Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-02-19
THE LIGHTNING ROD
Remains as Much an Article OF Utll-
ity as it Was Years Ago,
BUT s2 FACTORIES DWINDLE TO 4.
Consolidation and Railways Take the Rods
Off the Country Roads,
THOUGH TIE OUTPUT is ENORMOUS

Twenty wears ago there were 90 lightning rod
factories in the United States To-day there
are but three and those doing trifling busi-
ness. The lightning rod was the biggest hum
bug of the nineteenth century.
So saws a Chicago paper that ought to
know what it is talking about. The quota
ton was shown, however, to Mr.. Hum, of
this city, and he remarked: That man
must be a great scientist. Our factory last
year sold 40, ,OOO, 900 feet of rod, and there
were 15O, 900 feet of it retailed here"
The topic is one not only of scientific and
life and proper ty preserving interest but it
is also of interest as showing the tendency
of manufacturing and commercial interests
toward consolidation for cheapening cost OF
products and increasing profits at the ex-
pense of small capitalists, who must either
get out of the way or be squeezed out. 1t
would appear that the impression that the
business has petered out is largely caused
by the almost entire disappearance OF the
wagons that once carried the rods through
the country. Thirty years ago person
driving through the country would feel as
though something were missing if he did
not meet a lightning-rod vender. They
were harbingers of summer; but they have
as effectually disappeared from view as has
the yearly migration of wild pigeons,
feature before the war.
1t is said the 100 factories or SO that 30
years ago gave employment to an army of
distributors, have been consolidated until
there are but four left; but these can make
as much rod as could the 100, and since rail-
ways have been built within few miles Of
every district east of the Mississippi, the
army of deliverers has been forced to hunt
other employment. The rods are
NOW KEPT IN STOCK
by the hardware stores, and can be had as
readily as a spade or any other agricultural
implement in most sections. The fact that
the business makes but little show of conse-
quence in this section is explainable by the
now largely difused knowledge that by the
great multiplication of conductors the accu-
mutation of opposite electricities in quanti-
ties sufficient to produce destructive dis
charges is prevented, and thus it is that
houses in cities are rarely struck, or vessels
where many are lying together in the docks
lSOldIeQ houses
jects of the lightning stroke.
Some years ago a writer, advancing this
hypothesis. argued further that the building
OF railways and telegraph lines had so con-
duced to the multiplication of conductors
that the accumulation of opposite electrici-
ties in quantities sufficient to produce de-
structive discharges was prevented thereby
the fluid being so greatly diffused that its
concentration to the extent known in former
days was physical impossibility.
1t is certain that we have not the fear of
lightning that people had 80 years or more
ago; and it is nor familiarity with it that
has bred contempt, for it will not allow that
feeling to grow. 1t still refuses to be fooled
with as strenuously as in the days when
Franklin was making his experiments, and
when the French struck a medal in his
honor bearing the inscription: Eripuit
celo fulmen.
AS the honor of this country is bound up
with the lightning rod. it is somewhat rash,
in absence of complete proof, to characterize
it as "the biggest humbug of the nineteenth
century" especially when it has received
not only the approval Of European as we'll
as American scientists, but of German in
surance companies, who
HAVE PROCURED STATISTICS
on the subject which strongly support the
opinion that rods offer great degree of pro-
lection. Statistics of late years have done
much to knock props from under theories
After theologians had spent some thousands
of years endeavoring to prove with absolute
certainty that polygamy was wrong, by con-
tending that the births of the sexes was
about equal, infdel France munitioned the
theological armory by statistics showing all
the most ardent anti-polygamist could ask
that the male births slightly exceeded the
female.
The security afforded by the lightning
rod has been more or less recognized for
300 years; but the fact that within the
memory of man some people thought il sin
to utilize it, shows what slow progress sci
ence formerly made against prejudice.
Few. unless raised in the backwoods, can
realize that the majority of people 80 years
ago recognized thunder as the voice of God,
as did the man of Uz., vide, Job, xxxvii.
Then this idea was as firmly fixed in the |
minds Of the majority, as was the belief of
Greece and Rome that Jupiter pelted the |
earth with thunderbolts when things were
not running to suit him, and the story told |
of the PENNSYLVANIA Dutchman who had |
paid money toward the building of a
church, but
REFUSED TO CONTRIBUTE
for the purpose of purchasing lightning |
rods, on the ground that, if the Almighty |
wanted to burn His own property it was no. |
body's business, simply reflected a large |
portion of public opinion at that time.
Doubtless there are myriads of grown |
people in Pittsburg and Allegheny who do |
not know that, in 1856, for a preacher to |
wear a mostache was regarded as sin, by |
many good people living betweentP Pittsburg |
and Altoona; but such is the fact, and some |
OF them had grave doubts as to the morality |
Of allowing the manufacture of labor |
saving machines, holding that man must |
earn his bread ''in the sweat of his face" or
fall under the condemnation of sin. Most |
Of these old fathers and mothers in Israel
have gone over Jordan, and if they are |
still possessed with the same views, and |
able to keep track of the ways of their
there must be a vast amount
of sorrow in that "land that is fairer than
this" Perhaps, as someone said lately,
they believe less and hope more" than thev
did here, or rather that they see things as
thew did not here
Meantime, there is enough lightning-rod |
made each year to girdle the globe, and
have enough over 10 make a submarine
cable that would reach across the Atlantic. l