The times., 1901-05-19
MANY QUEER INVENTIONS
Some of the Unique Devices on Dis
play at the Patent Office.
Flying and slot Machines, Beds That
Awaken "a sleeper by Throwing
Him Upon the FIoor-A scheme
for Aiding Persons Buried Alive.

The United States Patent Office is just
now about the most attractive and inter-
esting branch of the Government. The
inventive turn of the American mind dur
ing the past few years has resulted in
the patentng of devices of every sort
and description and for almost every known
purpose. There are in the Patent Office
building models of machines for flying,
for the automatic sale of newspapers, Tor
enabling persons if buried alive to escape
from the grave, for counting money, add
ing columns of figures, awakening sleep
ing persons by tossing them out of bed
at a desired hour, and a thousand and
one other purposes. 50
The United States Patept zOffice is a
place where people who have done some
thinking come and apply for the privi-
lege of profting by that thinking. The
character of their mental processes is
there evidenced in something tangible.
Some of these thoughts are heavy, hard,
and practical, others are gay and blithe
some, while others are melancholy and
show a brooding apprehension of some
possible or imagined terror which their
invention seeks to avert.
The desire for distinction seems to be
an essential deep-rooted in human char
acter, and to acquire that distinction is
often evidenced in a freakishness which
is always amusing and mirth-proyoking
where it is not pathetic. This freaksh-
ness is manifested in many odd models
and devices which are designed for the
queerest purposes. If the inventions are
patentable they receive the same serious
attention which is given the device which
contains power to produce industrial
revolutions.
One inventor evidently impressed with
the necessity of getting up at certain
hour in the morning, and knowing the
seductiveness of the last hour for sleep,
invented a bed which is capable of wooing
the sleeper all through the night but
when the time comes to get up, turns
into diabolical fiend and hurls the sleep
er mercilessly to the floor. The bed looks
like an ordinary, wholesome, motherly
bed. fun of gentleness and Fepose. But it
is not. No buclting broncho is more in
different to mans comfort or more care
less of his feelings than that bed 1t
knows no law save that which appeals to
its ghoulish gleefulness. This shows it
self in the morning hours.
mild-looking clock is attached to the
bed. To this clock is connected certain
mechanical devices. which are put into
play when the hour arrives when the
sleeper should arise. The clock is set
for the rising time The sleeper goes TO
bed and knows nothing of the outside
world around him until the bed gets into
action. This 1t does when the hands of
the clock reach the point when it is time
for him to get up. Then the bed gathers
up the sleeper and proceeds to pitch him
out. This it does with force and vIgor
take notice Of his environment. This act
is accompanied with an ear-splitting din
and racket.
One inventor, who had apparently been
reading ghost stories and tales of people
being buried alive, designed buried
alive coffin so arranged that the whilom
dead man. when he comes to, can get out
or call assistance. The casket is an ordi-
nary burial box at the head end of which
is a square opening, which receives the
lower end of an elongated box or trough
large enough to permit a man to crawl
through. This trough is set on end, the
lower one over the face and chest of the
alleged dead man, and the other projects
a foot or more above the top Of the grave
y wooden stick or arm is nailed to one
side of the upper and outer end, upon
Which bell is hung. To the bell is at
tached cord, which runs down the trough
ana IS ued TO the man hand IN the cOf-
lin. In case the man awakens a slight
of the hand viii suffice to ring
the bell and summon the sexton to dig
him out. So impressed has been the in
ventor with the possibility of no help be-
ing on hand when the buried-alive man
awakes, that he has built q ladder on the
inside OF the trough up which the victim
below can climb and eXtricate himself
from rather grewsome predicament
A more wholesome thought which has
taken materialized form in the Patent
Office, is one which appeals to human
1t is a hand sewing machine |
designed for sewing on patches to worn
and torn garments. II looks like a pair |
of scissors and is worked up and down |
like the blades of shears Visions of |
faded and worn blue overalls. small boys |
pants, and patient mother arise before |
ones minds eye and evoke the sympa- |
thies.
Another inventor, interested in violins, |
has been studying ways and means to |
produce the pure tones which make fabu- |
lousy valuable the violns of the old |
masters. Evidently he has tried all kinds |
1f wood, which he has abandoned as not |
being the tone-producing material Wood |
and glue, he knows, are the substances |
used in the manufacture of Violins, and |
he reasons that if the wood is not the
tone-producer. then, of course the glue
must be. So ne makes a violin made en-
-irely of glue. body, neck. and pegs and |
here it is in the Patent Bureau, patented
and ticketed with the inventors name |
address, and the number of his patent
In 1889 a man from California became
impressed with the idea that mankind