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THE OMAHA SUNDAY BEE: SEPTEMBER 27, 1908.
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MAM TRAGEDIES IN THE AIR
Attempti to Fly Marked by Martyri to
the Cause.
RECORD OF DISASTERS LARGE
Stimulus of Modern Inventions Pro
dace Spectacular Disasters Am
bitions Experimenters Too
Hasty far Safety.
From the beginning of experiments with
alrahlna. Inv&ntnri Anft tinllnnnlata i.v
shown the greatest courage In risking their
lives for the advancement of aerial naviga
tion. The disaster which cost Lieutenant
Seltrldge his Ufa was one of a long aeries
of tragedies marking the progress of air
ship Invention. Many a daring balloonist
and devoted Inventor has literally given
himself to the science he loved.
The recent Impetus to aerial Invention
by the success of the Wright brothers and
other well known aviators has stimulated
the passion for aerial travel. As a con
sequence the number of accidents to avi
ators haa greatly Increased.
Tragedy as well as disappointment at
tended the wreck of the huge balloon of
Captain Thomas L. Lovelace, an Amerloan
aeronaut, at the Franco-British exposition
grounds In London August 14 last Miss B.
Blanche Hill, the aeronaut's secretary, and
a bystander were killed, three other persons
were fatally hurt and ' a score seriously
burned In the flames that shot from the
torn gas bag. Fifty were injured In thi
panic that followed the explosion.
Bneetacalar Disaster.
A spectacular accident to a mammoth
airship at Berkeley, Cnl., on May 23 last,
resulted In serious Injury to sixteen men.
who narrowly escaped with their lives.
The alrbhp, the Invention of J. A. Morrell,
was on Its trial trip. In full view of 10.
(X)0 spectators it ascended X feet when It
suddenly bunt and dropped to the ground
with its crew of sixteen men. Seven of
them ware severely injured and the other
nine were brulsod and cut. The accident
caused Intense excitement among the spec
tators. The five engines of the mammoth craft
were not put In operation until the alrahlp
was well under way, when two of them
were set to working. Before the ship could
be propelled further than a few feet the
forward end tilted downward until the craft
stood at an agle of 45. degrees, nose down
ward. The members of the crew were un
able to run along the canvas pathway to
equalise the weight and right the air
ship. They Clung desperately to the net
ting and superstructure.
The rush of gas to the stern of the long
gas bag caused the envelope to burst with
a loud noise. Then the ship settled toward
the earth, Borne of the crew lost their
heads and jumped. Morrill, the Inventor,
and several of the engineers were caught in
the understructure and injured by the en
gine. Ha era Narrate Eeeaaa.
Three men, the crew of the racing balloon
VlUa da Dieppe, had a narrow escspa from
drowsing In the Whirlpool Ftaptda at Niag
ara Falls September i. They were Captain
A. T. Mueller, In charge of the balloon;
Perry Otrgory, It years old. and Gerald
Oregory, li years old, son of C. F. Gregory
of Chicago, secretary of the American
Federation of Aerial club. The balloon had
set sail from Columbus, Ohio, and ran into
troubleaoiuc ail ttriculs r Lake En,
Five Modern Packing Plants ,,'
South Omaha, Neb. Los Angeles, Sioux City, Iowa.
Kansas City, Kan. Calif. Wichita, Kansas.
Hirers
"The brand is
where it dropped to within 250 feet of the
lake's surface.
Ballast was throw out, and when the
craft reached Niagara It was practically
without ballast. Captain Mueller attempted
to make a landing, and tried to release the
gas with the rip cord. It failed to work
properly, with the result that the big bag
dragged along for 1,000 feet.
An ancor caught In a clump of trees
and snapped from the balloon, which rose
and fell alternately. The basket dragged
over railroad tracks, struck a barn, and
finally landed at the Devil's Hole, 200 feet
from the gorge. Both the Gregory boys
were seriously hurt
Count Zeppelin's Loss,
Inventors have lost fortunes and been re
duced to poverty by injuries to airships.
The accident to the Zeppelin balloon, Au
gust I, lime, is an Instance of the disap
pointment which so frequently awaits the
would-be aviator.
After spending an Immense fortune in an
endeavor to conquer the problem of aero
flight, at the moment of his great triumph
In the navigation of the air. Count Von
Zeppelin's airship was destroyed by light
ning during a storm at Echterdengln, near
Btuttgart. For more than twenty-four
hours, with just tw descents to remedy
minor defects, the German airship has con
tinued Its flight from Iake Constance to
Mayence and back. When just a little
north of Btuttgart, at 8 o'clock In the
morning, a further descent was made for
repairs.
