curtains.

"After three weeks' observation I found that boys from 8 to 14 years of age were bragging continually of their superior prowess in the line of 'lickin,' 'baseball,' 'bike ridin,' and 'big brother.' Never a word of their studies.

"Girls of the same age talked: 'And — mamma — said,' 'And — teacher said,' 'I don't care, my numbers are too hard; I'll tell mamma,' 'And she says,' 'And my doll is as pretty; mamma said so,' etc., in the same strain, with mamma coming in at the beginning or end of every sentence. Both sexes of this age talked as fast as their tongues allowed. Evidently there were no listeners.

"Of the ages from 14 to 17 the girls talked with scarcely an exception of their studies, and there were plenty of listeners. The boys of the same age talked with scarcely an exception of girls, girls, with plenty of listeners.

"Now, I confess, this surprised me! I had always been taught to believe just the reverse, and it took various listenings and peeps before I would believe my senses. But the truth was before me — the boys talking girls, girls, girls, and the girls talking studies, studies, studies." — Kansas City Star.

Passing of the Athletic Girl

1901

The athletic girl, it is predicted, is to be supplanted in popularity this summer by the girl of the olden type, who knew nothing of outdoor sports except a mild game of croquet be included in the list and, furthermore, did not care to know. It is hinted that the men have lost interest to some extent in the self possessed, independent young woman who can row a boat — and sail one too — play tennis, throw a ball straight, make century bicycle runs, tramp for hours without getting fatigued, swim long distances, etc., and that a reaction has set in in favor of the old fashioned type of girl, content to occupy her summer days with purely feminine tasks instead of imitating her sport loving brother.

Golf has not apparently come under the ban of alleged masculine displeasure to quite the same extent as other forms of sport, but the golf girl's skirt has been lengthened until it just escapes touching the ground, for fashion's experts declare that it is not correct to wear skirts that are overshort even on the links.

Whether or not these predictions prove true and the pendulum really does swing back to its former position remains to be seen. Meanwhile the shops are making a brave showing of golfing outfits and other sporting paraphernalia for women, and outfitting costumes have not altogether ceased to attract attention. — Dorothy Quincy in Brooklyn Citizen.

Girl Artist Captures Intruder in Cabin

1919

Finds Queer Young Man Attired in Her Pet Toggery.

PITTSBURGH, Pennysylvania — At the point of a revolver Miss Gertrude Zeigler, an artist and decorator residing in a rustic log cabin in the woods, near West View, marched a male intruder whom she discovered in her home, over a mile through the snow to the office of Herman P. Brandt, justice of the peace of Perrysville.

Miss Zeigler discovered the young man, Ralph Rutledge, 21 years old, of Mount Pleasant, Pa., busy preparing his breakfast.

Rutledge had eaten of the best while in the Zeigler home and when caught was attired in a ladies' golf sweater, silk hose and a pair of pink pumps belonging to Miss Zeigler.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 8.

Tall Heiress Divorces Short Hubby

1920

Objects to Mate Because of His Low Altitude

LOS ANGELES, Cal., Jan. 1. — Mrs. Ellen Van Trees, heiress, is alleged to have objected to Eugene M. Van Trees, her husband and likewise heir to a fortune, because her 5 feet 9 inches of slender beauty did not "match well" With 5 feet 4 inches of dapperness.

They quarreled over Van Trees' lack of height until he left, and she sued for divorce, claiming desertion.

Attorney Wilder, for Van Trees, produced a letter which the wife had received from her mother. The letter reads in part:

"Don't let his size worry you. My mother was a beautiful woman and taller than my father. It made no difference. Live with him and be happy. Help him. It is your duty. Put his estate in both your names and don't let others meddle in your affairs. Every one will be nice to you when you have money, but without it the world is cold. You know that, dear."

Judge Crail granted the divorce, remarking:

"They appear to be fairly nice folks. But it's evident they can't live together, so I'll give her a decree of divorce and an allowance of $1,200 a year."

