Connecticut western news., 1896-01-30
MIR. cARRoLps GREAT IDEA.
n Puts . Man at His Best When He
 Held Up by Q Robber.

Held Up by a Robber.
 Taylor Carroll is engaged in devising formidable system of defense for lone gerous places where police protection is ineffective and the risk of being "held up" is ever present. His plan is to con- vert the erect human body into a minia- ture revolving turret, armed St four points and capable of dealing death in front, rear or flank simultaneously or of sending four successive discharges in the same direction.
 MT. Carroll's design is still in its ru. dimentary stage, with numborless minor details to be elaborated, but his central idea is we'll developed. He says he has not yet prepared diagrams or expert lined it mentally.
 "I would have a small storage bat tery worn in a belt," he said, with small copper wires running from 1t up through the sleeves and connected with each hand on the great or middle finger with a copper ring the thumb can reach in the palm of the hand. When the thumb touched the ring, an electrical current would discharge four batteries loaded with ball behind and in front. This discharge could take place when the hands were being held under the threat of an armed robber.
 "The ring should be placed beyond the reach of the thumb except in cases of emergency, so the thumb will never discharge the battery accidentally" MT. Carroll is not practical electri- clan or mechanic, being an actor by profession. I[e has not figured up the weight of the storage battery to be car ried on the belt, nor is he adverse to considering the advisability of substi- tuting a dry primary cell.
 In his zeal for the application of sci entific methods to the protection of the citizen the inventor has apparently left out of sight everything but the tactical advantage of the lonely pedestrian at- tackled in front by the bold marauder or ciasped from behind by the lurking gar roter. Thus he has not yet figured out | how a slim young man is to avoid as- stunning Falstaffian dimensions when he braces storage batteries and arsenals around his waist.
 Nor does he forecast the possibly trag- ical consequences that might some day result from the clasp of a loving hand | upon the thumb and palm that carried the potential copper appurtenances he | describes, making inadvertent electrical contact and producing a catastrophe when only endearment was intended | Chicago Tribr~"
 | Weather Almanacs.
 Some of these almanacs rose to a great popularity on the strength of one lucky guess. and think it is told of Par tridge's almanac, or some other of the class, that it owed its reputation to a curious prophecy of extraordinary wealth CT for Jnly 31, when hail, rain, snow, | thunder, etc., were freely indicated. Forgetting that the month had 31 days, the almanac maker had omitted to in- sert the weather prediction for the last day, and boy was sent from the print ing office to know how the space was to be filled up. The weather prophet was too busy to attend to him, but at last in a passion said, "Put down hail, rain, snow, thunder, anything" and the boy, taking it literally, told the compositor, who duly set into type the extraordinary prediction, and which by freak of na ture came true and made the fame anC fortune of the almanac maker. Thii story, if not true, is at least ben trovatC and shows the force of the bard's state ment:
 Our indiscretion sometimes serves well
 When our deep plots do pail.
 Patrick Murphy published a popular weather almanac, and his fame is saiC to have commenced by lucky hit ir one of the earlier issues by which he in dicated which would be the coldest day of the year. There is a copy of this al manac for 1888 in the library of the so ciety, and some former owner has evi dently taken the trouble to pencil in thu actual weather opposite to that predict ed. There were, according to this anno tation, S9 incorrect forecasts, 91 doubt fnl and the rest correct.
 This Patrick Murphy was not mer, charlatan. He had a system, and, thougl be differed from Sir Isaac Newton anC the Royal Astronomical society, he gay, much study and research to the subjec of meteorology, as shown by his yariou books. There was an Astro- -Meteorolog ical society as late as 186l.-Nature. | BOHN