AMERICAN HAPPENINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 221, 18 September 1930, Page 22

AMERICAN HAPPENINGS.

GIGANTIC RADIO SET.

H. L. MENCKEN TO MARRY

TYPESETTING BY TELEGRAPH.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SAN FRANCISCO, August 23.

A radio installation, requiring 190 miles of wire and costing approximately 200,000 dollars, is being placed in New York's newest hotel," the WaldorfAstoria, now/ under construction. Believed to.be the world's largest set of its kind, the system will make available to each of 2000 private rooms and to 15 public rooms six individual radio programmes. ~ ...

In announcing details of the installation, Western Electric engineers said the same equipment also will .be used ±o distribute public events in the hotel itself, through an inter-connecting public address system. Facilities will be provided in 140 suites to be located in the two towers of the building for privatelyowned receivers. The centralised system will make available to each room six programmes,, more than has been attempted previously. Programmes may be selected by a switch, which cuts the loud speaker into one of six pairs of wires leading from the main receivers. The speakers will be of the table type and each will have a volume control. The main receiver is really six AC receivers in one. Each section has three stages of tuned frequency amplification, automatic volume control and a single tuning dial. To supply sufficient output 42 amplifiers, using 174 radio tubes, will be used.

Latest Mechanical Device. Setting type by telegraph in a series of distant newspaper offices by the Operation of a machine in a central office has b6en accomplished in the past month on newspapers served by the news wire of the Westchester County Publishers, 1nc.,.0f White Plains, New York State. Announcement of the first practical use of the teletypesetter was made by Mr. J. Noolmacy, president of the Westchester Newspaper Company.

Sending messages by telegraph printer has been a general practice for several years, but the typewritten story had to be taken from the receiving apparatus, edited and carried to the composing room to be set into type. The teletypesetter eliminates the typesetter because it sets the type automatically. A story may be "cut" or edited to a limited degree at the receiving end, but if maximum speed is desired the message may not be intercepted.

Rolls of oiled paper tape, similar to that now widely in use on teletype machines, are the medium upon which the teletypesetter makes its impression. The operator depresses the keys of the transmitter, and impressions are made on the tape as it passes through the machine. The tape looks like a perforated music roll. It passes through a device-which reproduces in the receiving offices the identical impressions appearing on the punched tape at the transmitting end. Simultaneously with the reproduction of the tape in the receiving offices a printed version of the story is received by the newspaper composing rooms. This enables the receiving editors to read the story as it comes in. If they wish to cut it they find the corresponding section of the punched tape and simply eliminate.

Iconoclast's Volte Pace. H. It. Mencken, famed almost as much for hie bachelorhood as for his iconoclastic writings, will ' marry Miss Sara Haardt, also a writer, shortly. Announcement of the engagement of Miss Haardt to the noted Critic and editor was made by Mrs. John Anton Haardt, of Montgomery, Alabama, mother of the bride-to-be. It caused surprise among Mencken's friends in New York, who recalled his previous comments on the subject of matrimony. . v ■ "Bachelors are the luckiest men in>. the world, •if i not the Sappiest," Mencken once said. He implied that they spent most of their time "annoying married ladies. I wouldn't exchange my bachelorhood for anything, ,, he added. "It's just like sitting in an easy chair and watching two clowns antic on the etage." The announcement did not reveal whether the wedding, which wae eet for September, wtiuld be a church ceremony. On this point, ■ however, Mencken once expressed himself: "Church weddings are primitive orgies in the worst of taste. Being married with all your friends about you is about as private and discriminating ae eating in the window of a restaurant." Miss Haardt met Mencken, who is 49, while she was , teaching English at Goucher College, from which she graduated in 1920. The editor took an interest in her career and assisted her along the road to literary prominence. She will soon publish her first novel.

Coffin-Lying Champion. Consider the plight of Captain Jack Evans, who laye claim to,the coffin-lying championship." Although the captain.has broken his own record for lying in a coffin in an amusement park in Atlantic City, his backers refused'to allow him to be dug up until certain financial details were settled. At the time Captain Jack had been underground without real food for eeven daye and several hours. Signals from the champion to those six feet above him were that he wanted to come up. But one of the park owners insisted on 35 per cent of the receipts and unless he got the ,money, he said, he would refuse to allow the grave diggers to turn a epade. Charles Hudspeth, assistant to Captain Evans, was almost driven to tears and punches. Communicating with Evans through the ventilator, Hudspeth yelled: "Hey, we won't get enough out of this for new suite. I'm going to ask visitors to donate 50 cents to see you dug up and the park mob won't get nothing, see. , * "Get me out of here without so much argument," answered Evans. "Make it 25 cents j timee are hard and most of them up there haven't got half a dollar." ~

All was settled then and the crowd began to pay quarter dollars to see Captain Evans disinterred. When the park officials arrived on the scene there was an uproar. , Fists began to fly. Somebody" called,' Policeman Fred Moore arid he*suggested they dig Evans up and argue afterward. The combatants agreed to let Moore hold the money. The captain was a eorry eight with his cheeks sunken and a week's growth on his chin. With shaking fingers he grabbed a glass of water, thanked the ail <i then collapsed. "Ghost Rider" Gaoled. , Lend ear, you who dote on Western romances; who burn midnight oil over virile tales mid settings of purple Mlsj who pester heroes of cowboy romances

for autographed photographs. Lend ear for this is a yarn to your liking, with all the atmosphere of a Class A Hollywood film romance. • . ■ For • weeks a phantom rider; flashing on a white steed over the Laramie Peak country of Wyoming, had terrorised ranchers and planted casual bullets as souvenirs in the persons of residents who heeded not his warnings. Dire tales reached the ears of peace officers. House-, wives in gingham dresses stirred uneasily at the sound of hoof beats. Came eyentide.. And with eventide came the arrest of Charlie Adams, undone (believe it or not) by a typewriter and fingerprint. Fingerprints on one of the warnings dropped at the door of a rancher bore a striking similarity to the fingerprints oil a letter he himself. wrote. The warning was typewritten. A University of Wyoming professor identified the type ae the print of a machine at the home of Charlie's boss, a rancher. The jig was up and Charlie confessed that. Peace officers surmised Charlie was trying to drive out of the country hie rival for a woman's hand, cloaking his motives in a general crusade against all ranchers of the vicinity. As a further effort to cover up hie identity, they said, he shot himself and was admitted to the hospital, claiming to be the victim of the sure-shot horseman. The white steed Was achieved through the use of a eheet. •