Middletown transcript., 1904-06-04
LETTERS FROM The PEOPLE
Cou0nluniCated
STILL ANOTHER

llhNC you HOt ottCii h0bCu tHC iOHs3
black piratical streamer OF smoke that
pours at times from the power house
chimney? Look sharply at its long hori
zontal banner, or high upward shooting
spire and you will see that in truth their
color is not black, but green-the hue of
the taxpayers "greenbacks" that are
thus needlessly "going up in smoke"
Good citizens, whenever you see the
familiar smoky flag, as you gaze say to
yourselves "There 60 onr greenbacks;" for
it is literally "burning money to stoke
a fire like that!" And be very sure
there's green somewhere about the thing
if it isn't exactly discernable at the CHM
ney-top, you'll be sure to find it down at
the furnace doors.
"Ah, nonsense |" hear the person
ality that presides over the furnaces
growl as he stuffs their maws full of
greenback coal grub till to relieve their
overloaded stomachs they vomit forth
huge quantities OF indigested coal in the
guize of smoke. "Away with your book
larningl Guess I know how to tend a
boiler and shovel fuel better'n you can
tell me-"
Yes, it's we'll known that every fellow
thinks lie can poke the fire-in fact, to do
so is one Of those things that's born in
every mothers son Of us-this, and to
edit newspaper, give medical advice,
legal opinions and do like trifiing things
And. Mr.. Editor, fancy so far as con-
Germs introducing any reform-greenback
saving reform-in the manner OF feeding
the coal under the boilers at our towns
power house-these remarks Of mine and
your valuable space, will be employed in
vain. l remember Sin my youth, when
I was wandering to quote Byron's line,
I chanced to spend few weeks on large
sugar plantation in Cuba, studying slave
life before the institution was quite ex-
tinct in this Western Hemisphere. That
was before they had given up their big
mud-pies as clarifers of sugar, for the
clean, swift, centrifugal crystallizers, and
when they still ran the useless molasses
out into bitches to ferment under the
tropical sun-ditches big enough to float
boat. Well, one day | happened in the
boiling room where in big vat several.
thousand dollars worth Of cane juice was
cooking. Now, your readers must under
stand that "Cilin' sugar is a nice opera
ton. Too much heat or too little spoils
the "run," and entails a heavy loss.
Keeping vigil over the bubbling cauldron,
was lank, mahogany-hued Cuban ma
tive, with hat on his head something
less in size than cart-wheel, lazily stir
ring the liquid with huge ladle as long
as pitchfork, and now and then draw
ing his big spoon out the sticky mass,
and turning it over he would thrust
grimy finger against it, and then with
very admirable gravity, bringing finger
and thumb together, presently separate
them with judicial slowness to determine
whether the precise degree of tempera-
ture and ETC., had been reached in the
process that was evolving white crystal
lized sugar out of green cane juice.
True, the owner OF the plantation, an
intelligent gentleman who had "been in
the States" had provided more accurate
scientific instrument to determine the
exact temperature of the boiling juice,
that is to say, thermometer-but it
hung unused on the wall where he had
placed it. For those astute fingers Of the
chap with the big hat, were more accur-
ate than Science-at least SO their owner
thought! The scientific determination
of liquid caloric was wasted on him. "He
knowed better'n all that nonsense-he
did,!
So | fear my lecture on how not to
burn taxpayers greenbacks needlessly
under the town boilers, will be equally
in vain. Still I give it.
To give reason for the faith in me,
Mr.. Editor, | subjoin to my little preach
ment in behalf of the taxpayers the
following authority therefor, and recon-
mend all who stoke soft coal fires in
public or private capacity, to cut it out
and paste it in their hats.
Professor Benjamin gives some facts in
the Boston Transcript on the smoke nui-
sance as follows: "If, in the now trite
phrase OF Webster, we are to judge the
future by the past, there will be some
to say that smoke-prevention laws work
hardship to factory owners. For the
benefit OF such we should like to print
a few sentences from an article by Prot.
Charles Fl. Benjamin, of the Case School
Of Applied Science. As an official Of the
city Of Cleveland, he carried to success
a crusade which made that municipality
situated in the center of the soft coal
belt, filled with iron fouEdries and SUBJ
ject TO the very worst of the bituminous
plague one Of the most smokeless in the
country.
The whole burden OF Prof. Beniamin's
article is that smoke means waste, and
that, therefore, efforts toward smoke pre-
vention, instead of meeting hostility at
the hands of the factory owners, ought
to engage their hearty cooperation. The
science Of smoke prevention and the
science Of perfect combustion are equiv
alent terms. Consider the analogy, which
Prof. Benjamin uses of coal-oil lamp.
Turn up the wick and the lamp smokes.
You are using too much oil-and getting
less light. The same is precisely true
Of furnace. A smoking chimney-stack
means too much fueI-and less heat.
Once get the factory owner to understand
this-to know that those belching clouds
Of black smoke mean wasted money gone
up the chimney and less power for his
machinery-and you have converted him.
Snow the problem of perfect combus-
tion-and therefore Of smoke prevention