While the men were working to remedy
the defective machinery a thunderstorm
burst, the wind tore the airship from its
moorings, hurling It in a southeasterly di
rection. It had barely traveled fifty wards
when it was struck by a flash of lightning.
The vessel suddenly plunged earthward,
there was a terrific explosion, followed by
a column of flame, and the airship, which
bad become the pride of the German na
tion, vanished Into space, leaving its in
ventor a broken-hearted and ruined man.
One of the most remarkable escapea from
death in aeronautical history was that of
Gall Robinson, who sails the Knahenshue
airship, at Springfield, O., July 13, 1907.
Robinson fell 810 feet, the only mark of
his experience being a small scratch.
Every one of the bystanders who wlt
neased his asc-ent expected to see Robin
son dashed to a pulp. At first his machine
shot downward so rapidly it was difficult
for the eye to follow him. Aa he reared
the earth the machine slowed up, and he
reached ground safely.
When the people flocked to the wreeked
balloon, thinking to find Robinson a corpse,'
he was coolly lighting a cigarette.
Fell to Ills Death.
On September 3. Charles Oliver Jones, a
well-known' aeronaut of Hammondsport.
N. Y., who was a personsl friend of Lieu
tenant Selfridge. fell a distance of 600 feet
to his death. Jones had been at the fair
grounds with his dirigible balloon. Boom
erang, which was known ss a Strobel air
ship. He made an ascent in the afternoon.
When the balloon reached a height of about
500 feet, the bag suddenly caught firs.
Jones fell with the frame of his motor,
and when the spectators reached him, he
was lying under It. The gas bag was com
pletely destroyed.
It was Jones who evolved the famous
"June Bug," which made several record
flight for short dlstsnces. The "June
Bug" won the Scientific American trophy,
offered for heavler-than-atr machines, at
taining a speed of about thirty miles an
hour against the wind.
Two of the pioneers In aerial flight who
gave their lives in the effort to evolve
practical flying ruachlnea were I.IUenthal,
a Horn an scientist, who was killed in ths
fcur.-n.er oi yt-. ai.d M. 1 llmcr, a.wU.c.
350 Branch Houses in the United States.
Agents In All Foreign Countries. :: ::
of
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only skin deep, but the QUALITY goes clear through."
student of aeronautics, who met death
about the same time. Llllenthal's aero
plane, known then as a "gliding machine,"
furnlahed the first model for the Wright
brothers.
The balloon Queen Louise, which started
with two other balloons from Columbus,
O., August 28, With Lieutenant J. J. Ben
nett of the British army balloon corps,
as pilot, and accompanied by Thomas L.
Sample, was picked up In Lake Erie the
following afternoon. Owing to a defective
valve, the pilot was unable to keep the
balloon afloat. The two passengers and the
balloon were taken aboard the ateamer
Mohrgan, near which It fell. Washington
Post.
MAN OF FALLEN FORTUNE
Hla Opinion of . His Fellow Man aa
Drawn from Hard Kxpe- i
rlence.
"Losing one's money,"- said the man of
fallen fortunes, "Is not without its com
pensating comforts; for Instance, in the
discovery of one's real friends.
"When I waa rich I never knew for
sure whether a man, being rich, was
drawn to me because I was rich also or
whether, being poor, he was drawn to
me because he thought I could help him.
But it was easy to tell after I had lost
my money.
'The proudest gratification that I got
then I found In the loyalty of my family.
One and all they stood by me with a
gentle sympathy and unfaltering devo
tion that has continued to the present
moment and that I know will never fall
my strongest and most encouraging sup
port. "And then I began to make discoveries
about my friends, to dlsoover which were
fair weather friends, which were friends
only when I could help them and which
were friends through thick and thin; and
I found friendliness to exist as a bedrock
enduring quality in rich and poor alike.
'-There is this to be said about the rich
man and his money. When a man haa
mado money he hates to give it up. But
I have known rich men who proved
themselves stalwart staying friends in
deed; who gave though the chances of
the money ever coming back to them if
they thought of that at all must have
seemed very slim; men who gave with a
prompt readlnesa that took all the atlng
out of the necessity of asking, and a
willingness that waa of Itself most help
ful and cheering.
"And then while I have had men drum
me for small debts which I was able to
pay off only very alowly I have had men
to whom I owed bigger debts say to mo
and this out of sheer kindliness and
friendliness to me to taka away from
m a burden; 'Forget It old man; don't
worry yourself over that. We'll just
simply cross that off the books and call
It aquare.' And and this la not the least
of the things that have solaced me
there are men, rich men and men not
rich, with whom my relations In another
day were friendly, who have treated
alwaya ever since personally just tra
same, with absolutely unbroken klndn.js
and consideration.
