Morning journal and courier., 1894-04-05
THE NATIONS PATENT OFFICE.

THE NATIONS PATENT OFFICE. \ Glance at the Immense Business Done in This Department of the National GOvernment-Some queer Things That People Have Had Standardization With Photo. graph-Germ.Proof Rubber Suits T0rnado.Proof Heuse-Beauty 1n- ventions-A Dimple.Maker-A New Way 10 Raise Dimpies-The Great Array of Car.Coupling Patents Inventive Energy in she Fire Escape | Llne-The Crank Inventors Who | BesIege the Patent Omce and Make Life Weary There.
 (From Our Washington Correspondentl WASHINGTON, April 3.-Of the 23. 900 or 24, GOO patents issued from the patent office yearly and signed by Patent Commissioner John s. Seymour of Connecticut, about one in ten pay for the cost of taking out the patent and perhaps one in fifty ever get into general use for the purposes for which they are intended, while not one in ten thousand is ever known as @ great in- vention, like the air brake, electric light, telephone, etc. Of the patents taken out, Connecticut takes out one for every 1,0l8 of her population, Rhode Island one for every 1,191 of hers, Massachusetts ono for every 1,055 of hers, while Mississippi takes out one for every 20, 469 and North Carolina one for every 21 ,28S, showing clearly that the greatest number of invent ors are to be found in New England. yield to the government net income of about $150, 900 year, furnishes employ ment to some 600 clerks, many of whom are women, most of them being skilled laborers. The patent office occupies the larger part of the patent office building, and from the walls thereof have issued many patents for queer devices, the models | of which are still to be found in the model room, as also some of the most important. Perhaps the queerest thing ever patented is a head stone containig the life sizs pho | tograph of the deceased and some suitable | inscription, so that when visiting the dead | they might be seen as in life. So far as | can learn the invention was never used, al- | though patented some twenty years ago. Another is a tornado proof house which revolves on pivot, with weather vane l at one end and a six pound cannon at the ! other protruding from port hole, | the :idea being that when the tornado strikes the house, to get the center of the | tornado within range of the cannon, and | by firing into it destroy it, the effect being the same as on waterspout. Still another | is a germ proof rubber suit to be used by surgeons in the attendance upon patients suffering from infectious diseases, and Is known as the germ proof suit; and also a suit supposed to be fire proof and used by firemen, and made of asbestos. These, with hundreds of others just as queer, go to make up the grand list of wasted time and money to inventors who imagine they have struck 1t rich and are to become mill | ionaires at once.
 Beauty inventions constitute anothe, queer class in themselves and tend largely to aid in the identification of woman. lovely woman. No part of the female form has been neglected by this class of inventors, and you may now take youl choice of false busts, calves and hipl made of almost every conceivable ma terial, and with 50 varied style of attach ment as desired. Among them are wirt frames for filling out the figure, rubber suits to be blown up like toy balloons, and last but not least, the latest style of cor set, which gets SO nicely on its wooder '
 But with the form properly made, the face and hands, as we'll as the hair, mus have their share of attention, and tht number of washes and cosmetics for which patents arc granted are legion, while mai pollshes and creams for the proper care o1 the hands are numbered among the hun dreds, and following close in their wax, come invisible hair pins, false fronts, sill nets, etc.
 The most unique of these invention is perhaps what is known as the 'dimpl maker" and is the device of woman. | consists of 8 wire mask, to be worn 8 night, and by peculiar arrangement O. screws, blunt pencils of wood are presse, into the skin, where dimples are desired The operation must, however, be yer, ] painful and the loss of sleep hardly com pensates the woman for the nics dimpls il her cheek or chin.
 II A mask made of thin rubber to be wor
 over the face at night to create a profus [ precipitation and thus cleanse the face o 7 l all impurities Is another invention whic
 aids woman to impose upon that unsus
 pecting mortal, man.
 One thing about this class of invention
 more peculiar than the inventions then
 selves is the fact that they are invented b | men instead of women, who, as the sayin goes, needs little here below, but need
 that little much, to perfect her form (
 features.
 Of course all this class of inventions sur
 ply certain field which go to make u ! | the industries, and some of them are req ly valuable, especially some of the wsshe
 injurious drugs, the law providing stric
 ly that they shall be in order to be paten
 ed, and this fact teEds largely to show wh
 a trade mark is preferred for 8 patent msi icine rather than patent, which woul
 not be granted.
 Outside of this class of inventions 60 1T
 teresting to the female reader, which no'
 engage the attention of the public, are th
 car-coupling patents, the number of whic
 have go far reached into the thirty thor
 sands, and with several being grante
 every week.
 They are mainly self justing coupling and the craze for their prod uction was th
 act of congress passed some time agt
 which, at the request of various labor o1
 ganizations, enacted law compelling d
 railway companies to adopt adjustable ca couplers which could be operated withou going between the cars, and since ths
 time inventors from all sections have bee
 engaged in perfectipg these couplers, an, nearly all with soms different mode c operation.
 Still another field to which the averaR inventor is now turning his attention i these days of high buildings ia that of in venting fire escapes, and in recent years considerable waste of inventive energy ha occurred in this direction. The iron bal cony and stairway feature to give crowds
 rapid exit where hsste Is necessary wa publicly suggested only nine years age and 1t was not until some years later tha | the spiral form of stairway was adopted
 But the handling of large crowds iron
 theaters, halls and schools Is one thing an
 the means of exit down the outside of
 burning building by a few psople, wher no considerable expense can be incurred is quite another, and 1t is this that inven tors are trying to provide for.
 The great trouble so far has been to de vise some simple and quickly operativ device, as many of the inventions SO ia are 50 complicated that only an exper under calm conditions could operate them while many are absolutely impracticsble
 Perhaps the cheapest, most easily pro | cnrad and a1eo tha aimpleat means of oe