Woman and the Pin

1910

It was in a deductive way that the captain found out that Ethel Clare Le Neve, the supposed accomplice of Dr. Crippen, was a girl though she was dressed in boy's togs. She had applied a missing trouser's button with a safety pin. The method was entirely feminine, says the Cleveland Leader. A boy would have borrowed a marline spike or a nail, or whittled a wooden peg.

This dramatic use of the safety pin again focuses the attention on woman's marvelous capacity as a pinster. Give her a hat pin and she can affright a footpad or lure olives from a long-necked bottle, with equal ease. She makes it decorative, too, and deadly. In a crowded street car it is as fearsome a weapon as the cries of a Malay running a-muck.

But her chief record is made with the common or garden pin. She fastens buttons or shoes with it and when baby swallows the rattle, harpoons it out with a pin. If a tornado blows and the shingles are threatened she crawls out on the roof and pins them down.

Writers of those fascinating summer stories in which a man and a lovely girl are cast away on a South sea island miss the chance of their lives when they do not provide the heroine with a paper of pins as her salvage from the wreck.

Takes Surname of Bride

1910

It is one thing to ask a girl to marry — quite another to ask her to change her name. So thinks the man who used to be John Melephant Williams. He loved Miss Agnes A. Wood, but it was as Agnes A. Wood that he loved her, and he did not desire to change her name to Agnes A. Williams. So he married Miss Agnes A. Wood recently, and her name is now Mrs. Agnes A. Wood.

Incredible as that looks on the face of it it is true, says the Denver Republican. For John Melephant Williams had his own name changed before the ceremony to John Melephant Wood. His petition for the change was granted by Judge Dixon of the county court. Without leaving the courthouse the man with the new identity went down to the first floor and signed his new name to an application for a marriage license.

—Gettysburg Compiler, Gettysburg, PA, July 20, 1910, p. 3.


She Knew Her Dick

He — Darling, I swear by this great tree, whose spreading branches shade us from the heat, by this noble tree I swear I have never loved before.
She — You always say such appropriate things, Dick. This is a chestnut tree!

—Gettysburg Compiler, Gettysburg, PA, July 20, 1910, p. 3.

You Ought To Have a Wheel Hoe

1917

A wheel hoe is the gardener's best friend; with it one man can do as much work in two hours as he can in six with the old-fashioned common hoe. It saves laborious stooping, makes the work easier and does it better. These hoes have several attachments such as drills, cultivators and different-sized hoes, making it suitable for crops of all kinds and sizes. If a man is too lazy to attend to his own garden, his wife will find the use of the wheel hoe very comforting.


His Dress

When a girl falls in love with a young man she wishes he would wear some other kind of necktie.


Handicapped

"Ernest, were you looking through the keyhole last night at your sister and me?" "Honest, I wasn't. Mother was in the way."

Woman Lived 60 Years As A Man

1908

Double Life — Married One of Her Own Sex

Trinidad, Colorado — Katherine Vosbaugh, an eccentric Frenchwoman of brilliant attainments, died here the other day at the age of 83, after masquerading for 60 years as a man. The woman donned trousers when a girl and had a horror of skirts up to the time of her death. She filled a score of responsible positions, and her true sex was never suspected.

Just twice during her entire life was the fact that Katherine Vosbaugh was a woman made known. The first time was when, at 30 years of age, she revealed it to the young woman she married in St. Joseph, Mo. The next and last time when she was convinced she was dying, and was compelled to inform the hospital physician.

During her long life she had been a bank clerk, a sheep herder, a bookkeeper, a restaurant-keeper and a mining camp cook. Although she spoke several languages and had been brought up in refinement, she seemed never so happy as when she was clad in rough overalls and heavy shoes, doing the most laborious work.

She wandered all over the world, and although often compelled to associate with the roughest men, she was never suspected of being a woman, and on more than one occasion proved herself more of a manly man than her associates. She came to America in 1842 at the age of 18, shortly after her father's death. She decided that she could make her way as a man, but not as a woman. She donned trousers and settled in Joplin, Mo., as a bookkeeper.

