Year: 1876

The readers of the Chicago Tribune
will bear us witness that Mrs. Jane
Grey Swisshelm has been striving to
be great public reformer in her rough
and ready manner. She has wrestles


with every social, moral, and political
question that has been the subject Of
public discussion. The care of infants.
the quality of soothing sirup, the con


pounding of bread and doughnuts, the
phases of the Beecher case, the con
struction of flannel waistcoats for the
of BoriobO0la Cha, the re-
sumption of specie payments, the
merits of street pavements, the p0liti-
cal aspects of the Presidential campaign
the irtoxicating qualities of lager
beer, tie evolution of species, the
identity of the man who struck Will.
liam Patterson, the failings of the
clergy, the miseries of amateur sing
ers, the corruptions of the court.
house ring.-every prominent topic il
fact of the past quarter of Il century
has been overhauled by her in the
most vigorous manner, not always
with earnestness and masculine
strength. She has had way of say.
ing it that has attracted attention and
commanded respect, Notwithstanding
the charge of garrulousness some.
times brought against her.


Mrs. Swisshelm has written and
spoken much because she. couldn't
help it. Her mind is a sort of grist:
mill, grinding ont suggestions from
the facts constantly running into its
hopper. The suggestions have been
good, bad, and Indifferent, according
to the grist she had to grind, but in
the midst of much chaff there has
been some good grain. A letter from
this lady in last Mondays Chicago
Tribune is in proof of this. She is the
exception to the rule that women
never invent anything. She has in
vented scientific apparatus that is
destined to work a revolution in the
heating and ventilating system of our
homes and public buildings, and to
prove great blessing to mankind in a
hygienic sense. After breathing the
impure and poisonous air pumped up
from cellars instead of the atmos-
pheric reservoir, so miles deep, above
us, which is pure and wholesome, she
set to work to see if she could not
draw Il current of air down from the
upper pure strata of the atmosphere
instead of up from the carbonized,
poisonous air Oh the surface of the
earth. We let her tell her own story :


II went home, and spent weeks III Il
dirty little tin-shop, getting models
made, and found that my principle
worked to Il charm, but that there was
several ways of applying it. When I
got one,-a furnace, with three hot
air.pipes, and one cold air pipe, adjoin'
ing the smoke.flue, started the fire,
and found a steady draft down this and
up through those, put more on the
cold.air flue, and carried it up three
times the height of the hot-air pipe
blew hard into one hot.air pipe, then
into another, and found the air rush
out of the other two, and the bit of
tissue paper lie on the top of the cold
air fuel thought that would answer.
l rolled that model in paper and car
ried it to my engineer friends house,
and at dinner told him l had found
plan by which he could draw air for
his furnace down the drawing-room
chimney-fue, then unused, and send it
throught the house without danger OF
counter currents. He laughed and said
he had heard of such things. After
dinner handed him the model. Ht
took it, with a hearty laugh, turned il
over a while, began to look serious


blew into one pipe, then into another
and remarked F: 'sSure enough! Yo,


have got it! Why did none Of us evel


think of that - ~~.., .a.
That there is value to her discover!
is shown by the issue of a patent t.
her ythe Commissioner. If her plan


which works so successfully in TIN


model, can be practically applied t.


buildings, she will have accomplished


more than any Of the sevants or ny
gienic philosophers have yet been abl


to do. She will rescue her own sc,


from the stigma of being non.inven


tors, and she will receive the blessing


of all mankind for rescuing them from


the slow but sure poison of foul air


Jane is possibly to be congratulated.