Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-07-21
CIGARS FOR SUNDAY,
To be Sold by Means OF a New Put.a-
Nickel-in-a-Slot Machine.
TOBE OPERATED TODAY.
A Company With $4,000 Capital to Place
Them on the Market.
A PITTsBURG MAN THE NEW INVENTOR

The prestige of the Law and Order League
as an infallible champion of the blue laws
regarding all kinds of Sunday selling, seems
to be in one particular either doomed or set
at naught by Yankee ingenuity. Captain
Wishart is likely to be completely handi-
capped by inanimate machines that
do the bidding of their owners,
but cannot be forced to pay the fines
or take ride in the "hurry up wagon,
while the public feels at liberty to use them
and smile. The drop-a-penny-in-the-sl
machine, which has dealt out mineral water
on Sunday, has not been checked in its
more or less lawless work, notwithstanding
the warnings to that end of the Law and
Order people. The machines are still being
placed rapidly throughout the city. and bid
fair to stay.
To-day, for the first time, the Law and
Order League will have worse automatic
foe to deal with, no less ingenious in its me-
chanism and effectiveness than the mineral
water machines.
WHAT THE NEW TERROR IS.
1t is nothing less than drop-a-nickel-in-
Observation-Disclosures machine. The first
specimens of it were placed on the market
yesterday, and number Of them will be in
operation to-day.
The machine is very simple contriv-
cigars, and will be locked to the building
outside the door. or even on the door, on
Sundays. Put nickel in the slot. pull
little knob, and big cigar falls out into
little trough, placed conveniently to re-
ceive it.
When the nickel is deposited in the slot
it falls down little trough and raises a
"dog," which allows the slide with the cigar
on to be pulled out. Another "dog" keeps
the slide from going too far and giving the
second cigar or another, until the knob is
pushed back and the nickel operation re-
peated. No way has been found to cheat it
or stop its working on Sunday, except by
clogging it up, and that is a violation OF the
automatic machines code OF procedure.
Joseph Askins, Pittsburger, is the in
ventor, and last night he explained the
workings OF the little machine to a DIS
PATCH reporter. Thomas R. Kerr & Co.,
firm with $50, 900 capital, have taken hold
of the invention and will manufacture it,
and it will be sold along with 1000 cigars
AT STORES AND HOTELS.
The firm has already in course of con-
struction 500 of the machines, and it put
them on the market for the first yesterday.
A machine was last night locked to the
store of Browne Bros. corner of Smithfield
street aud Seventh avenue, and in all II
automatic defances" were placed yester-
day. II was understood last night that
several hotels would run them to-day; but
their names were Eot learned.
The only trouble expected from the
machine, is that it should, to pay we'll,
hold 5000 cigars instead of 100, and so
larger "automatics" will be made later.
When Browne Bros machine was first
put up last night, by pulling the knob out,
pushing halt way back in again and again
pulling it out, the whole box of cigars could
have been euticed out for one nickel. The
proprietors were chagrined; but Inventor
Askins happened along, and. in few min
utes, set Alright the. mechanism, which the
workmen had failed to do properly.