"So my misfortune has revealed tJ m.r
friends whose real friendliness 1 might
otherwise not have known; and the world
seems kinder ta me than it did before.
We must all look nut for ourselves; self
preservation is the first law of nature;
but still the fact remains that the run
of men are a pretty good lot, ready to
help their neighbor.
"It remains only for a man to help him
self; and by all this kindness to me, em
boldened anew, I am, I confide to you,
and with prospects most cheering, now
maklug another Uy at fortune." Wash
('too fuat
BT1 71 TiTfT) fhTfil C
l(yirii JiJi hJ' Jill
mi
SOMEBODY TICKLED HER LEG
Operations of "Jack the Tickler" Give
Plttabara- Women Several
Thrills.
"Billy, wake up! Somebody is pulling
my leg!" said pretty Mrs. William Falck
of McClure and Kleber avenues, Pitts
burg, about S o'clock one morning last
week, as she sat up In bed and pounded
her sleeping spouse with her fist.
"Go to sleep again; you're dreaming,"
said the husband, who is head clerk in the
department of hlghwaya and sewers of the
North .Side, and who Is a sound sleeper.
But Mrs. Falck was too wide awake to go
to sleep again, and as she lay awake she
soon saw a man's hand come through the
window again and felt it tug at the bed
clothes once more. She screamed and
rolled her husband out of bed to get him
awake, and Falck finally got to the win
dow in time to take a shot at a man as
he flew over the back fence. There was
a ladder leaning against the house, and
the burglar had taken with him a long
handled rake with which he evidently In
tended to hook clothing from the Inside
of a room as he stood on the ladder outalde
the window.
It waa evident that he had been tugging
at the bed clothing in order to see if the
occupants were sound sleeper?, but Mrs.
Falck yet declares that the intruder first
tickled the aolea of her feet, then later
grabbed her by the ankle. The woman
fainted after the burglar had gone and Is
now In a serious condition from nervous
shock.
Falck reported the matter to the police,
and then came out a weird and wonderful
succession 'of complaints frjm different
parts of the North Side.
It appears that for more than one month
now complaints have been registered dally
by women that someone had entered their
room In the night and awakened them by
tickling the soles of their feet. In some
eases this "Jack the Tickler" took noth
ing from the house, but In most cares he
had already cleaned up rretty nearly
everything that he could carry and as a
farewell he could not resist the tempt nio
to tickle the soles of the pretty link feet
which were perhaps peeping from under
the coverlet.
The police department says it has not
made public half the reports of this na
ture which have come to it regarding this
"Jack the Tickler" because the women
who had been tickled begged It not to,
but so terrified have some of the wom.-n
become that they are now sleeping wlti
revolvers under their pillows.
Instructions have been sent from head
quarters for the entire police force to
watch for anyone that looks like their de
scription of "Jack the Tickler." Pltabur;
Dlspatch .
RELIC OF INSURANCE SCANDAL
John McCall'a Marble Palare Becomes
Ham of Millionaire
Clnb.
"Shadow Lawn" and its marble pa'ace,
the projected home Of John McCall, former
prealdent of the New York Life Insurance
company, and almost completed when dli
aster and death cams to the insurance
magnate, la now the club houa of the
Brooklawn Country club, composed of mil
lionaires. "Shadow Lawn" cost ll.OOYiOo.
It It near Long Branch, and the Ihundera
of the stormy Atlantic echo in lis marble
balls.
There la no other club anywhere In the
world that has so Imposing a home none
that has such a spread of acreage. The
land alone coat llUO.000. Originally farm
land, it uudeieut, at the behest of Mc'.'all,
and
Jl 66
a metamorphosis more marvelous than the
transformations wrought by fabled Aladdin
with hlB wonderful lamp.
Greensward, sweeping broadly, a restful
and seemingly boundless delight to the eye,
embraces within lis verdant vistas lakrs
that are green-blue gems, relieved by the
white and gold of challced lilies.
The club house rises up, enduring In its
marble whlteneas amid the solidity of the
granite pillars that bound the estate, a
place of admirable loveliness, lta broad
plaixas, Its many balconies. Its roof gar
den and lta promenades affording Inimita
ble views of the countryside, Inspiring to
day dreams with its visions of the ever
mutable sea.
At night stately electric standards light
the ways, with great Italian lanterns, in
bronze, glowing at the porteochere.
