EDISON, THE WIZARD.
GOLDEN JUBILEE OF THE INCANDESCENT LAMP..
Among her sons of achievement Americs boasts only one wizard " of invention. She has had a hast of inventors, but still only one "wizard."
lamp which, unknown to any ot us, was symbolic of the deathless lamp of the future."
That watch lasted forty hours For forty hours the lamp glowed steadily-all the rest of that night, all the next day, and night, and until about one o'clock in the afternoon
of the second
Never once in that interval was it left without observers.
THE HONG KONG DAILY PRESS. THURSDAY, JANUARY 17th, 1929.
MOSCOW IN WIN-
TER'S GRIP.
PICTURE OF THE NEW
RULERS.:
HAPPINESS AFTER A DEATH PARIS TRAFFIC PROBLEM.
RESOLVE.
MARRIAGE PROSPECTS OF ACCUSED LOVERS.
GIPSY'S "WARNING","
"You are preposing to be mar ried and you are getting on in business, so do your best.""
said that Clifton and Ball were both Mr. J. F. Eastwood, prosecuting, had a boot repairing business which he was paying for by instalments of the highest character. Clifton
He had worked hard and kept up his payments.
The girl was a worked hard in doniastie service daughter of respectable parents and
CAFES TO GOT Paris, December 2nd (U.P.):~ While many staffe experts around the world are preaching the neces- ity of underground streets or road ways in decks overhead to care for the constantly increasing traffic, Chiappe, chief of Paris police, is convinced that the traffic problem can be more easily and less expen-
automobiles to stop on main trafic aivaly solved by banishing the
arteries and at street grossings and open-air cafes and other excum- brances of the sidewalks, forbidding
traffic will reach its peak in 1935. M. Chiappa balisves that motor By that time one and a half million French roadways where but 150,000 automobiles will be rolling on vehicles moved in 1915. There are to-day 900,000 automobiles running in France.
ring the town, so that there are to-day, concentric circles of streets built to conform to the circular walled city,
Many of the downtowa streets, with the exception only of the Boulevards, are so narrow that thes will not support two-way traffic. One-way movement has solved that little problem, but now there are streams of voitures that traffic va so many cross-streets betting loose the main arteries is at a standstill.
to-day and appear doomed. The The cafe terraces of Paris, which
sidewalks wore horser, B70. were picturesque days in the era of
a great inconvenience!
made large to accomodate the tables of the out- door cafes, and the streets were made narrower.. streets must be widened, the side
Now that the
the cafe tables must be pushed back walks must be made narrower and
overflowed. Inside the buildings from which they
down buildings and widen stresta if we know how to use the road- ways we have," Chiappe told the United Press.
traffic by arrowing sidewalks, but "We can widen roadways for since foot traffic is constantly in- urensing we must move everything off the sidewalks, including sale terraces, newspaper and forer sellers kiosks and atorekeepers out- door display tablen
creased number of busy street inter traffic in Paris are the standing The two greatest abstacles, to automobiles, many of which do not move for several hours, and the in- sections
It is easy to end the frat nuisance by forbidding the station- public, in the downtown district ing of all vehicles, private, and
grading stecata so as to make one and to eliminate the second by street pass above another at inter sections,
Paris bas another trafic scourge any other American city with the stand by hours in the busiest streets Yoric's systems of traffic moving al-
Paris has a trafio problem which in 100,000 taxicabs, which cruise
"Wherever traffic problems arise
possible exception of Boston knows. Chiappe plans to relegate these ternately in cross directions will not neither New York nor London, or slowly looking for passengers, or
the conditions are local and must be solved in a different way, Now Paris geographically is an over-empty taxicabs to the side streets. grown village. Its downtown streets and by doing this will take 50,000 the best solution is to keep speed as work out in Paris, but everywhere are tortuously winding paths. As rebicles out of the heart of Parts high as possible within safety mit Paris grew, ita fortifications were instantly, pushed farther and farther out to
and to canalize traffic along main "It will not be necessary to tear ¦ arteries"
BEARDED PEASANTS!