For nine years she remained in Joplin and was esteemed a fine young man and one whom more than one young woman considered a most eligible partner. Her excellent record, education and steadiness procured her a position as clerk at a St. Joseph bank. It was shortly after she accepted this position that she learned of the trouble of the young woman whom she afterward married.

When Miss Vosbaugh's "wife's" baby was born the oddly attached people removed to Trinidad and opened up a French restaurant. The town people thought them a model couple. The baby died a few months later. Shortly after the mother disappeared, and the "husband" refused to make a search for her. The people of Trinidad were profuse in their expressions of sympathy for the deserted "man."

Forty years ago Miss Vosbaugh obtained employment at the Sam Brown ranch, near Trinchera, as a sheep herder. Later when she saw that her sex could not be discovered except through unusual accident, she accepted work as a camp cook, and remained in that capacity up to two years ago. Some of the roughest characters known to the west associated with her without ever suspecting her sex. In many stirring scenes when men revealed fear and nervousness she kept her poise.

Two years ago her infirmities compelled her removal to San Raphael hospital. Even then the men of the camp bade her good-bye affectionately as "Grandpa" and "Old Man Frenchy." For many weeks she refused to bathe unless she could do so without attendants being present, to the great amusement of the sisters, who joked about the old man's overmodesty. Shortly after she was seized with a severe cold, which led to the physician's examination laying bare her life secret.

When her sex was revealed the hospital authorities at first insisted that she wear the proper garb of her sex. The garments proved so irksome to her, however, that she was finally permitted to return to overalls. She pottered around the hospital working for the sisters up to the time of her death.

Woman Fought for Liberty

Woman Fought for Liberty

1900

Deborah Sampson, who enlisted in the continental army as Robert Shurtleff, was one of the most dashing and bravest fighters for the cause of liberty. She enlisted in a Massachusetts regiment and served three years before it was known that the brave soldier was a woman.

She was taken ill in Philadelphia and the hospital nurse had pronounced her dead, but a slight gurgling attracted the doctor's attention. He placed his hand over her heart, and finding, to his surprise, an inner waistcoat tightly compressing her breast, ripped it open. She was immediately removed to the matron's apartments, where everything was done for her comfort.

The commanding officer, upon learning that his aid was a woman, granted her an honorable discharge and presented her with a letter from Washington commending her services. The humble soldier stood before him with shining eyes filled with tears and thanked him many times, begging him to ask that her fellow soldiers be told and that he ask them to tell him if she had done aught that was unbecoming a woman. This was done and her comrades and officers declared their respect for her was unbounded.

Upon her honorable discharge from the army she returned to her mother's home, striving to escape the calumny which followed her singular career. After Gen. Washington became president he wrote a most cordial letter to Mrs. Gannett (Deborah Sampson — she having married in the meantime), inviting "Robert Shurtleff" to visit him. She accepted and was treated with the greatest honors by the president and residents of Washington. — Ladies' Home Journal.


Too Early In The Day

When Sir Frederick Carrington was in South Africa before with the Bechanaland border police a new recruit wanted to join. He was questioned with martial-like severity, winding up with the question: "Do you drink?" As there was a syphon of soda and something suspiciously like whisky near it, the would-be recruit conceived the idea that he had been invited to partake. Nevertheless he answered the colonel's question with a modest, "No, thank you, sir; It's rather too early in the day for me."

Objects To Boys Sewing In School

Illinois, 1910

We received a very strong letter this week from a mother protesting against her boy being taught sewing in school when the time is needed to each branches more suitable for the scholars, at least the boys.

She says: "I think it's a shame. My son has to put two and three hours a week at sewing when they don't half know their arithmetic. John forgot to bring something to sew on this morning, so his teacher sent him home at 11:15 a.m. to get something to sew on, and as I was not at home he couldn't find anything, and when he went back to school again he forgot it. Well, his teacher got angry and shook him and sent him down to the principal. The principal sent him home, with a note and told him he couldn't come back to school again until his father came with him.

"I think it's an outrage in these civilized times to waste two and three hours a week at something they will never have any use for. I think every mother ought to sign a petition to have such nonsense stopped and to have that time devoted to the need of the times, which is business. I think it a shame taxpayers have to pay for such nonsense."

