SOMETHING NEW

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 51, 23 November 1929, Page 10

SOMETHING NEW

THE SEEDLINGS OF SUCCESS WONDERS AT INVENTIONS EXHIBITION Dominion Special Service. [By Nellie M. Scanlan.] London, October 4. When an old negress discovered a hair oil that would take the crimp out of a negro’s hair she became a millionaire overnight. Ideas are the seedlings from which millions grow—ideas that lead to inventions. I have just spent an hour at the Inventions Exhibition, and I have seen strange wonders and mechanical miracles. A man with a new vacuum cleaner first captured me. Vacuum cleaners seem to be getting a bit above themselves. This one certainly cleaned the carpet and the chairs, but it was full of gadgets. Screw on this, and you have a current of hot or cold air, to dry your hair. Change the nozzle, and it becomes a perfume spray. The only thing it wouldn’t do was to heat the baby’s bottle. Then I met Kate —Korrugated Kate. She is a trim little outboard motor-boat made of corrugated iron, like we use for the roof. And her claims to attention- were manifold. She took her bumps like a lady, and danced the waves like a jazz queen. Kate has a promising future. To Foil the Motor Thief. Half the brains of the Empire seem directed against the motor thief, and there were endless devices for locking the car’s this and that, and one for turning the headlights red, to warn the police the car is stolen. The menace of electric irons has also given inventors grave concern. One patent iron makes a noise like an. agitated hen when left unattended. Ananother has a grip connection, like the old telephone, that only connect up when held tightly. When this iron is standing on its end, on rubber feet, you can switch on the heat, but this is automatically cut off when the iron is placed face down. America, I thought, had exhausted ideas for concealing beds. You find them in chairs and couches, poked in walls, pushed up behind doors, and up on shelves. But to-day I found one concealed in the dining-table. You part the table top, and drop it on either side, and behold, inside is a spring, and cushioned mattress. Whether this amazing proximity will result in finding feathers in the soup, or pudding in the bed, I cannot say. Another device was a bed and wardrobe combined, but I could not see how it worked. • A Cool Idea. One cool idea was a portable bathing pool. A green canvas bath, like they use on ships, was fitted over a wooden frame, perhaps three feet deep. You can move it about the garden, teach the children to swim, and it is pleasant for a splash after a game of tennis. I passed a bewildering array of >erpetual calendars, false teeth, and fire escapes; keyless locks, non-fillable bottles, re-fillable boxes, chin reducers, and knife sharpeners. But I was particularly interested in one notice, “Visible Cow Milking,” which apparently put windows in the cow. Women scored heavily with cooking gots and slicers. A pot with a strainer attached won the admiration of the housekeepers, who murmured lovingly of cabbage and macaroni, cauliflower, and soup, as" they put things in, and watched the caged food held behind the bars, while the liquid was nonchalantly tossed out. A little Japanese girl dabbed my wrist with- seven new Japanese perfumes, and I walked out of the building with my head held high, but I was nearly asked to get off the bus, all the same.