Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1915-11-26
GLASS EYE FAMINE
THREATENS THE WORLD
Cutting Of Supply Another Horror
of War.
U. S. DEPENDENT in GERMANY.
Native Product Wholly Inadequate and
Incompatible to Imported Article
---Sample Lot Gets Through.

If your glass eye rolls under the
bureau. falls in the sink or gets in the
clutches Of the playful family cat.
spare no pains until You get il back.
securely clamped where glass eve
ought to be. For if you don't, and it is
lost of broken, it may be long time
before you get another.
Thus are the horrors OF the Euro
pean war multiplied from day TO day
Heretofore this country got nearly ali
its glass eyes from Germany but now
most OF Germany's glass-eye makers
are lighting for the Fatherland. and
those who are still making them are
kept busy supplying the poor soldiers
who have their own shot away. The
result is an alarming shortage in this
country, and the effect is being felt
everywhere.
Because Baltimoreans are taking
time by the eyelid. so to speak, and
laying in a supply of glass eyes
against the day when glass eyes will
be as precious as original Corots. the
shortage in Baltimore is doubly felt.
G. Albert Hilbert. manager of Balti-
more wholesale optical company, said
recently that there were very few
more than 5000 glass eyes in the
whole city. which means that the
State of Maryland is face to face with
a glass-eye famine And the supply
is constantly decreasing because peo-
pie who need glass eyes are buying
them in quantities. The stress of the
situation will fall with more stunning
effect upon the people who may be-
come users of glass eyes in the future.
Why person should seek to secure
more than one or two glass eyes at a
time is explained by the fact that the
little crystal optics are extremely fra
gile and delicate. The careful wearer
of a glass eye puts it in water when he
goes to bed at night, and when he
awakes in the morning as likely as not
there viii be a crack across the sur
face. This is because the temperature
of the water differs from that of the
body in which the eye had been rest
ing. Again the eye may not feel the
/ difference in temperature until it is
put back in place and if it cracks then
the wearer must pull it out piece by
piece. The slightest fall may break il,
too, and it is so apt to be mislaid.
When regular shipments were COM
ing from the glass-eye experts in Ger
many, there was no cause to worry
over the loss or breaking of factory
eye, but the German shipments have
virtually ceased, and the American
glass-eye industry amounts TO Ettle
or nothing. Nobody can make glass
eyes like the Germans, it is said.
There are only two really big manu.
facturers in this country, but dealers
say their product does not even ap-
proach the German product in appear
ance. The Germans have acquired a
knacx of imparting to a glass eve the
minutest characteristics of natures
own limpid orb.
They seem to have equipped their
glass eyes with all the possibilities for
chances of hate, love, disdain des-
pair and joy. The little veins and
lights are reproduced with remarkable
fidelity, and it is in these matters that
the American manufacturers fall short
The knack is simply the natural re-
suit of generations of training, and the
lack of it in this country simply brings
Americans face to face with another
one of those manufacturing crisis the
present war has raised.
Some Germans took chance and
sent Mr. Hilbert package of glass-eye
samples week or two ago. How it
escaped the British blockade he is at
a loss to know. 1t was the first ship
ment he had received in a long while
There is a glimmer of hope for Balti-
moreans in this news. Three or four
extra eyes, more or less, tucked away
in the vest pocket of the vanity bag,
will certainly not be an extraordinary
precaution.