—Suburbanite Economist, Chicago, Oct. 28, 1910.


His Accent

An American-born girl was boasting of her English ancestry in public, and said: "Grandpa has lived in this country over 40 years, but he's just as English in his accent as when he went to Oxford; for instance," she added, "he still says horanges!" — Harper's Magazine.

No Equal Suffrage Movement in France After the American Fashion

1920

By Mme. Clemenceau-Jacquemaire, in New York Times

So far as I have been able to observe, there is no equal suffrage movement in France in the sense that you in America regard a movement. From earliest times the women in France have always held a high position in the community. They have taken an active part in business projects, and the professions have always been open to them. They have been prominent in literature, science, and art. Indirectly they have exerted great influence on the political life of the country. Consequently there has been no pronounced movement for equal rights in France such as has been started elsewhere.

The women of France are not anxious to vote or to be elected to office. Therefore I am not of the opinion that suffrage will gain headway in my country. Nevertheless I am watching with great interest the progress of the women of other countries. We admire your progressiveness and are interested in the experiment of sending women to congress, of giving them seats on the bench. This is, of course, in line with your advancement and liberal ideas. But our own traditions, our social and racial conditions, are very different.

I find no cause for anxiety regarding the competition of the sexes in business. Women who had taken men's jobs on the outbreak of the war are gladly relinquishing them, and peace adjustment is coming without bitterness.

Was it not Ellen Key who avowed that even if the suffragist was striving to be free she was making a mistake if she thought the vote would free her from the limitation of nature? Women cannot pass beyond those limits without interfering with the rights of nature and the potential child. Woman, of course, has a right to avoid marriage, and to allow herself to be turned into a third sex, provided she finds in this her greatest happiness. But when all is told, motherhood is the central factor of existence for most women.

Differences Seen in Men's and Women's Sense of Humor

1904

Best Judges of Humor

It takes a better joke to make a woman smile than it takes to make a man laugh for five minutes. A man will laugh at a stale joke every time, but a stale joke makes a woman feel like weeping.

These are two of the comparisons between the feminine and the masculine senses of humor made by Oreola Williams Haskell in the current number of The Club Woman, the official publication of the General Federation of Women's Clubs.

"One of the differences between man and woman," declares the writer, "and one frequently alluded to by the former, is that he has a strong sense of humor and she has none at all. This truth by woman is accounted for by the fact that her long association with man through the centuries has effectively knocked out whatever festive spirit she once possessed, and man attributes his easily aroused risibilities to a habit acquired while observing the vagaries of the feminine mind.

"Whatever the true explanation may be, it is conceded by all that man would rather laugh than weep, and that woman is at least undecided as to whether she prefers to smile at a stale joke or to attend a tragic play with four pocket handkerchiefs ready to dry her tears.

The writer objects strongly to man's habit of making fun of his wife's shortcomings as a housekeeper to call forth a laugh.

She urges that man's play upon woman's credulity is one of his chief joys, and, speaking of this, Mrs. Haskell declares, "Thus it is seen on what a high plane man indulges his sense of humor. If woman would be his true companion, let her sympathize with and heartily enjoy what amuses and attracts him and appreciate the comic gems of which he is the author. For woman must remember that we are put here to be disciplined, and, though the funny side of life is often the saddest, she must be content to suffer, to pay for the exquisite privilege of living in the same world with him."

Speaking of the various kinds of humor enjoyed by men and women, the writer says, "At the present time man evinces a great fondness for what may be called physical humor. While the petticoated portion of an audience will receive a vaudeville set-to with stolid indifference, what interest it awakens in the kind of people who have a proclivity for rushing out between the acts!

"When the heavy comedian comes out and greets a diminutive companion with such a resounding whack on the back that the latter falls prostrate on the stage, the bass roar of the male voice peals from orchestra circle to highest balcony, while soprano giggle is strangely silent. Again, when an individual whom burnt cork and paint have rendered almost unhuman portrays the inebriate with his zigzag promenade and his hiccoughed utterances, with what responsive glee he is hailed by his own sex!

