The Globe-republican., 1892-07-04
OUR ST. LOUIS LETTER

The Color Line at tho Manual Training
school-A Now Departure In Building
Lucky Inventors.
The white students Of the Manual
Training School of Washington Uni
versity have persistently objected to
the presence of the handful of colored
boys who were at the institution, and
towards the close of the last session
there were SO many disagreeable ex-
pressions of this feeling that the
faculty thought it best to refuse the
colored youths permission to enter
next year. 1t seemed, however. on
many accounts, such good thing for
the colored boys to be taught to be-
come mechanics. if they wanted to,
that the Public School Board has taken
up the matter and the end of the dis
cussion will be that one of the public
schools for colored people, the Tous-
saint School, will be equipped with the
proper apparatus and will train the
boys in skilled manual work. The
teachers at the University Training
School say that the colored boys make
very good mechanics when they once
make up their minds to learn. This
move of the school board is an excel
lent one, and the example ought to be
followed in other large cities where
they have no manual training school
for the colored boys
Three large office buildings now 60
ing up downtown are being con
structed on a novel plan. Generally
the walls of brick or stone are built up
from the ground, one after another.
The walls of these buildings are erected
all at once. That is, several floors are
put one on another, and supported by
steel pillars, before a brick is laid.
After the pillars are in place the brick
or stone is built In between them. The
idea is new, and the architects regard
1t as a sensible departure from old
lines The buildings thus put up are
both lighter and cheaper than the ones
made in the style of our forefathers,
one story after another. They can be
erected much more quickly, too.
This city seems to encourage the de-
velopment of the inventive instinct A
friend of Secretary John w. Noble is
one of the successful inventors who
lives here. He has thought out several
contrivauces which are a boon to the
deaf; little arrangements which nurse
the sound waves and are applied to the
ear by means of walking sticks, fans
and invisible tubes placed inside. An
other young man who was a clerk in
the custom house. on a small salary,
has just invented faucet by which
champagne can be emptied into bottles
like beer, instead of popping out with
, report startling to nervous people,
and often a great waste of wine. This
young man found a friend in U. S. Mar
shall John w. Emerson. who backed
him with money, and three months
after he started to make his little fsu-
Gets he found he had a fortune in his
grxsp
St Louis Is now the only town in the
country that has enough people inter-
ested in horse-racing to maintain
track where the events are run off at
night. The managers of the track in
the southern part of the city began
racing oy electric light last Monday
night, and promise to keep it up
through the summer. All those inter
ested in horses as well as the book
makers, will do their best to make the
experiment a success, and if it is, q
winter track will be established here
like the one at Guttenburg. The Mis-
souri, law now permits no pool-selling
on any races outside the State, and the
effort of the horsemen will be to keep
racing going in the State all the year
round.