The reception hall, In Italian renaissance
and hung with Nile green silk, richly em
bossed, gives upon the great central court,
oaring to a superb glass dome at the roof,
sixty feet above. It la In reality a vat
apartment, 70x80, whence springs the flying
stair, .twenty-five feet In width, which rlsea
to the mezxanlne floor that served tht
first owner as a lounging room.
To the right and left the stair ascends
up to the promenade balcony on the second
floor, with a second promenade surround
ing the court on the third floor, the two
promenades affording access to ,the suites
of sleeping spartmenta, each with Its be 3
room, dressing room and bath.
A soft Ivory tone predominates through
out the great hall, tinting the large, sus
taining,, fluted pillars and the many arches
and balustradea. At the right and left are
immense fireplaces, framed under mantels
of deeply toned mahogany, twelve feet In
width and fifteen In height. The wood
work throughout la mahogany the book
cases Included, which are built into . thi
wall while the electric lighting Is In fix
tures of pale green Pompelan bronze, with
amber glass shades.
There Is a noble dining room opening
from the left, lta dimensions being 80x4)
feet. The heavily beamed celling Is ivo;y
tinted. The walls, above the hljh wainscot
ing, are paneled in silk of royal blue, the
same rich color showing In the tiles cf thj
mantel, while portieres of blue slik anl
leather screens In blue carry out the har
mony of the scheme.
Across the hall are the drawing room and
billiard room. They are In striking con
trast with each other, in beautiful con
sonance with their respective uses.
, The drawing room. In Nile green, slver
and Ivory, with Its large mirrors, us man
telpiece in Italian renaissance and Its . x
quislte cabinets of brk-a-brac. Is almost
femininely dullcate In lta air of dainty ele
gance. Tho billiard room, nearby. Is virile In the
Impression It gives of strength and solidity.
It has the old English Oothlo d sign, In
oak of dark green hue, with the v.al,a hung
In red tapestry. The woodwork la elab
orately carved, the celling heavily beamed.
At the fl replace colonial andirons stand,
with a generoua log basket, both in ham
mered t-raas. Philadelphia North Ameri
can. Billions in Mud Banks
(Continued from Page One.)
are habituated that la, the problem
rhlch
Is yet to be solved.
One of the best known systems devised
thus far employs a floating barge, eighty
feet long, sixteen feet beam and aix feet
deep, on which Is boused all the appara
tus used. The advantage of the barge is
that It utilises the water and which natur
ally forms as a bog la cut into, pnshlng Its
way from aide to side.
At one end of the scow are screw ex
cavators eleven feet In diameter. Dredg
p99
luLliJiJio
-310 Jli
ing Is done to a depth of about six feet in
a channel fifteen feet wide.
The material delivered aboard the barge
is picked over by hand to remove sticks,
pebbles and large impurities and is then
elevated by chains and buckets Into a
hopper. The material is finally delivered
Into a trough fitted with fixed knives.
When the peat is sufficiently dry It Is cut
into regular blocks and is ready for use.
Many peat briquettes of one form and
another have been placed upon the Amer
ican market in comparatively small quan
tities In the last few years. A hard block
lozenge-shaped briquette about three inches
in diameter and one Inch thick has been
made and sold by a company whose head
quarters are in Chicago. A Massachusetts
company for a time manufactured a syn
thetic coal out of a mixture of peat and
petroleum, with bituminous pitch used as a
bind.
In Canada a compressed peat fuel has
had considerable use, as, for Instance, at
the power house of a Toronto street rail
way company, from which it is reported
that the heat produced Is more intense
than that of coal, though somewhat defi
cient in lasting power. It is further al
leged In favor of brlquetted peat that It
burns without smoke, soot, dust or clinkers
and that It saves wear and tear on the
furnaces.
In siilo of all such nice things fcald about
black muff as an understudy of coal the
fact remains that It continues to play a
very minor part in the drama of American
industry.
No trust, so far as is known, Is getting
options on the bogs. There haa not even
been an approximately accurate apprlsal
of the extent of the vast reserve of power
represented In the swamps and salt
marshes of the country. When the late
Prof. Nathaniel S. Shaler of Harvard uni
versity made a report on the subject to the
Geological Survey in 1895 he gave In detail
some very instructive Information about
the formation, growth and geographical
distribution of peat bogs In the United
States, but he ventured no guesses, as to
the number of. tons of combustible mater
ial. perhaps the amount, is beyond an com-r
putatlon, especially as the southern (j
swamps and marsh lands, which, from the
absence of sphagnum moss are composed
of a mud that la not technically peat, are,
nevertheless, full of fuel possibilities. It
is known, for Instance, that the Great Dis
mal Swamp In Virginia contalna about
1000 square miles with an average depth
of fifteen feet of pure vegetable matter.
