News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1915-07-14
BETTY AT THE FAIR
Letters of the Panama Pacific Expo
sitiOn by Florence livingston
LETTER VIII
SAN FRANCISCO, June 80, 1915.

|
Father Dedr:-
Can it be- true that you neglected my
early training. or did you deliberately
leave me to find out things for myself
Perhaps my questioning will be turned
into appreciation later, but just now j
am wondering why you did not provide
me with everlasting facts which you mus,
have learned out of your experience, in.
stead OF letting me use time to discover
them from my own.
For instance, why have not, long be-
fore this, understood the value of mo-
ton? That surely is simple thing
motion. Nothing in nature d;sregards
it's power, and it is to nature that we
should look for fundamental methods of
appeal. 1t is gaudy bird or butterfly
that attracts attention when he is quiet
but when he flies, he holds the observer
in fascinated watching. And even the
trees and grass and flowers, which are
more or less stationary, call the wind
to their aid. that the flutterng of their
LEAKAGE and bloom may single them out
for the admiration which perfect quiet
could not bring.
You can see that l have been collect.
ing evidence for some time. but in this
case. as in many others, it is the Expo
sition that has precipitated the conclu-
sion. The more I wander about among
the exhibits, the more realize that mo-
| ton is the strongest factor in attracting
and holding the attention. static dis
play must be strikingly unusual or Wv
idly beautiful if it is to exist at all for
the passer-by.
The hard ware dealers have grasped
this principle, probably because they
have had to, because their products de-
pend upon utility and not surface attrac-
tiveness. 1t is the most unpromisng
material that receives the greatest study,
and the resulting cleverness frequently
lifts it to an astonishing level.
The keen utter display is one before
which there is always host of visitors,
drawn by ingenious devices based upon
motion and the simmer of steel. The
The central scene represents mill and
a stream, the different parts being prac-
tical implements. The waterfall is of
steel bits, constantly turning; the waves
in the foreground are of bent wire, bill
lowing more rhythmically than the ocean
itself; the sun beyond is shining with
rays Of steel. Now and then steel
snake, with copper spots and rattes,
wiggles out and around this novel do
rama.
Nearby is fountain made of steel
augers and wire. Above, on one side is
a jackknfe of heroic size, slowly open
ing blade by blade, and then closing
again; on the other side Is huge pair of
shears, worked by the invisible hand of
electricity. But now, father, let me ask
You how many people would stop for
two seconds to look at scissors and files
and coils of wire lying in neat rows IN
showcase.
Again, you hear the click of intruments.
and without second thought you plunge
iuto long bright booth in which the
latest uses of telegraphy are being dem
onstrated. disposed of stock ticker
in very short order, as not having a very
near appeal and as being of comparative
simplicity. But later, as often happens
with things that at first estimate light
ly, came back to it with a deeper ap-
probation, because had seen for myself
that the unpretentious stock ticker has
an advantage over its more ambitious
relatives. 1 watched the girl playing its
pianoforte keyboard and realized that
this single operation transmits the mes
sage in many directions at the same time,
trick which has not yet been learned
by more snowy methods of communica-
ton.
1t was fascinating to me to find Eng
land, the Atlantic Ocean and the United
States sitting on one table, representing
cablegram mechanism. The machine
which first writes the message, looks like
a typewriter, but its characters are those
of the Universal Morse Code, and they
are printed on narrow tape. The dots
are indicated by round perforations
above the line; and the dsshes, by SINH
lar perforations below. Spaces between
letters are short; those between words,
considerably longer. A positive current
carries one, and a negative the other.
When transmission is made, the static
electricity in the cable is chased across
the ocean and pushed cut at the other
end before the message can be regis tered.
This is the reason a weak current is
used; a strong one would force the static
electricity through the cable and allow
the water to enter. At the receiving sta
ton the message enters a coil between
the poles of a magnet. AS the vary
ing current passes through this coil, it is
repealed by one pole and then the other,
these oscillations being registered by a
suspended needle, automatically linked,
which records them in a series of jerks
above and below the line on narrow
strip of paper, running vertically. These
are easily identified with the original
dots and dashes.
Another remarkable set of instruments