St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1889-02-07

1t is said that lightning-rods, once
so popular in this country, have
nearly gone out of use. Proof of this
is furnished by the fact that there
are now but three factories engaged
ninety-three only a few years ago.
There are not many other things ex-
cept the roller skate and blue glass
which can boast of greater falling
off. 1t would appear that the light
ning-rod is passing away with that
younger institution, the toboggan
slide
If the lightning-rod has really
practically gone, as the figures
quoted would seem to show, it must
afford considerable relief in rural COM
munities by doing away with the
lightning-rod agent This humble
but aggressive individual has long
been the terror of the unprotected
farrnhouse-that is, the house unpro-
tected by advantageous. Even when
house has been well supplied with
rods he sometimes declares that they
are of an inferior make and worse
than useless, and if the owner will
not consent to a change he has been
known to pounce down upon the
house while he was absent, strip the
building of the obnoxious rods and
erect his own along every ridgeboard,
on every chimney, around every cor
nice, till the helpless house bristled
like fretful porcupine; and then sit
down on the front stoop and wait
calmly with the bill for the return of
the astonished agriculturist. No
other agent approaches him in all
that goes to make up a successful
man in this line save the apple-tree
agent The professional seller ssf SUI
perior varieties of Siberian crab-ap-
pies need not usually fear comparison
with the man engaged in the light
ning-rod industry. But the book
agent cannot appoach him, great and
deserved as the book agents reputa-
ton is. The book agent frequently
sells book to a man who really does
not want it very badly, but the
lightning-rod agent has been known
to sell man a rod who has no house
to put it on, crooking it into the
proper shape and driving one end of
it into the ground so that the man
could build his house under it when
the time came.
The passing away of the lightning
rod can be laid at the door of the
icOnOclastic modern scientist. Not
content with roofing up about every
belief that we ever had in anything,
he must needs turn to the lightning
rod and show that it is no better
oh
ing more lightning to strike the house
than it frightens away or lures gent
" to the earth Amid the crash of
thousand fond beliefs of the past he
is not happy, but hurls the long
cherished lightningrod with the rest.
He has been working skilfully up to
this for a long time, so we need not
be surprised to learn that lightning
rods are practically a thing of the
past. A number of years ago he be-
gan to warn people against poor
rods, and hint that great many of
them were no better than they should
be, and gave directions for making
superior rOdS-and even then he
would not guarantee them in every
case. Then he went a step further
and said that it was only in extreme
ly exceptional cases that a lightning
rod could possibly do the least good,
and then only when made and set up
by one of his own number. Then, a
few years ago, he came out boldly
and told us that all lightning-nods
were arrant humbugs; that they
attracted the lightning and COM
municated it to the house, watched
it burn down with fendish glee and
danced derisive, one-legged jig amid
the darkness over the ruins. A little
of this kind of talk, of course, soon
settled the fate of the lightning-rod.
People began to mistrust them, then
to abandon them altogether. 1t is
not strange that the number of fac
tories has shrunk from ninety-three
to three. Lightning-rods will linger
a little time yet in Philadelphia, and
then they will pass away.-[New
York Tribune