The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-06-22

mont. 1t was there that he learned to
climb and became accustomed to mounting
10 lofty heights without losing his nerve.
He developed a liking for lofty climbing. He
practiced tricks in high places and dis
covered the methods of his own for get
ting TO the crOss-trees and the fighting
tops and the maintruck and all the other
airy parts of the warships in a hurry.
When his term was out Sutherland dis
covered that there was a living TO be made
in climbing, and that there was very little
competition. 1t is not only a dangerous
business, but a difficult one, and Suther-
land set himself to devise some new meth
cd for clambering UP church steeples and
fiagpoles which would not be as cumber-
some as the use Of ropes alone.
In casting about for some way of improv-
ing the methods of ascending stacks and
steeples, Sutherland's attention was at
tracted one day by a fly crawling up the
wall of his room. Like Robert Bruce, who
was inspired to renewed exertiOns by the
persistence of a spider which he saw fall
ing down two o. three times, Sutherland
was seized with the idea of duplicating the
methods of the fly. He found out that the
fly was enabled to crawl up a vertical
surface or even an inverted plane surface
as smooth as a glass pane by the use of
little suction pads or cups in it's feet. and
he set himself to the task of duplicating
these. After many experiments and trials
he succeeded in perfecting an arrangement
for his feet which, while 1T cannot be
trusted as implicitly to sustain his weight
as the fly trusts its nimble feet, aids ma
ltIldllg III CtllliDliiS W a oNCNPAC oN Gil I'LL
gle of 90 degrees or less.
With these suction pads. which are his
own invention and are used by 10 other
''steeple jack" in the business, Sutherland
has been enabled to do some very tall
climbing to almost inaccessible places. He
uses a system of ropes in addition to the
suction pads, and has a peculiar knot with
which he ties his rope at the top of a steeple
when he is about to come down and which
opens when he merely shakes the rope on
reaching terra rrma, allowing the rope 10
come tumbling down after him. At the
Milwaukee carnival last fall he made q
great hit by ascending to the top of the
City Hall three times a day, sliding down a
rope extending from the top of the building
at an angle of forty-five degrees to a point
we'll out in the street and then pulling down
the rope.
Besides raising the American flag on the
Eiffel tower in Paris these are some of the
more notable climbs Sutherland has made:
National liberty pole, highlands Of Nave
sink. New Jersey; State Normal. German
Catholic and Congregational towers, Terre
Haute. Ind. Cathedral, Cologne; Trinity
Church, st. Patrick's Cathedral, New York:
City Hall. Philadelphia; county courthouse
towers. San Bernardino and Los Angeles.
Cal; Santa Fe. n. NJ: First Methodist
Episcopal Church, Ogden: chemica stack.
Glasgow; Antlers, Colorado Springs; cleo
trio light stack, Pueblo: Mills building. Pa
cifc Mutual, Chronicle, San Francisco:
water tower, Grand Pacific Hotel. Siegel-
Cooper's poles and stacks, Chicago; O. y
L. thread mills, Newark, N. J.; Trinity
Methodist Episcopal Church., Brown Pal
ace Hotel. Denver water tower, Lexington,
Neb.; Calvary Church, Louisville: st.
Paul's, London; Trinity. Lima. o.; Press,
Cincinnati; government towers and poles
from coast to coast.