The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-06-07

l trap of a somewhat similar character is
steel shutter for a house window so dis
gIlSed with covering and fringe as to look
| like an ordinary curtain. II burglar
| tries 10 enter at night, it shuts down
upon him. the spikes hidden by the fringe
helping to hold him fast.
An erican inventors have been fruitful
of queer ideas in musical instruments.
Patents have been sought for yiolins
made of metal, OF earthenware, of glass,
Of leather, and even of glue. Plain wood,
| however, maintains its place as the
| accepted material for this purpose How
many people have ever heard of the
| "doOrophOneln IL consists of a frame
and sounding board, with tuned wires
and little metal balls suspended. The
contrivance IS hung upon door. When
the latter is opened, the balls swing back
| and forth and strike harmonious chords.
There is patented device for playing
the banjo by electricity. 1t requires no
skill, the instrument being operated by a
sheet of paper with perforations which
control the making and breaking of a cir
cult. Mechanical fingers thus actuated
pick the strings and depress them at the
frets. Another instrument is so ar
ranged that one may play the banjo by
manipulating the keys of keyboard like
that of piano on a small scale. The
oAAAN ANN0 - va Aott ny ii yum Ol
piano and violin the strings Of the latter
being fingered by the use of piano.like
keyboard. OF course, that is the difficult
part of violin playing, the handling of the
bow being simple enough. The bow is
held In the right hand, while the fingers
Of the left hand strike the keys.
Within the last few years manymusical
instruments that play themselves have
been invented. These ought TO be a god
send in non-musical households, not to
mention the saving of money for teaching
ana OF distress to the nerves of those who
are not doing the practicing. For ex-
ample, there is the piano organ, which is
operated by strips Of perforated paper
like an orguinette. 1t is either piano or
an organ, or both together, and it plays
itself much better than most people who
understand the piano could play it, be-
cause the mechanical arrangement is
made with a high degree of musical skill
The performer simply works the bellows.
But there is contrivance with mechani-
cal hands which may be showed up In
front of any piano and will do the playing.
CoNTRIvANCEs FOR THE PIANO.
Another patented continuance for the
piano furnishes the instrument with auxil-
larry strings, which sounds in sympathy
with the ordinary strings, though they
are not struck. They are turned in har-
mony with the primary strings and aug
ment the volume of tone There is a
kind of piano that holds a note as long as
the finger is kept on the key; the string
is kept vibrating by an electromagnetic.
The Janko keyboard is already becoming
well known. Its arrangement enables
the player to reach several octaves with
single hand; thus rendering certain eff
fects of execution possible which could
not be obtained on an ordinary keyboard
T'hnrc Al hrTv oh no
performer is enabled to improvise on the
piano and to have the imnrovisauons re-
| corded with self-inking pens or otherwise.
Afterward the record may be translated
nto the common notation.
Music boxes nowadays are made in all
sorts of queer shapes. The glass water
| bottle on the dinner table plays a tune
while the guest ills his tumbler The
| cigar holder becomes tuneful when a
| match is struck upon it. Toilet sets have
music boxes concealed in them. Fruit
| plates, on being placed upon the festive
| board, start up with jigs and waltzes.
| Photograph albums become harmonious
| when opened. Clocks, instead of strik-
| ing, emit operate fragments every hour.
| Artificial singing birds, run by clock
work, with bellows and whistle. carol
| melodiously, One may buy an imitation
| canary, robin or nightingale in a cage.
| Music boxes run all the way from 40
cents up to 81 900 for complete orchestra
! in a box, with reeds, bells and rolling
| drums. One sort will play any number of
| operas, the music being fed to the ma
chine in the shape of perforated strip.
QUEER THINGS FROM PAPER.
Patents have been granted for making
! innumerable queer things,out OF paper
! such as carpets, electric conduits, lead
| pencils, roofing material. car wheels
boats, pals, collins, brushes and combs
! Mattresses are manufactured out of pa
per pulp and ordinary sponge, springs
being imbedded in the composition. A
| cloth paper for bank notes has been in
| vented, the notion being TO render such
| money less perishable and more difficult
TO counterfeit. Paper is used nowadays
for architectural decorations, interior and
| exterior. Cornices, panels and friezes are
| nodded out of the pulp. Paper collar S.
which used TO be produced in such enor-
moks numbers, seems to have gone out of
| fashion. Only the other day a rural-look-
| ing person with gripsack, after wander
! ing up and down Pennsylvania avenue for
a long time, walked into the Metropol-
itan hotel, and, addressing the clerk, re-
! marked:
This is a HI of a town. have been
to fifty stores, and not one paper collar
could | get. What do you wear, here
celluloid?"
One of the most successful of recent in
| ventions Is process for making artificial
straws out Of paper for drinking iced
beverages. Everybody knows that real
straws are apt to be defective; but the
limitations are always satisfactory and
never fail to draw. After they are
rolled they are treated with paraffine, to
render them water tight and non-absorb-
emit The same patent covers mouth
| pieces for cigarettes, which are manufac-
tured in similar fashion
Medals are made out of paper and col
ored to Initiate silver or bronze. Cigar
boxes are manufactured from the same
material, favored with cedar oil to give
them the customary smell Hollow tele-
graph poles of paper pulp are a new in
! Vention. They are coated with Silicate of
potash to preserve them. The making of
/ paper bags Is an enormous industry in
/ this country. Four billions of paper bags
are used in the United States every year.
of these the paper bag trust turns out
70 per cent. Not long ago process was
! devised by which 3-Sths Of an inch of ma
terial could be saved IN the cutting of
each bag. On this account the trust OBJ
tanned complete new equipment of ma
! chinery at an immense cost, but the saw
ing for the first year by that small econ
! omy Of 9-Sths Of an inch was $40, 900 One
machine for making paper bags will cut
/ and finish $4,000 bags day The
business of manufacturing envelopes
J lC Tho pDVp1nnnc q, Mt