To capture the human voice, upon
the Soviet capital is matted with Moscow, December 8th:-At last a cylinder of wax; to produce pic
snow, after a protracted and slushy Robert Wallace, E.C., the chairman tures, in which the people move as
autumn. Melancholy twilights come at the London Sessions when he These were the words of Sir
they do in actual life; to imprison a hair-like thread within a racuum
cast days, and Moscow settles back Noble Bell, a domestic servant, both day soon after ucon to erase brief over. Clifton, a boat repairer, and Eli one street under the other.
bound over Leonard Thomas Walter and make it glow electrically with such brilliance as to furnish the Edison himself sat there as un-
comfortably into the long nights in ged twenty, who were accused of people with a wonderfully useful moved as a Stoic-a lean, well-knit
which it feels most like itself attempting to commit suicide. lamp-these things are magical in- youthful Agure, without coat, col- like the tinkle and glitter of Christ- Something unreal and subdued,
They had been on bail since their deed. And these things all shoutlar or tie, and wearing the black más fairy tales. All the air. The
committal from Lambeth Police Court. the same magical name-the name skull cap which he frequently ex darkness is studded with tiny nails of Edison.
hibited in those days. Once only of light: detached church doncs As the "wizard of Menlo Park "he relaxed, stretching full-length and towers float overhead. Diminu- began the golden jubiloo yest of upon a near-by laboratory tabla bis incandescent electric light, for two or three hours' sleep, while
tive aleighs glide by noiselessly, and America paid him homage of a
his faithful henchmen kept the grotesquely padded humans roll singular sort. Acting as the repre vigil-Jehl, Batchelor, Francis Rong. Moscow, in a word, is its sentative of all his fellow Ameri- Upton, his mathematician,
true self again-sombre, huddled, cans, the Secretary of the Treasionally Ludwig Boehm and Mar-ysterious. The tourists who see sury, Andrew W. Mellon, present tin Force, and even sturdy John ed him on October 20th with a Kreusi, his machinist, the first special Congressional gold medal man besides Edison ever to hear at a ceremony which was broad, the human voice by phonograph. cast by radio; and the President When the wizard " of the United Sintes spoke to the lamp still glowed. He and Upton awoke, the nation from Washington, to remind measured its electrical resistance the millions who listened of the in- one of the basic characteristics that fuente Edison has been in their made possible Edison's triumph daily living.
where others had failed. . All
com-
this happened in memorating the incandescent lamp, because the incandescent lamp a generally appreciated as Edison's biggest contribution to the national welfare and the national wealth He himself once, described it as the most satisfactory of my in- ventions to contemplate"
Fifty Years Ago. The incandescent lamp, however,
Occa-
Then the watch went on--Edison in silent contemplation dreaming a bit, as he realised the goal was at hand, of "great central stations in many cities, supplying electric cur tent for large numbers of incan descent lampa."
his brond, economic conception, his complete system of lighting," which he even then had clearly planned in every detail,
That was
was born amid storm und stress,
"That's Fine, Boys." amid the thunderings of critics and "At last the glowing filament vociferations of sceptics. In the burned out. But they knew suc world at large, especially the cens was theirs. scientific world, there was heard to his assistants, in quiet, equani Edison exclaimed the turbulent clash of earping mous elation: "That's fine, boys, veices whenever Edison and his fine: If the lamp will burn, forty electric illumination scheme were hours now, I know I can make it touched upon.
last hundred." Before many months had passed he had made it last a thousand.
-*?
be
the city only in the summertime do not know it at all.
on
Cutting winds race through the walled-in quiet of the Kremlin, where about a thousand visitors four hundred delegates and the rest spectators-carry the world's most colourful Parliament. Under turrets from which Czars watched er in Red Square, these intent Par- their enemies slain by the execution. liamentarians wander through the Kremlin, touching cannons captured from the first Napoleon, stopping to gaze at the Byzantine contortions of centuries-old churches.
They are the strangest agglomera tion, these new rulers-bearded peasants in high felt boots and smally sheepskin greatcoats: fresh peasant girls with eyes twinkling under coloured headkerchiefs; alert clean-shaven factory workers in short leather jackets; the faces of old women framed in bright shawls; Mongol, Esquimio, Semite features. a medley of Russian, Tartar,
Every day and every night they gather amidst the gold-and-white Yet, in the sylvan solitude of
grandeur of the Great Palace, under Menlo Park, New Jersey, fifty
massive clusters of crystal light, and years ago, there was merely inten
The first thing he did, however,
listen to long speeches bristling with sive industry. The days slipped by
was to deliberately break that glass figures about industry, agriculture untroubled and unheeding-busy, bulb and carefully remove the literacy, irrigation. They applaud indeed, but calm.
filament for a microscopic examina speeches and become visibly excited Th bright aŭtumn sun poured in tion. It was his invariable praequite in the spirit of a mass-meet- through those tall, unshaded tiee; Bothing that could possibly ing. There is some discussion. laboratory windows. Men ezme
add to his knowledge of incandes- Men and women tell about intimate and went, absorbed in curious cent lighting was ever left undone local conditions, and how the Soviet tasks. At one of the work-tables That is why the original forty laws worked out by small com. sat Charles Hatchelor, the model-hour lamp no longer existe. It mittees in the Kremlin affect life maker, whose delicate
can not fingers
enshrined in
and happinees in distant Siberia, in patiently struggled to mount museum, not even in Henry Ford's Turkestan, in the frozen reaches of slender bit of carbonised cotton growing aggregation of Edisonian the North. But in the end every thread upon a little stem of glass.it is the replica designed by lamp members of this body explain, hour treasures. The nearest approach to thing is approved. The Communist Beside him, watching assisting, engineers of the General Electric after hour, the why and the where directing, sat Edison.