"Woman lacks the keen intellect to see the delicate wit in pugilistic thumps rained on crouching shoulders and spasmodic kicks that result in nasty and undignified departures from the scene of action. She is also without the power to appreciate the sidesplitting humor of a drunkard's tumbles or a rough-and-tumble fight. It is man alone who can understand just where the comic element comes in and who can enjoy the fine shades of distinction between a punch and a pound, a misstep and a fall, a disagreement and a rumpus.

"But besides physical fun man indulges his love for the spoken, the written and the acted joke. So great indeed, is his fondness for the former that he even bears with equanimity the constant repetition of the same witticisms from one year's end to another."

Chicken Thief Pursued, Riddled

Pennsylvania, 1908

Enraged Farmer, After Chase, Puts Twelve Holes Through Him

Pottsville, Pa., Feb. 7. — Exhausted after a long chase, Isaac Bevan of Shenandoah, Pa., was riddled with bullets from two revolvers which his pursuer, Anthony Sinkiewicz, emptied into his body as he lay helpless in a snow drift. Twelve shots took effect, one passing through the heart, causing instant death.

Sinkiewicz had for some time been annoyed by chicken thieves and fixed up a burglar alarm. He was awakened by this alarm and he and a boarder at his home armed themselves and gave chase to the intruder by means of tracks in the newly, fallen snow. The chase continued for more than a mile, when Bevan dropped from exhaustion. Seven chickens were found in a bag which he carried. He was unarmed. Sinkiewicz gave himself up to the authorities and has been charged with murder.


Leap Year Girl's Quick Work

Philadelphia, Feb. 7. — Miss Louisa M. Hahn has led to the altar of the Mount Airy Methodist Episcopal church J. Horace Laucks of Germantown. Miss Hahn on New Year's day, ten hours after she became acquainted with Laucks, said to him: "I like you very much. Let us get married. I suggest you take time to think it over, say until tomorrow." Laucks made up his mind within four hours.

Frills for Gentlemen

1914

Dr. Montessori, the famous woman educator, in discussing the injustices imposed upon her sex by man, says: "It enrages me to see how men sacrifice beauty to comfort in their dress. They make no sacrifices that they may be beautiful to us, but we abandon all comfort that we may be beautiful in their eyes."

The important question here is not one of deed but of purpose. Dr. Montessori, a most learned and representative woman, says that women dress for men. While man would not flatter himself to make such a statement without high authority, his failure to appreciate the complimentary feminine attitude is undoubtedly due rather to ignorance than to contempt of woman. Surely we are all sorry that Dr. Montessori is enraged at us and would hate to see a general strike on the part of those who furnish us with most of the joys of life.

What can we do. then, if we are to appease Madame Montessori? Must we grow long hair, dress in knee breeches, silks and laces, wear tickly plumes and stickly hatpins, carry vanity bags and powder our noses?

Of course we would rather do a great deal than to permit the milk of feminine love to sour against us, but there seems to be a crossed wire somewhere. Can it be possible that men have been buying big hats, fine apparel, cruel hatpins and scratchy quills to please themselves rather than their wives? If so, what extravagant fools we masculine mortals be!

—Waterloo Evening Courier, Waterloo, Iowa, Jan. 1, 1914, p. 4.

The Girl and Her Reading

1902

By W. D. Howells

What, then, is a good rule for a girl in her reading? Pleasure in it, as I have already said; pleasure, first, last and all the time. But as one star differs from another, so the pleasures differ. With the high natures they will be fine, and with the low natures they will be coarse. It is idle to commend a fine pleasure to the low natures, for to these it will be a disgust, as surely as a coarse pleasure to the high. But without pleasure in a thing read it will not nourish, or even fill, the mind; it will be worse provender than the husks which the swine did eat, and which the prodigal found so unpalatable.

