The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1882-02-22
Norris Scrap Cabinet.
Ev. s. A. W. JEwrrr. D. ID,

nav o. ~ w JEW Ell, ~. L.,
NoKrHvEsTKRx CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE, 4
CHICAGO, April n, 1881.
One who has given no special thought
to the subject would be surprised at the
large number of really valuable articles
upon science, religion, education, general
literature, politics and the current history
of the times which the intelligent reader
of the daily and weekly press meets in the
course of year. How to select and pre-
serve the permanently valuable, so that it
may be readily available for use when it is
wanted, Is the great question with the
student, thinker, literary worker, preacher,
editor, lecturer and political speaker.
Numerous attempts have been made to
answer this question and meet the want
of the age by means of scrap-books, scrap
envelopes, repertories, and like devices.
But all of them have found to be cum
bersome. inconvenient and unsatisfactory.
Any one of these devices is doubtless bet
ter than no attempt TO save and utilize the
results of ones daily reading. But the
advantages of all these various methods
have Just now been embodied in an ingen-
ious invention by Rev. ]. s. Norris, Joliet,
Ill. This patent "Scrap Cabinet" is, as to
exterior description. a neat walnut case.
thirty inches high, and when shut, twenty
four inches wide, and ten inches deep.
The interior of the "Cabinetn is provided
with one hundred and twenty envelopes
for newspaper scraps, each capable Of con-
tanning an amount of matter equal to q
volume Of Joseph Cooks lectures, such as
have Just been published. The envelopes
are ten inches, in length, and of sufficient
width for the usual wide newspaper, col
umn. At the top of each envelope there
is card on which TO write the subject or
title. These envelopes are open at the sides.
and are held together by light elastic
bands, so as to make it easy and con-
venient to open them and examine their
contents; and so as to hold, at the top,
short clippings that may be placed in them,
with longer ones where they will be easily
accessible The envelopes are attached to
swinging rack by means Of transverse
wire, and a spring hanger upon each en-
velope, by means of which it is held in It's
place securly, and yet may be easily re-
moved from the Cabinet for examination
without disturbing It's neighbors. The
racks upon which the envelopes hang are
furnished with frictionsl springs by which
they may be held up at an angle of forty
five degrees when the Cabinet is open and
in use This leaves space betweenthe en-
velopes as they hang suspended on the
wires, so that one may be taken out with
out the slightest difficulty, and returned to
its place again. A rack such as that men,
toned hangs on each of the doors, and one
on the interior of the back of the case So
that when the Cabinet is open, you have
before your eyes, its library Of one hun
dred and twenty volumes, provided You
have filed the envelopes, spread out, cover
ing q space of four feet wide by thirty
inches high, with the title of each volume
full in view, and all arranged in alphabet
cal order And TO add to the multum in
parvo, q complete Library Key is provid-
ed for on the front ofeach envelope, where
the books, volumes and pages in your IL
brary, which treat upon the same subject,
may be eentered. am free to say that the re-
suits of using this time-saving, intellectual
wealth preserving invention, for fifteen or
twenty years past, could I have had it
through those years, would be worth many
hundreds of dollars to me, and more than
one fourth of my library.