St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1896-01-03
YOU THE TIME
THE ODDS ARE TWENTY TO ONE
THAT YOU HAVE NOT.

INC HhI-IlOW SoIHNDe 6hAt -"
ed Daily From Washington.
Ninety nine men out Of o hundred
keep incorrect time. Ninety-nine men
out of q hundred are just in the act Of
regulating their watches in front of a
window that has a chronometer in it.
II you ask q man the time, and his
watch is wrong, he is invariably going
to the matchmaker that very day to
have it put in order. No one has any
idea Of keeping the correct time. All
believe that they have it in their pock-
cts, and none ever gets it except at the
moment of setting his watch.
If you have a friend in the railroad
business and stop him in the street with
a friendly "Hello, old fellow, what's
the time? You always have it correct"
be will haul out his timepiece with an
important air and give the hour in q
voice that shows he knows what time it
is and that he is never wrong. A
square or two farther on you chance to
meet another friend in the same line Of
business. You ask him the time, receive
an answer, smile to yourself and pass
on. There was ten minutes difference
between them. Every time the state
house bell strikes a hundred men pull
out their watches with a confident air
Of being correct and put them back
with an expression Of extreme surprise.
We all live, flourish and die in time,
but no one keeps the correct Immediate
record Of the moments that beat out
slowly and surely the limit Of longevity.
An experienced jeweler and watch
maker, when asked the reason why SO
few people kept good time, said that
nine-tenths of the causes of bad running
watches was due to carelessness and
irregularity in winding. A watch
should be wound at the same time
every day, and it ought to be regulated
on one day every week at the noon
hour, when both hands come together.
The finest watches cannot be made per-
feet, and the best way to detect any
difference between the two hands is to
reset them at 10 o'clock, and if they
are not exactly together make them so
by holding the longer and winding the
hour hand up to it.
An expensive jeweled watch ranging
from $500 to 81, 900 is very seldom in
good running order simply because the
owner is afraid to let a jeweler tamper
with it and does not dare touch it him
self.
In a large city correct time, absolutely
correct time, is a matter between some
dozen or two of men who follow almost
every stroke Of the pendulum and cor
rect their chronometers with as much
daily regularity as Captain Cutie did his
famous timepiece. Women are said to
be the most careless in the attention to
watches. A lady has a watch presented to
her by a gentleman friend and volun-
tarily promises to keep it in the very
best running order. The gentleman
friend has his misgivings on that score,
but he gets the jeweler toput it in good
shape couple of weeks ahead and there
upon hands it over to the lady. Now,
that watch has been running like a chro-
nometer until the fair owner gets hold
Of it. The first thing she does is to no.
tice the time in q store window, and as
her watch does not agree with it she sets
it accordingly, putting the regulator
away over to one side. That night she
forgets to wind it up, the next morning
she winds it up only half way for fear
of breaking the main spring and sets it
by another clock in the afternoon. Then
it run down inside of eight hours, and
she thinks it is running wild-as it very
likely is, since she has put the regulat-
ing lever back and forth no less than six
times in the course of a week. After
this she wonders why the watch is al
ways wrong and blames the jeweler.
Correct time comes into Philadelphia
every day at noon by telegraph from the
United States time observatory at Wash
ington, where the drop ball" makes
an electric contact that sends the signal
all over the country. The first clock in
the city communicating with the observ-
atory wire is at the Maritime Exchange.
At 56 minutes after II the hands of the
clock automatically click into place by
the action Of the magnet and the little
train of wheels attached to it. Thus the
Washington time ball becomes at once
tho n1thnrItu fnr oil n1Nplyo orl nv, -,
fallible adjuster. The statehouse clock
is wound and regulated weekly by an
expert chronometer maker, who sets his
OWL watch by Washington communicate
ed time apd carries it Immediately to
Independence hall. Many large manu-
tacturers and business places where it
is necessary on account Of the number Of
men employed to have strictly conscien-
tious time employ a man to wind, keep
in order and regulate their clocks the
year round. Clocks kept closely to the
mark in this way are very seldom in
need Of extensive repairs, and like intel
ligently regulated watches have less
tendency to go wrong.
The Washington observatory clock
runs for years together and has v
varied more than six seconds for any
one year.
1t is kept true by continual quadrant
observations on the altitude of the sun
at its meridian. AS the earth revolu.
tions become slower only by the fraction
Of a second in q thousand years it may