The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1886-08-14
HALF A CENTURY.
The Marvellous Inventions Projected Dur
ing the Past Fifty Years.


1t almost staggers belief to think OF
the improvements which have been
made in labor-saving machinery. The
number of inventions that have been
made during the past fifty years is I'M
precedented in the history of the world
Inventions of benefit to the human race
have been made in all ages since man
was created; but, looking back for half
hundred years, how many more are
crowded into the past fifty than into
any other fifty since recorded in history.
The perfection of the locomotive and
the steamship, the telegraph, the tele-
phone, audiphone, sewing machine,
photograph, acknowledgement print
ing, the cylinder-printing press, eleva-
tors for hotels and other buildings, the
cotton gin and the spinning jenny, the
reaper and mower, steam thresher,
steam fire engine, the improved process
for making steel, the applications of
chloroform and ether to destroy sensi-
bility in painful surgery cases, and
so on through a long catalogue.
Nor are we yet done in the field
of invention or discovery. The applica-
ton of coal gas and petroleum to heat
ing and cooking operations is on the
verge of successful experiment: the in
PRODUCTION of steam from a central
reservoir to general use for heating
and cooking is foreshadowed as among
coming events; the navigation of the
air by some device akin to our present
balloon would also seem to be pre-
figured, and the propulsion of ma
chinery by electricity is even now
clearly indicated by the march of ex-
pertinent. There are some problems
we have hitherto deemed impossible,
but are the mysteries of even the most
improbable of them more subtle to
grasp than that of the ocean cable or
that of the photograph? We speak in
our voices to friends hundred miles
or more from where we articulate be-
fore the microphone. Under the blaz-
ing sun of July we produce ice by
chemical means. rivaling the most solid
and crystalline production of nature.
Our surgeons graft the skin from one
persons arm to the face of another.
and it adhcres and becomes an integral
portion of his body. We make mile
of white printing paper and send it on
a spool that perfecting printing press
unwinds and prints, and delivers to
you folded and counted many thousand
per hou-, -AmericGp I7centor.
The San Francisco Report wants to
have commandments abolished on the
ground that they are out of place in
country where free education is offered
to all. "rhe college commencement"
it says, sis relic of the ancient time
when the scholar was a rarity and Il
distinguished person who must be treat
ed with exceptional honor. He gener-
ally was compelled to suffer hardships
and prvation in order to obtain his
knowledge, and he was treated with
corresponding respect upon winning
the battle. But it is absurd for the
State to furnish the children of this
State with free education, and then
to make heroes of them for accepting il. "
Doctor Pillgartic, of Springfield,
told a patient the other day that he
must keep perfectly quiet, and not read
anything or allow anything whatever
to occur that required his attention or
interest. upon penalty of desth. The
man went right off and made applica.
ton to be placed upon a jury.-Spring.