El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1900-11-03
CRY q OF

tRY u OF
sr.ri.I C~rresuo-H auc" Of n" HERALD
WASHINGTON. Oct. 27-The cleo
tion being right in focus and the rest
NJ subIunary affairs being OF IN lhe
,er..nect;ve somewhere. all the people
who amount TO anything and many
who don't are off in the held Work-
ing for a republican victory on the o.h'
which is true even of the democrats
-r-ba Jornocratis. committee is facilitat-
ing the home going of lots of people
y,bo will vote for McKinley-on the
ouiet Nowhere else in the country Is
there the same immediate personal IN
terest in the results that there is III
Washington. While of course the CIV
Il service laws are intended 10 cover
and protect subordinate officials, re-
cardIess of politics. and actually 90
SO. vet the clerks have no great anu
abiding trust in the permanehce Oh
the laws themselves and some of Bry-
ans views about a term OF -FOUR
wears being enough for any govern
ment officer tend to throw a scare in
IN lots of men who might otherwise
be misguided enough to vote Tor MIN.
The big departments are practically
headIess and the smaller are worse
SmokeIess Powder Explosion and Cos
sip.
There was a $50 900 explosion at In
dian Head few miles out OF town.
the other night in which lot or sheIls
and smokeless powder went on on the
wings of the evening wind Noopdy
was hurt and the matter would not De
of great Importance. III IL did not cast
a doubt on the stability of smokeless
powder 4 spontaneous explosion IN
the magazine of war vessel would
he an awkward thing and the navy
peopIe will be worried until the true
cause of the accident is learned. They
cast doubt upon the current theory OF
cigarettes" pointing out that the ex-
plosion took place at 10 O'Clock AT
night when nobody was around and
anyhow the precautions taken near
the magazines render such cause I'M
probable
The basis of all the smokeless pow
ders is gun cotton and il is only re-
Gently that this substance has been
Trustworthy Early in its history there
were a number of spontaneous blow
ups which caused all the governments
of the world TO discard it. 1t Will be
remembered that the Spanish attrib-
ufed the destruction of the Maine TO
gun cotton-which was likely so-only
they meant that it had spontaneously
decomposed.
tube and in the process of "nitrating
with nitric acid. some of the acid gets
into the interior of the tube. whence II
is hard to remove:
IL any traces are left there by imper-
feet washing they will decompose in
time and the decomposition Will spread
to the whole mass of powder. heating
it and ultimately exploding it. In
modern methods of manufacture. the
oil 10Th
the structure of the fiber is broken
down. so as not to leave the danger
Gus pores Generally il is "colloided."
which is to say. il is dissolved out |
right in some solvent (acetone is often |
used) and then precipitated from the |
solution. The English 'cordite" is |
washed gun cotton dissolved in nitro |
glycerine and acetone, squirted out |
through dies to make cords and then |
dried to remove the acetone. Although |
il contains a large amount of nitro |
glycerine it is regarded as perfectly |
stable. even in the tropics. All the |
coIIoided gun cotton powders in fact. |
have been believed to be perfectly safe. |
hence the worry about this explosion |
pending some rational theory-other
than spontaneous decomposition-to |
account for it.
Our navy uses a powder invented by |
Lieut. Bernadou. who was in command /
of the winsIow at the time of Bagley's
deatl, and the government is building |
big factory for making it at Indian
Head IL was not damaged by the ac-
cident. The powder is straight gun
cotton colloided. but it is gun cot
ton of peculiar composition. With
a strange lack of courtesy. Prof. Men
deleef. an eminent Russian chemist.
published a description of an exactly
similar powder n year or so before
Lieut. Bernadou invented and patent
ed il. adding insult to injury by claim
ing that his composition was the re-
suit of nine years experimenting by
which he headed. Berna-
don has made good deal of money ont
of his patent so far. 100000 they say.
\ MiIlionaire's/ Fight Against the
Theater Trust.
One of our Washington capitalists
who died this week. was Mr.. Uriah
Painter. the original hacker of Edison.
OF late years he retired from other
business and devoted himself to
theater which he built here. the Lafa-
yette II is one of the finest in town
hut ne started out to fight the theatri-
cal trust and il has been occupied only
sporadically in consequence. and not
often by high class companies. But he
has left provisions to continue the bat
tie after his death. His will provides
that the house shall he retained by
the heirs and shall not be used or
leased to any one in any way connect
ed with the trust. Aas a result. IL Will
he occupied by stock companies here
after. There is something admirable
about Mr.. Painters grim determine
ton.
The Theatrical Trust.