As the October day drew to... &
Company of New York from the fare of policies that must seem a close, the setting sun threw crimson's men and of Edison himself.
authoritative recollections of Edi- good deal strange to simple village son rays across the long, bare floor,
inds." and the rows of bottles Iming the great news did not filter out to the All this in October, 1879. The shelves, the tables with their crowd-world until December 21st, when ed paraphernalia, the tall Sprengle the old New York Herald startled mercury pump, the fat, sprawling the metropolis by a spectacular coal stove gleamed in the weird full-page account of the lamp. re- red light. The silent figures bend viewing also ing over the table became sil
Edison's previous houettes of fiery outline, and their
Then There Was A Stir. shadows loomed gigantic upon the
And then there was a stir! Criti opposite wall. The stone suggest- ed the lair of some alchemist of
eal folk would not believe it. old, a place of wonder-doings, a Scientists refused to be convinced. den of magie, as it were.
That evening the work went on It continued until past midnight,
work.
Edison's previous efforts had brought forth nothing; his first at tempta platinum lamp-had been a failure. How could he be sue
Industrialization And Clais
Warfare.
capital is deepened by the prospect of one of the hardest winters the
And the natural gloom of the,
Bolshevik regime has ever faced. No effort is made to conceal the dificulties or to make light of prob Icras,
In connection with the meeting of this Parliament-Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union is the official title and with the re- cent. plenary session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, speeches have been made in the last two weeks by President Kalinin, Premier Rykov, by Stalin, Molotoy and a dozen other leaders. All of them make the same point-that the programme of industrialization and of class warfare in the village will be carried through, but only with the greatest strain.
•
round Unconscious,
The couple were engaged to be married and had bought some of their furniture. They were to November 11th, and when Clifton's gether during the evening of parents' went to bed they thought that he was in his room. Mr. Miss Bell unconscious in the bed. Clifton senior found his son and room the next morning. Two gas jets were turned on.
as it often did. The next morning cessful now! It was too short a the new experimental lainp-the thin filament encased in its bull time! It was too big a problem. of glass-was taken over to the
The "shouting and the tumult Sprengle pump. and carefully at swelled.
But some of the noise tached to the exhaust mechanism,
came from Edison's staunch sup- to have the air pumped out.
porters, And in truth the news Edison watched all that day as was soon sufficiently confirmed to the pump worked on. At last he make holders of gas stocks feel un- connected the lamp to his large comfortable, and to start a lasty bichromate battery, and every now
loom among shares of the Edison and then he sent an electric cur. Electric Light Company.
Fear Of Foreign War. One other thing in those speeches lent through the buil. Instantly For Edison, on New Year's Eve, is extremely significant. More en- the gases buried in the flament 1570, had laid out an exhibition phatically than any time since the The pump system of incandescent lamps in breach of relations with England, began pouring out. worked on for hours longer,
the snow-covered field outside his they now stress the danger of war. Edison stayed at his post," doc
laboratory; and three thousand The Anglo-French alliance on one toring
the lamp with frequent persons had welcomed the chance to side, the Anglo-Japanese under doses of electricity, until the
come and see.” highest possible vacuum existed in-
He knew he had won. He knew upon as links in a military and standing on, the other, are looked side that little balb-one-millionth what he intended to of an atmosphere.
Even while the public was torn Union. Moreover, mutual visits by economic encirclement of the Sovict It was eight o'clock in the even-between belief and doubt Edison French, Folish and Rumanian mili- ing of October 21st, 1878. Edison, was spending a quiet morning in satisfied with his work thus far, a breakfast conference at his plain viction that the circle is being tary men have strengthened the con spoke teruely to young Francis hospitable American home at Menlo forged most solidly on the European Jehl, the pump tender. He sent Park, planning with his financial for Ludwig Boehm, his glass advisors how to begin manufactur frontier in a series of alliances from blower, who carefully sealed off the ing the lamp which he had created
the Baltic to the Balkans." lamp and helped Jehl mount. it on for the benefit of his fellow-men, the test-stand to undergo its life-friends and critics alike.
test.
and
To-day!
do next.
A letter found in the room and signed Mr. and Mrs. Clifton hard to live so we will take the best was to be" stated, "We find life way out. Wishing all out friends, the best of luck and happiness.".
