India Rubber

1895

A Comparatively Recent but Potent Factor In Science and Progress.

In our own day it really seems as if we couldn't possibly get on without India rubber and gutta percha. Though both are of comparatively recent introduction, the number of purposes to which they are applied is so immense that our civilization without them would at least be very different from the form in which we actually know it.

To lump a few miscellaneous examples in a single paragraph: Without those two submarine cables would be almost impossible; telegraphy would assume many unlike modifications; goloshes would not exist; waterproofs and mackintoshes would be a beautiful dream and a rubberless world a hideous reality; elastic, in the sense in which ladies use the word, for tying hats or making garters would never have been evolved; tobacco pouches would still be of silk or leather; our combs would be of horn, and our buttons, paper knives, penholders and pipes much dearer than at present.

As for machinery, where would it be without India rubber cinctures and tubes and cups and valves and buffers? Where would engineering be without the endless minute applications of the elastic gum? Where would surgery be without the innumerable devices, the syringes and squirts, the belts and bandages of which India rubber forms the sole, and, as it seems to us now, indispensable basis? Fancy putting out fires without the invaluable hose; fancy whirring manufactories without the inevitable gearing. The bicyclist would miss his pneumatic tires; the artist would miss his ever handy eraser.

When we go to the dentist, which is always in itself a delightful excursion, a happy hour is made happier for us by the India rubber sheet with which he dexterously contrives to check undue loquacity. When we go to the gymnasium, half the apparatus we employ is based on it. And what would life be at the present day without India rubber hot water bottles? — Longman's Magazine.

Keating & Shaw

Maine, 1916

Within a year's time, Keating and Shaw of Exchange street, Portland, have become one of the leading automobile accessory dealers in the entire State. They are selling their tires and tubes in every section of Maine and have recently become distributors of the Puritan Tires and tubes manufactured by the Hood Rubber Company of Watertown, Mass.

Another line which they carry is the Pressure Proof Piston Ring, for which they are the State distributors for the Boston Company.

The company is also distributor for the Hill-Smith repair parts for Ford automobiles and also State distributors for the Webber automatic carburetor, which is designed and manufactured for those who want to increase their mileage.

The Webber automatic undertakes to increase the mileage of any automobile from 20 to 100 per cent, and in these days when Standard Oil is fattening up the purses of its stockholders, the Webber is an article which it will pay the motorist to look up, not only to increase mileage, but power.

Another active branch is the vulcanizing department, the process whereby the work is done being called the fuse rubber process. The company uses the same principal in repairing all tires, and are carrying in stock, on hand, and ready for instant use, inside and outside patches, cement patches and other tire accessories which they wholesale as well as retail to garages in Portland and throughout the State.

The company was recently incorporated and has as its president R. L. Keating and as treasurer, H. Earle Shaw. They keep two men on the road constantly. Mr. Keating, who covers the territory down State, and Mr. Verner L. Smith who looks after the company's interests within a distance of 20 and 25 miles.

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

The Trolley Wagon

1898

A New Thing Which Makes Fifteen Miles an Hour

The very latest vehicle to transport people around is called the trolley wagon. This interesting contrivance is really a happy medium between the trolley car and the ordinary vehicle. We have had auto-cars and motor-cars, but the trolley wagon is neither. It is an invention all by itself, and its source of power is the one thing that enables the trolley car to call it a first cousin.

The motor of the wagon is connected to the rear wheel by suitable gearing. It is about 15-horsepower. It is a powerful affair, for its two rear wheels are eight feet in diameter. The two front wheels are four feet in diameter. The frame supporting the motor is suspended from the wagon frame.

The width of the wheels is considerable, and as the front wheels are much nearer together than the rear wheels the wagon acts to quite a degree as a road roller. One of the advantages of the trolley wagon is that the worst road in the country has no terrors for it. The width of its wheels and the way they are adjusted make it possible for it to even ride over plowed ground in safety, and without that disagreeable jar that a rough road generally causes.

The trolley itself is adapted to run either on two or three wires. Everyone who has seen a trolley car must have noticed the little wheel that runs along on the wire. This is called the locking wheel, and its movement, which has heretofore been on a vertical plane, is arranged in this instance to operate on a horizontal plane, thus changing complication to simplicity and reducing the cost and weight of the wheel.

The inventor of the vehicle believes there are wonderful prospects in store for it. He sees no reason why it may not be utilized in many sections of the country, particularly where street cars do not run, and the building of a street car line would involve tremendous expense. He thinks the trolley wires could be erected, and then all that is needful will have been accomplished, as the trolley wagon can run over any kind of a road.

The wagon referred to has made a speed on a road of not over good construction of 15 miles an hour without great jar or accident. The invention certainly possesses the merit of being unique, and in attracting no little interest among those who are interested in the future of the trolley. — Philadelphia Press.

A Tire on the Road, Stop To Get It, Robbers in the Ditch!

Sheboygan, Wisconsin, 1921--

HOLDUP IS FOILED BY SPOTLIGHT

A spare automobile tire in the road, an old game resorted to by a certain class of bandits lured three young men from this city to stop to investigate last night, about three miles north of Sheboygan on the Lake Shore road and nearly cost them all the money they had. They were saved from the trap set for them, however, by the use of a spotlight on their car.

The young men who figured in the incident were Max and Gus Holman, members of the H. J. Holman & Sons overall company in this city, and Simon Leviton, a friend who was with them.

Saw Tire In Road

It was shortly after nine o'clock when the three, in the Nash sport car owned by Max Holman, were driving north on the Lake Shore road. As they arrived at a point three miles north of the city their attention was attracted to a tire lying alongside the road.

After passing the spot where the tire was seen they decided to stop and get it. They had passed it some several feet and backed the car up toward that point. Mr. Leviton, who was in the back seat, got out of the car and ran back to look for it. When he arrived at the place where he had seen the tire he did not see it, so he waited until the car got back to him. After it got there, they turned the spotlight on and discovered the tire had been moved farther away from the road and that it was attached to a rope.

Discovered It Was Bait

When they saw this they decided that It was only the bait of a holdup man and Mr. Leviton, the only one out of the car, ran and Jumped in and the driver, Max Holman, started the car off.

Led to Clump of Bushes

Mr. Holman stated this morning that the rope tied to the tire led to a clump of bushes a few feet from the road and that they knew someone was behind pulling it away from the road to draw whoever was attracted by it away far enough so that whoever was there would have had him in their power.

The spotlight was thrown on the spot where the tire lay only in an attempt to learn where it was, but Mr. Holman declared he believed it was the only thing that saved them from being robbed. As it happened, Mr. Leviton had a large amount of currency in his pockets.

It Is believed that when the spotlight was turned on it blinded the men who had planned the holdup so they could not see behind it and that it foiled their scheme.

Telephone For Sheriff

After arriving at Jack Johnson's roadhouse they stopped for a few minutes to telephone the sheriff's office. They said two men and a woman drove up in an automobile shortly after that and asked for a supply of gasoline. Max Holman declared one of the men was covered with mud and that he believed he was one of those who staged the tire episode and that the lady in the car was a blind to sidetrack any suspicion that may have been held toward them.

Sheriff Koehn received the call and immediately dispatched two of his deputies to that point to investigate. Mr. Holman said the three who were subject to the tire game waited at Johnson's for about 25 minutes, but that when representatives of the sheriff's office did not appear, they continued their journey.

--The Sheboygan Press, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, August 2, 1921, page 1.