The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-05-30
NEW YANKEE CLOCK
BY 4 NOTED MAN IN THIS LAND
 OF CLo0KMAKERs.

tion That is Making veritabIe Sem
 sation-Some of Its Special Features.
 With all the modern products of the twentieth century clock makers before the world, and clocks and watches no longer luxury, it seems somewhat sur prlsing as well as audacious for any one to declare that he will pronounce all clocks back numbers" and revolu- tionize all systems of recording the hours, minutes and seconds as they go fieeting past.
 Yet a man from Connecticut, the home of the clock makers and the land of clocks, has the precocity to make such an announcement. He is not a clock maker, but just plain Yankee genius.
 Samuel Powers Thrasher, of New Ha,- ven, Conn, has an invention that bids fair to make Yankee clock makers green with envy. In short, MT. Thrash CT proposes to tell time in figures. the same as we read on the time tables of every road in the country. No longer would he have us say it is quarter of ~-Aa M, VI past lWOI O0l do HC look at his invention he proposes and insists that we must say PAS, or 2:3O. In the twentieth century hustle and hustle this proposal seems likely to meet with more than mere approval. MT, Thrasher proposes to reconstruct the familiar face with which Father Time has been wont to remind us of the passing hours, and do away entirely with the quaint old dial with its Roman numerals in use from the middle ages, and likewise take away the old clocks hands Instead of pointing the way and letting us figure out the time for ourselves MT. Thrasher's new time piece will tell us in plain figures at a glance just what time 1t Is. It will be no more trouble to tell the hour, the minute and the second than to read the A B C's or see at a glance in the time tables the hour and the minute. Any one with eyes and the ability to use them can tell time, and mere compar- ison with a time table and a knowledge of figures and the ability to read them will be the only essential to know the precise moment when train is suppos- SA " e|A AAfC VI ANRaAt tp OA etAiJ OFSAAb 4o to take place.
 Three sets of figures, one each for the hours, the tens and the units of min utes revolving on separate rolls with measured accuracy, each set of these figures appearing in given space at the proper time, give us the hours and minutes on this wonderful new clock. A pointer constantly travelling in a graduated half circle tells the exact sec- londs. The pointer and the rolls inter- lock and the whole is impelled by de- vice which Is simpler than the simplest clock mecnanics ever made, which seems impossible to get out of order, and never needs winding.
 The Inventor of this latest Yankee device, MT. Thrasher, for decade was the terror of evil-doers in Connecticut, as head of the Law and Order League, organized to preserve the morals of the land of steady habits. He succeeded in causing such a stir among the law
 breakers of the Nutmeg State that his sudden and mysterious retirement was l the talk of the State. Those who had shuddered at the appearance of the | A1rlW eilAb NkNCA l~Cd5O oCS4CtQA cAo llawbreakers in New York tremble at
 the name of William Travers Jerome the clock tinker of Lakeville," were prepared for a surprise when Secretary 1 Thrasher refused to give his actual req lson for retirement and merely said: | My time is coming"
 | Meanwhile the erstwhile guardian of lConnecticut morals has been busy by himself among swinging pendulums, re- lWolving discs of numerals, metal springs and electric devices, all of
 which he has evolved into the complet- ed mechanism which the clock tinker Iof Connecticut and even the world have
 examined and pronounced wonderful. The wonderful part of the whole mech anism is its simplicity. Why didn't some one think of this idea before?'' is the first half-digested inquiry of the spectator as he watches MT. Thrasher's lrows of figures revolve with measured accuracy as the figures of cyclometer Imove along as the bicycle puts miles behind it. There is the same swing of
 the pendulum back and forth as in the Ihloks which descended from our grand Oub lllc ldiiilildI tlCh, LUCK Ol lthe grandfather's clock is no more, and the ticks of the twentieth century time
 keeper are scarcely discernible.
 Instead of a spring to impel it, MT. IThrasher uses an electric gravity de- Ivice which periodically impulses the pendulum as it needs to keep it in mo- ltion. This is the nearest thing to per lpetual motion I have seen," remarked lone Yankee who had stood in amaze Iment before the new-fangled timekeep- Ter "Just think of it! don't believe I Icould rest easy at night if didn't have
 Ito wind my clock.
 How did happen to hit upon this lidea?" said the inventor to an interest ed interrogator. Well, to tell the truth, II was in church at the precise moment
 when the idea passed through my brain. II am sorry to confess the sermon was
 not interesting me, but in view of the result I am almost willing to forgive
 myself for this. I looked frequently at
 the clock, but for some reason I could lnot make out the time because of the