Thence follows a conclusion that I am not going to blink. It may be asked, then, if we are to purvey a coarse literary pleasure to the low natures, seeing that they have no relish for a fine one. I should say yes, so long as it is not a vicious one. But here I should distinguish, and say farther that I think there is no special merit in reading as an occupation, or even as a pastime. I should very much doubt whether a low nature would get any good of its pleasure in reading; and without going back to the old question whether women should be taught the alphabet, I should feel sure that some girls could be better employed in cooking, sewing, knitting, rowing, fishing, playing basket ball or ping-pong than in reading the kind of books they like; just as some men could be better employed in the toils and sports that befit their sex.

I am aware that this is not quite continuing to answer the question as to what girls should read; and I will revert to that for a moment without relinquishing my position that the cult of reading is largely a superstition, more or less baleful. The common notion is that books are the right sort of reading for girls, who are allowed also the modified form of books which we know as magazines, but are not expected to read newspapers. This notion is so prevalent and so penetrant that I detected it in my own moral and mental substance, the other day, when I saw a pretty and prettily dressed girl in the elevated train, reading a daily newspaper quite as if she were a man. It gave me a little shock which I was promptly ashamed of for when I considered, I realized that she was possibly employed as usefully and nobly as if she were reading a book, certainly the sort of book she might have chosen. — Harper's Bazar.

Of Course, the Bride Knew He Was Wrong

1920

Always That Way When Meek Man Weds Robust Woman

FORT SCOTT, Kansas, Feb. 26. — Sometimes it's easy to see, even before the couple is married, just which is going to be boss of the household and which one is to do the paddling in the boat in which they traverse the matrimonial sea. Habitues of the court house in this city saw a concrete example of this fact this week.

A big, robust woman stepped into the office of Register of Deeds Adler Johnson. She had authority written all over her face and her big frame.

"Is this where I get a license?" she inquired in stentorian voice.

"What kind of a license?" queried Adler.

"A marriage license," said the woman.

"No, we don't handle them," continued Adler. "Go to the first door down the hall on your right."

"I knew at first this wasn't the place," said the big woman with evident disgust; "that's what I told him."

Thereupon she stepped into the hall and when the door opened Adler could see a little, meek-looking man standing on the outside. It was evident that the woman had usurped the command and was going to take charge of the marriage license business, not to mention, of course, the honeymoon and the rest of the alliance.

The Bicycle a Benefactor

1895

A reliable correspondent writes to the New York World that in Chicago there flourishes a club of young women bound by a vow to ride horseback astride henceforth and forever. These young women have abandoned the spine-twisting side saddle; they have lived down the ridicule which accompanied the inauguration of their reform, and, most important of all, they attribute the success of their movement to the beneficent influence of the bicycle.

Each day it grows plainer that we must add the bicycle to the list of humanity's great benefactors. Already tens of thousands owe to it health, strength and their first intimate acquaintance with outdoor life. It has helped the farmer who foolishly despises it, by advancing the fight for good roads. It has filled the pockets of languishing owners of country inns. It has made the country boy and girl acquainted with their brothers and sisters from the city. It promises to do away with the stupid fashion of long trousers — to restore to mankind the graceful knickerbockers of old. It promotes equality. It discourages the separation of the people into hostile classes.

The bicycle is a democratic machine, a faithful servant, a luxury and a necessity, great and cheap. It is a good doctor, a destroyer of the blues. It deserves the monument which it is building to itself in the shape of a healthier, happier people.

Sergeant Joe Reed Now Telephone "Girl" for Police

Lima, Ohio, 1922

SERGEANT JOE REED IS NOW TELEPHONE "GIRL" AT POLICE HEADQUARTERS

Joe Reed, day desk sergeant at police headquarters, spent the larger part of the day Monday, learning to operate the new telephone switchboard.

It is now complete and ready to be cut in for use.

The board controls the entire report system of tin police department, special danger and emergency signals and the entire phone system of the department and criminal court.

It is considerably more intricate than the ordinary phone switchboard, because of the additional and special stations with which it is hooked up.

Telephone company employes expect to "cut it in" for use beginning Tuesday morning.

"Guess I'll have to don a blue gingham apron, Reed opined as he tried switches and plugged stations.

—The Lima News, Lima, Ohio, Aug. 28, 1922, p. 2.