Upward Of 20,000,000,000 cubic yards of ma
terial, representing probably when pre
pared at least 5,000,000,000 tons, could be
taken from this hole alone.
New Jersey and the New England states,
sections deficient In local supply of an
thracite and bituminous, have especlsily
rich deposits of this coal In the primary
process of formation, and these are all the
time Increasing In richness, for bogs,
unlike coal mines, Improve with age. As
long ago as l&tiO Prof. Edward Hitchcock
In hla geological report of Massachuaetts
announced that In fifty towns of the Com
mon wealth (0,000 acres or 125 aquare miles
were covered with peat to an average depth
Iff six feet, and that these deposits should
yield about 180,000.000 tons of fuel. The
great quantities of combustible peat were
found In digging a subway la a matter of
recent metropolitan memory.
If It War.
Walter J. Travis, golfing at Rye, sympa
thised with a friend's story of a drunken
caddy.
'It is amazing," said Mr. Travis, "how
people with reslous responsibilities on their
shoulders butlers, engineers, caddies and
so on will get drunk.
He smiled.
"A lady I know," he went on, "cam
down, stairs to sea the Cowers on the eve
of a large dinner, and found her butler
staggering about the dining room, with red
eyea and disordered hair.
"The man dropped a cut glass bowl and
laughed, and his mistress cried Indignantly:
" 'Good gracious, Parker, you're drunk!'
"The butler, with a silly smile, aald,
soothingly;
" 'Don't bo alarmed, ma'am. It ain't
ketcbinV-New York Sun.
FIRST BOYCOTT ON RECORD
tnlejna 'Clab" Oooa Back Several
Centuries, When Bnsrllah Weav
er Leagacd Agalnat Scotch.
The trade boycott la by no means of as
recent origin as some people suppose, nor
la It of Irish extraction. Among the early
boycotts which strongly suggest the mod
ern Institution Is one that halls from North
England, and is chronicled In Brand's "His
tory of Newcastle." This has Its Inception
In a dread of Bcotch competition. On Au
gust 31, 1627, in the corporation of weavers
In Newcastle a number of regulations were
adopted, among them that "no member
should take a Scotchman to apprentice, or
set any of that nation to work, . under a
penalty of 40 shillings." More than this, to
call a brother "Scot or manaworn" Involved
a forfeit of d shillings 8 pence, "without
any forgiveness."
The canny Scotch doubtless did not delay
to pay back the English In kind, but It la
nearly two centuries lster before any rec
ord appears of the extent to which this
commerical feud raged between the two
peoples or as to the reprisals that ware
made by the "blue bonnets over ths
border."
In 1751 a sort of covenant waa entered
Into by the drapers, mercers, milliners and
other tradesmen and shopksepers of Edln
burg to cease all dealings with commercial
travelera from England, then called "Eng
lish riders." The language of this covenant
runs: "Considering that the giving of or
ders or commissions to English riders, or
clerks of English houses, when they coma
o this city tends greatly to the destruct
ion of the wonted wholesale trade thereof.
from which most of the towns in Sootland
used to be furnished with goods, and that
some of theae English riders not only en
hance the said wholesale trade, but also
correspond with It and sell goods to private
families and, persons a the same prices and
rates as if to us In a wholesale way, and
that their frequent journeys to this place
aro attended with high charges, which
consequently must be laid on the cost of
those things we buy from them, and that
wo can be as wU aerved In goods by a
written commlssir-ii by post (as little or no
regard Is ha.l ry them to the patterns or
colors of gcxdi which we order them to
send when tft-;y are here), therefore, and
for the pron.ci.lon of trade (I), we hereby
voluntary b.nO and oblige ourselves that
In no time con ing ws shall give any per
sonal order or commission for any goodtl
wo desl In to ai y English dealer, clerk or
rider whatsoever who shall come to Scot
land. "
To hla document, with Its native pre
tense that it Is for "this promotion of
trade," is added an obligation to have
"no dealings with any people In England
who shsll make a practice of coming them
selves or sending clerks or riders Into
Sootland." The penalty for violating this
agreement was set down to be ft Is for
every offense.
It Is to be remarked that among the sign
ers of this document, well to ths top, waa
the name of Jamos Beverldg. Perhaps,
this doughty protectionist of 1M years ago
was an ancestor of our ewa saW Bever
Idge. Indianapolis News.