The daily Alaskan., 1915-04-02

enue Hotel, In New York, In 1859 and Was Regarded as the Marvel of the
 pay--lts Introduction to England.
 Americans may lose the use of their legs. 4 number of authorities on this subject have made the prophecy that unless the American mends his ways and changes the direction in which certain of his habits and tendencies lie his legs will become as atrophied as has become his little toe from close confinement in shoes and long disuse.
 These authorities have pointed out the street car, the automobile and the average mans eagerness to 'get there" in the quickest way and with the least possible effort Is the causes for the present deterioration in legs, and as mechanical loconotion becomes more and more accessible and the rid ing habit grows nun will have less and less use for his feet and legs.
 In addition to electric cars and auto mobiles, another modern device con- tributes to the average mans increas- ing feebleness of limb. That modern device is the elevator To the present generation, accustomed to ride from floor to floor and to push the elevator bell button and wait for the car rather than climb flight of stairs, it proba. ply seems queer to see or bear the ele- vator mentioned as q modern device.
 Men In their youth and even in their middle age have become so habituated to the elevator that they feel that such a thing always was, or at least that 1t Is coeval with brick and stone build tngs. Yet the elevator is a modern device, and the word elevator in the application given it in America Is new CT still than the contriyance it de scribes.
 Before the demolition of the old Fifth Avenue hotel in New York there was in one of the elevators q tablet, on which was inscribed this: "ln tbis space was erected and operated in 1859 Tufts vertical screw railway, the first passenger elevator ever built"
 That elevator was one of the chief wonders of the hotel, which, because of its luxury and magniticcnce, was considered one of the wonders of the new world.
 The vertical railway" which saved persons the trouble of walking up and down stairs, was widely written about, and people came from far and near to look at the strange invention and to be able to tell their admiring friends in Boston. Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington and other cities out in the provinces that they had been able to go up and down stairs without walk ing.
 When travellers came from New York and told about this vertical screw rail- way to our grandfathers, those worthy gentlemen raised their eyes and hands in astonishment and probably ezclaim- ed, "Will wonders never CeaSeT
 An English trade paper, the London Builder in September, 1859, had an editorial on the subject of the vertical screw railway in the United States, saving: Ut is a carriage that will move from the top to the bottom of the building and from the bottom to the top. It will be forced upward by the application of steam power, and the descent will be regulated by the resistance of hydraulic power"
 It was not until the early seventies that the vertical railway was intro duced in England, the first "lift' being installed in Albert hall, and to ride in this passengers were required to pay a fee of one penny. Conservative peo- pie in America and England looked on this invention with grave suspicion and "felt 1t in their bones" that it was only question of time when it would fall down and kill everybody in 1t.
 Today the lift Is nothing like so common in Europe as the elevator, which Is the same thing, Is in the United States. One reason for this is that the United States is the birthplace and the home of the skyscraper. while high buildings, as building heights are measured in America, are infrequent in Europe.--W Star.