Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1898-05-03
PATENT REMINDERS.
SOME FUNNY THINGS WHICH lN-
 MENTORS HAVE MADE.

venience of Sleepy Heads-ope to Thwars
 the Grave Robber.
 Psychologists assert that civilized hu- man beings are growing more absent minded. The average man of intelli- gence today is not alert, not so con- seious of bis immediate environments, as he was century ago. He does more thinking than he did then, and great CT part of his business in life is loft to the purely mechanical brain functions.
 The inventors, always u step ahead of the requirements of the times, are al. ready at work devising contriyances to summon absent attention. One of the latest of these is bracelet that has an alarm watch attached to it. The wearer, having an engagement at certain hour, sets the watch, and when the time ar- rives little needle point bricks her arm and reminds her of the duty.
 At tho patent office large class of inventions is comprised under the head of talarms s''-these being machines by which persons who otherwise would not think are made to think. The average individual is obliged, however unwill- ingly, to get up at certain time in the morning To provide for this require ment many ingenious persons have ap- piled their talents to the production of contrivances for awakening people and compelling them to arise. There is kind of bedstead, for example, which holds it's mattress in frame that is res tained in the normal position by catch. At the proper hour the catch, operated by a clockwork mechanism, loses it's grip, and the mattress frame becomes vertical instead of horizontal, throwing sleepy head out upon the floor
 There is another sort of bed which lets the head of the sleepy person drop when getting up time arrives, one end of the mattress frame collapsing. But one of the queerest of the patented methods of waking people up involves the employment of a tin pan and & weight hung by cord. When the hands of 0 clock reach certain point, the weight is released and falls upon the pan, making direful racket. An other oddity is frame from which are suspended q number of corks. During the night it is lowered gradually by a clockwork mechanism until at the proper hour and minute the dangling corks begin to bob against the nose and l face of the sleeper. Of course he wakes up. The most obvious advantage of these sleep alarms is that they render anxiety on the part of the sleeper un- necessary, so far as rising is concerned. He can snooze undistnrhed by the neces- sity of watching himself.
 Hayseed visitors in the city will in- sist on blowing out the gas notwith- standing all the newspaper jokes on the subject. To provide against such aoci- dents, citizen of Ashland, Wis, has invented a little apparatus that is in- tended to be attached to every gas fix ture in hotel. The breath of person who attempts to blow out the gas tits delicately balanced electrode and closes circuit, giving an alarm ill tho office. Another kind of alarm, patented by Chicago man. notifies the house. holder of escaping gas. If you are afraid of pickpookets, you can obtain protection by wearing small machine that makes big disturbance in case anybody tries to put his hand into your pocket.
 Even after death you may find alarms a service. If grave robber comes along, torpedo placed in the coffin for that purpose will blow him to smither- eens. Supposing that the disturbance wakes you to life again, clockwork mechanism will start a bell to ringing, while a red flag runs up to the top of the tombstone, giving notice that prompt resurrection is desired. Speak ing of waking up suggests mention of some odd contriyances for doing neces- sary things before getting out of bed in the morning. One of these, patented by B lazy Vermonter, enables one to turn on the draft of a stove or furnace and then turn over for a supplementary snooze. This, however, is primitive contriyance compared with the inven- tion of resident of Providence which provides for the feeding of whole sta bleful of live stock at daybreak. MT. Sleepy Head simply turns on his pillow and jerks a cord, which opens a valve in the stable and lets down the requisite | quantity of feed into a trough.
 There are quite number of inven- tions for lighting the fire i'll the morn- ing without getting out of bed. They are all operated by clockwork. The best of them is credited to an Illinois genius. A clock is set for certain time, and when the proper minute is reached the mechanism "throws" lever, which T