The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1895-01-12
IDEAS OUT OF THE ORDINARY

King c. Gillette Is the name Of Boston
gentleman who does his own thinking.
The census tells him that people nowa-
days are massing themselves in great
cities, hence he figures 1t out that by and
by. economical reasons will induce them
to combine into one central city, thus do
ing away with several hundred costly
Tammanies. Mr.. King makes one great
mistake. He thinks Buffalo will be the
place where these shrewd coming Ameri-
cans will swarm, to save taxes. We are
prepared to prove. however, that they
will come to Scranton, by an overwhelm-
ing majority.
Great interest naturally centers In the
kind of houses Mr.. Gillette would build.
If, as the Buffalo Express points out, he
Is to have only one city, and all the manu-
featuring places in the country located
therein, he must provide for a great popu-
lation. This he does by constructing
mammoth apartment houses or hotels
where the people would be free from all
the annoyances of housekeeping. These
buildings would be so located as to give
a certain population to every square mile
of territory. Built in circular form, each
would stand a perfect work Of art, sep
arate and apart from every other build
ing a distance sufficient to bring out its
beauty as a whole. These buildings are
separated, say 1900 feet from center to
center, and are 800 feet in diameter. Steel,
art-tiling, glazed brick, ETC., would be
used in their construction. The grounds
would be laid out in beautiful lawns and
walks. The houses would be constructed
around central court and would be %
stories high. Mr.. Gillette calculates that
CO. 600, 900 people would live in Buffalo, or,
as we contend, in Scranton, and to take
care of this number 1000 of these apart
ment houses would be needed, an aver
| age of $500 pople to each house.
Inspector General NJ. Gattinger, of the
Austrian State railway, has recently in
troduced portable telephone apparatus
of his own invention, which promises to
become invaluable in the railroad SER
vice. 1t takes but few seconds to con-
meet 1.-THE conductors of the telephone
with the telegraph wire strung along
the road, and the phone may be used in
simultaneously, irrespective of any tele-
graphic message that may be In course of
| transmission over the same wire; the two
services do not interfere with each other
| in the least
Professor Mendenhall. in a lecture re-
Gently asserted that one great railroad In
dents that it was able to foretell with ac-
curacy each year how many lives would
be lost, how many arms or legs taken
off, and so on. "And its board Of direc.
tors" he added, "is thus always ready to
| weigh the cost of a new invention to add
| to the safeties of travel against the prob
able damages to be paid for fatal and
other injuries which the said invention
might prevent
| 1t Is reported that lampwick Of clay
that will give 20 per cent. more light thar
Il cotton wick. has been invented. II Is
made capillary by Incorporating with the
clay, while still plastic, filaments of un
spun vegetable fibre, which, burned out In
the baking, leave minute tubes running
through the wick, through which Tho
fame draws the oil by capillary attrac
tion. The flame thus fed, 1t Is claimed, Is
white odorlcss and smokeless, while III,
| novel wick itself Is almost indestructihlc