Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1898-06-29
PATENT REMINDERS,
SOME FUNNY THINGS WHICH IN
 vENToss HAVE MADE.

I
 gagements--mauy Devices for the Con-
 venience of Sleepy Hen6s--one to Thwara
 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- scious of his immediate environments, as he was a century ago. He does more thinking than he did then, and great CT part of his business iii life is left to the purely mechanical brain functions.
 The inventors, always step ahead of the requirements of the times, are al. ready at work devising eontriyances to summon absent attention. One of the latest of these is bracelet that has an alarm watch attached to 1t. The weaTer, having an engagement at q certain hour, sets the watch, and when the time ar rives a 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 '-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 i'll the morning To provide for this require ment many ingenious persons have ap piled their talents to the production of contriyances for awakening people and compelling them to arise. There is kind of bedstead, for example, which holds it's mattress ill a frame that is re. tained in the normal position by a catch At the proper hour the catch, operated 1 by cloekwork 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 1 the employment of a tin pan and a weight hung by a cord. When the hands of clock reach certain point, the weight is released and falls upon 1 the pan, making q direful racket. An. other oddity is frame from which are suspended a number of eerks. During the night 1t is lowered gradually by q l clockwork mechanism until at the proper hour and minute the dangling Gorks begin to bob against the nose and 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 undisturbed by the neces- sity 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 acci- dents, 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 delicately balanced eleotrode and closes circuit, giving an alarm in the office. Another kind of alarm, patented by a Chicago man, notifies the house. holder of escaping gas. If you are afraid of pickpockets, you can obtain protection by wearing small machine that makes Q big disturbance ill case anybody tries to put his hand into your pocket.
 Even after death you may find alarms 8 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, cloclwork mechanism will start a bell to ringing, while 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 contTivances for doing neces- sary things before getting out of bed ill the morning. One of these, patented by lazy Vermonter, enables one to turn on the draft of q stove or furnace and then turn over for supplementary snooze This, however. is q primitive contrivanee compared with the inyen- 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 cord, which opens valve in the stable and lets down the requisite quantity of feed into trough.
 There are quite a number of inven- tions for lighting the fire in 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" 8 lever, which draws match across q piece of sandpa- per and ignites the kindling One of the latest patents is for street lamp which has clockwork apparatus attached to l 1t. At the correct moment for which the machine is set it closes an electric circuit, at the same time opening the l gas pipe Immediately the gas is ignit.