Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1898-06-28
PATENT REMINDERS.
SOME FUNNY THINGS WHICH IA.
 vENToRS HAVE MADE.

1 1NtiIE1 ACE tnt &ou<
 venience Of Sleepy Heads-one to Thwars
 the Grave Robbar.
 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. soious of his immediate environments, as he was century ago. He does more thinking than he did then, and great CT part of his business ill life is left to the purely mechanical brain functions
 The inventors, always step ahead of the requirements of the times, gre al, ready at work devising contrivances to summon absent attention. One of the latest of these is a bracelet that has an alarm watch attached to it. The wearer. having an engagement at q certain honr. sets the watch, and when the time ar Fives little needle point bricks her arm and reminds her of the duty.
 At the patent office large class of inventions is comprised under the head of "alarms ss-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 a certain time in the morning. To provide for this require, ment many ingenious persons have ap.- piled their talents to the production of eontrivances for awakening people and compelling them to arise. There is 6 kind of bedstead, for example, which holds it's mattress i'll frame that is re-. tained in thenormal position by catch. At the proper hour the catch, operated by 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 tin pan and weight hung by @ cord. When tho hands of clock reach certain point, the weight is released and falls upon the pan, making 9 direful racket. An. other oddity is frame from which are suspended number of eorks During the night it Is lowered gradually by D cloekWork mechanism until at the proper hour and minute the dangling oorks begin to bob against the nose and face of the sleeper Of course he wakes up. The most obvious advantage oG 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 undisturbed by the neees. Bity of watching himself.
 Hayseed visitors ill the city will in~ sist on blowing out the gas notwith- standing all the newspaper jokes on the subject. To provide against such aeei- dents, Q citizen of Ashland, Wis, has invented little apparatus that is in- tended to be attached to every gas fix ture ill hotel. The breath of a person who attempts to blow out the gas tilts a delicately balanced eleotrode and closes Q circuit, giving on alarm in the office. Another kind of alarm, patented by Chicago man, notifies tho house. holder of escaping gas. If you are afraid of pickpockets, you can obtain protection by wearing small maehtne that makes Q big disturbance in easo anybody tries to put his hand into your pocket.
 Even after death you may find alarms 6 service. If 6 grave robber oonea along, 9 torpedo placed in the coffin for that purpose will blow him to smither- eens. Supposing that the disturbance wakes you to life again. 2 cloekwork mechanism will start bell to ringing, while a red flag runs up to the top of tho tombstone, giving notice that 8 prompt resurrection is desired. Speak ing of waking up suggests mention of some odd eontriyances for doing neces- gary things before getting out of bed in the morning. One of these, patented by 8 lazy Vermonter, enables one to turn on the draft of stove or furnace and then turn over for a supplementary snooZe. This, however. is a primitive eontriYance compared with the inven- tion of @ resident of Providence which provides for the feeding of whole sta bleful of live stock at daybreak. Mir. Sleepy Head simply turns on his pillow and jerks cord, which opens valve in the stable and lets down the requisite quantity of feed into a trough.
 Thero are quite number of inyen- tions for lighting the fire in the morn ing without getting out of bed. They are all operated by clookwork. 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 draws match across piece of sandpa- per and ignites the kindling One of the latest patents is for street lamp which has a clockwork apparatus attached to it. At the correct moment for which the machine is set it closes an electric circuit, at the same time opening the gas pipe. Immediately the gas is ignit
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