Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1915-09-24
The Wooden Leg Industry Grows.

War IS the father of the artificial
leg, and It is in no way surprising that
Europe is looking to the United States
70 supply an increasing demand for
substitutes, almost If rot quite as good
as the real legs that are now being
sacrificed, states writer in the Detroit
Free Press.
Earlier forms OF warfare, before
gun-powder was invented, were not
especially hard on legs. Although
these useful members We're sometimes
lost and wooden supports substituted
as far back as the Greeks and Romans,
Il was not until the \apoleonic era
that the plain, substantial and un-
istakable peg became an object of in
ventive thought and developed into the
modern device that lends artistic veri-
sinilitude to unitarian purpose
The Napoleonic wars doomed the
leg industry abroad. and the civil war
later boosted :. - This country to such
effect that we are now the legmakers
par excellence. Our legs, so to speak.
are the best legs: and one effect of
the war will be to set thousands of
European citizens walking on legs
made in America" Although vastly
multiplied, this will be no new condi-
ton. Many Europeans already have
American legs. There is at least one
American leg, made in Boston, sharing
the duty Of locomotion with a natural
born Chinese leg in China. unless the
owner has died and his Boston leg has
been buried with him for use in
heaven.
1t is rather an interesting subject,
this innocent and useful deception
practiced by one knows not how many
persons he sees in days journey. If
the ambition Of Napoleon created the
need, there was the inventive British
genius of Mr.. Mann and Mr.. Pott to
supply it. So bright with promise was
/ this new field of human endeavor that
! it now includes upward of 300 patents
| in the United States.
| The credit of making the first sue
cessful deceptive leg is variously
claimed. Germany points to Herr Won
| Holtzbein. Of Berlin, who lost a leg
in the cavalry charge against the
French in 1906, and employed his en-
forced leisure in making himself an
other Wortzeburg claims a similar
invention at about the same time.
Holland is proud of Verduyn as the
| first man who made Il practicable
| WOODEN 1901.
In England there appeared so close
! together as to puzzle historians, the
| so-called Mann's leg-it was made also
for woman-and Anglesey leg by Mr..
Pott Tor the Marquis nf Anglesev and
named in his honor In London Mr..
Cork was then making the leg that has
so obscured the subject on its ma
terial side and still leads ny mis-
informed people to believe the story
of the mischievous school boy VINO
stuck pins in the unconscious leg of
his teacher. 1t is time to explode the
fal1acy. Cork has never been success
fully used for legs; they have been
made by Cork, but not of cork. Mr..
Cork, moreover, was of the old regime,
a peg-legger and very likely a conser-
vative artist who woiIld hold that to
make a wooden leg look like a real one
is false art. Mr.. Potts leg was q
cumbersome, heavy affair Of wood
leather and metal. as compared with
the neat, six-pound leg of our time:
he made also riding leg" with which
the delighted MARQUIS was able te
maintain his fine reputation as q
Ihorseman.