The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1896-11-07
THE ORPHEUM.-A sensational
vaudeville bill will be presented at this
house at the matinee today.
MAKING ARTIFICIAL EARS.
Those Who Need the LuXuries Are Com
PEELED to Pay for Them.

If there is one branch of scientific
manufacturing that would seem to have
reached perfection within the last dec
ade it is the making of artificial ears.
Such perfect reproductions are turned
out nowadays that they cannot be dis
tinguished, even upon a fairly close in
specton, from the natural ear. Made of
a specially prepared rubber, flesh-col-
ored in the rough they are painted by
hand in exact imitation of the remain
ing ear of the unfortunate customer,
and as carefully touched and marked
over as an artists picture. This is nee
essary, for an artificial ear must be
perfect to be acceptable, and such care
full work pays the maker, for he gets
500 apiece for them.
In a certain workshop, the other day,
where much scientific work is done.
there was shown to a Tribune repre-
sentative little box some seven or
eight inches long, less than two inches
broad and hardly half an inch high.
There is $500 worth of goods in that
box" said the foreman as he lifted off
the cover, displaying five rubber ears
living in cotton. "These are for four diff
ferent men and one woman-you see
that little ear there-and all they need
now is for the artist to call for them
and touch 'em up according to slips
We'll give him telling just how the color
ing should go on. We studied on. GUS
toners carefully when we took the or
ders.
"A hundred dollars seems big price,
doesn't it, to pay for a little thing like
one of those ears. that's so flexible you
can crumple it up in your hand easily?
But people that have never made arti-
fetal ears have no idea of the work that
is on them. There is no guessing about
making them. You have to be as exact
as if you were carving out a statue.
In the first place, when men comes
here to get an ear to replace one he's
lost, we take a mold of the ear he has
left, and if there is any part of the othe:
we must get q mold of that, too. so as to
be able to fit on the new ear There are
no two ears exactly the same and it
takes our most skilled workmen to ge1
an ear from this mold or pair of molGs
that is lifelke and appears to have the
color of flesh.
when finished the new ear is pasted
on the old stump, or simply set precisely
where the old ear was, and not one man
in 1000 can tell the difference. 1t is really
only the first ear that is expensive. What
costs is to make the mold. If man has
his mold with us we will give him du
plicate ear for about $50 each. There is
one customer on our books hailing from
Chicago who buys five ears year from
us on an average. l don't know what
he does with them all, out he seems TO
want them.
THE demand, take it altogether, is
limited, and / don't suppose we ever
turn out more than twenty new ears a
year. We have only been making them
up to our present standard a couple of
years, by the way.
This vulcanized rubber that can be
bent and twisted experience has taught
us is the best material to use. We have
experimental with nearly everything
Last summer we tried aluminium, think
ing that it would be lighter, but, do our
best. the ear turned out far heavier, and,
besides, the metal would not lend itself
nearly as we'll as rubber to the imita-
ting of flesh tints.
How do people lose their ears? In
two WAYS chieiy-in railroad accidents
or by getting caught in machinery. The
former is by far the more common
New York Tribune.