A message written on the reverse side of the letter was, "I hate to do this, but it is the best way ou for us. Please pay Albert, my friend, two and sixpence for the stove. Money at the shop. L Clifton."
the following message on the back: There was also a photograph with
Please we wish to be put to gether as we are found, as we are happier together. I was told by a gipsy I would die before I was twenty-one, and all she told me as yet has come true. It would be an unnatural death. (Signed) May.
+
"Life Unbearable.".. mother and father, which concluded Bell wrote in letter to her with crosses for kisses:
I had life hard and unbearable, Bo will you try and forget me as I have never been happy in my life, only for about four months in which Len was the one to make me happy.
We were to be married before Christmas, but it is not my luck to be happy. I was never born to be happy in this world. I do not know what I have done to deserve such punishment as I have gone through. If I deserve it, may I suffer for it. I try to be good but the world is against me.
I am taking the best way out of my misery. I am not worthy of Len. He is the best one in the world
have ever known and he is the only pal I-have got.
He loves me, but I am not good enough for him. This is all. Everything that belongs to me is for my ten. I can love no one. elae. I would be broken-hearted to live without him, so
am tak.. ing the path in which I hope to fnd no feeling. So good-by With love to all. Cheer up.
"Good Smacking." what these two young people "Obviously," said Mr. Eastwood,
fortunately, they are too old for want is a good smacking, but, un- your lordship to administer that
Sir Robert Wallace I leave that to you, Mr. Eastwood.
Mr. Eastwood: I should be pleas- ed to give it to both of them."
Sir Robert Wallace: These xay. ings of gipsies sometimes dwell on people's minds.
the best way to describe the couple Detective Inspector Cory said that was that they were two silly young people.
Clifton and Bell, said that if either Sir Robert Wallace, addressing
charged with murder. As it was bad died the other would have been
with conspiracy, the punishment for, they were both liable to be charged which was of a terrible nature,
do anything of this kind again," "I am sure you do not intend to observed Sir Robert
Clifton and Bell together: No, my lord.
The fear of war explaine a great deal about Soviet economic policy. It explains, among other things, "A few minutes later the spot of
And war must come," he added. why it industrializes as fast as it "The capitalist world won't sit yellow incandescenco began to glow, which inherited the manufacture of volves dangers and vast discontent, built up. They're too scared of To-day the modern corporation does, knowing that such speed in- idly by while a socialist world is and then the little group took up the lamp, the General Electric goods shortage, capital shortage, etc. their own working classes to tole- what Jehl always afterward call Company of New York-which has As a well-informed Communist told rate at successful socialist, experi- ed. the death watch."
kept trust with Edison, 80 "The New Lamp." speak, by greatly increasing the If we had a guarantee that wo
to the writer;
ment" "We had tested many lamps be efficiency of his marvellous inven-
Perhaps less boldly, the same would not be attacked, let us 30 Soviet leader.
point of view is expressed by every none had come up to the mark that and pays dividends upon &
for ten years-then we could afford
Nikolai Bukharin, Edison sought. With this new talisation of two hundred million; lamp we did not know that the while the nation's electric light plans over ten years.
peasant correspondente in Moscow, result would prove any better. The and power business, which has haven't and cannot have such a blamed the press for not exploiting life-test alone, as in all previous flourished primarily because of the guarantee, and we cannot afford to sufficiently the Soviet disarmament cases, would decide the question of Edison lamp, provides employment be caught unprepared. We are success or failure. The one thing for two hundred thousand, and is rushing to build up an industry of fict, or preparations for the de- "In the event of a military con we wanted to know was how long capitalised at a cool six billion.
our own before a united attack on fence of our proletarian state." he the lamps would last-how long a A wizard, indeed who makes dol- life: it was good for how soon it lars grow where none grew beforsy self-sufficient in case of war, large masses did not have an ab us stops it. We must be industrial said, it would be very sad if the would show signa
burn Certainly this is a golden jubilee that's why we are willing to pay sélute, categorical, full certitude ing out
we began the that America can well afford to high price for industrialization. death-watch of 起 incandescent celebrate!
(Continued at foot of next column.) possible to prevent war."
that our government did everything
fore that day," Jehl recalls, and tion-has seventy thousand work to 'spread out our industrialization speaking "recently to worker and
So
J
of.
But we
scheme.
TIME-BALL
TIME
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It costs less to operate this electric clock than to keep an ordinary clock in repair, and you get Time-ball time always.
Many beautiful models of this Telechron are now on show and you are invited to inspect them-to-day. A Telechron will make a distinctive and much appreciated" present.
Telechron
THE ELECTRIC TIMEKEEPER
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General Electric Co. of China, Queen's Building.
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