FRICTIONAL ELECTRICITY

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXVII, Issue 7917, 14 June 1902, Page 2 (Supplement)

FRICTIONAL ELECTRICITY

(By Max Adeler.)

I happened to visit the accident ward of St. Paracelsus'-(Hospital because a friend of inline -who is interested in the Flower jniwioo naked me to stop here daring jr,y afteenooa walk and give a few -ftowe-rs to the (offerers. When 1 had arraogsi the last halfdoeen of the rooes a T3S e upon the lit-tie stand by tine -bedside of one bruised and battered PSciait. the looked at me gratefully good: -"ftf, jiTmntr you, sir! And would you jjr, stopping for a bit of talk? Im to lonely and miserable." I sat upon the chair by tihe bed and •with my hand smoothed the counterpane, wMJeithe patient asked me: "Do I really look like a burglar, sir. do you think!" . , . I hesitated to reply as I esanntned n.13 face. It was really corered with bandages, bob his nose seemed swollen and there seamed braises about- both his eyes. "I don't wonder you don't like to speak your mind when yon see me here a broken wreck, smashed up and not looking a bit iiie myself, sir. But if you would see me well and strong and fixed up for going to church you'd say right ofi that I don't favor 00 burglar in looks. I the unfortunate man his name. Hordecai Barnes, sir, and I'm a journeyman plumber, sir, with a good character and don't take no second place in that business with no man. Sow did I gee here. What banged me all up into a shame and disgrace like this! Well, I'll tell yon, sir. if you have the patience to listen, for it does me good to talk who has been used so hard, and can get no attention from the muaea or nobody in this here asylum. Do you understand about fractional electricity, «£r? No! I thought not; and well had it been for n», for this shattered hulk that «on see a-iying here, if I had never heard of it neither! I'll tell you how it was, sir. Mv 'Trutry George \V atkins, and there «nV no better man nowheree if yon go clear round the globe—George atlrins i» one of those men with inquiring minds, aST/rzkys aJrungering for knowledge, and so George off he goes week after week to lectuses np as the Huxley Institute. ion fajow it; in that yellow building over by Nonpareil Squjxe. And George often he told me about the wonderful things he learned there, and among others he was fond of explaining to me about frictional electricity. . to witf sir, you may not know it* any more T n I knew it until Georpe ex. plained it to me that! there's three different kinife of electricity. There's the kind you make with a steam engine, and the kind yon make with acid, and the kind you make with friction. Well, sir, would you believe —or, let) ma say first, have you ever rubbed a black cat on the back in a dark room and seen the sparks fly? Of course, sir, I know it's almost beyond belief, but, positively, they told George Watkms, my mate, up at the Huxley Institute, that thtm eparks and aurora borvalis that you see •onetimes a-lighting up the heavens one and the eame thing! Wonderful, isn't it air, that science should discover that a black cat is some kin to the aurora borealis? But George says that'e whnt they mid, for the aurora boreolis is caused by the earth a-rolling around and rubbing the sir just as the sparks is caused by the stroking of the cat's back." "And George he says that this here fractional electricity is the only kind that t! cure pain. The steuzn engine kind won t do it, and the acid kind won't do it. but the frictaoctal kindU do it every time if you only know how to apply it. -Well, sir, now I pass to the sorrnwtul pact of rav ytorv. There is a girl named fr-IK Dooahertv" that does the housework for a naaotd 'Muxfitt, and a mighty nice firl (the is; or I used to think hex nice. May be you know where Mr 'Murfitt lives, oa 149 th street-, just above Paiyin street, the third house 00 the left with white shutter*. "Anyhow I got to be food of Bella, and nted to sit and talk with her in the evenings in Mr Murfitt's kitchen, awl maybe bare two or three other girts come in sometime*, with a few men ; though 1 never oared sir, foe much flocking together at •och times, far Bella Dougherty she was good enough oropany for me. ju>t her and I br oanwlvt*. "Hoirao«aedever, there was another man had a kind of fancy for Bella Dougherty, although, in my opinion, be «nt nt to wipe her feet on. and his name is Wil£am Jones. "Rat j*r William Jonw, a-winking at mk Dooghertr a» much as to say. sir. «■!»»>- he'd be having the laugh on me. said hj« l*td a pain that minute in his head boat neuralgia and he'd bet me a quarter ao fiactkrnal electricity would drive it out. I know sow what was the matter wit" tbeheedofWaHm Job». Jfot neuralgia, mrr ggf nothing «f » ort - " *** xl i inn My swte. George WatJkmi, telk

me tiat at the Institute they nay that vacuum always produces pain, and that was the only thing the matter "with this William Jones I'm yon about.

"I never take no dare, not from no znsu of that kind, anyways, sir, so I bet bin a quarter I'd cure him, and cnre him wit! frictional electricity, too. So he set dow: on tbe chair a-laugbing and a-winking a Bella Dougherty, who set over by th' range holding tie quarters; and I begun t< rub William Jones eyebrows with my trwt thumbs; just gently, bub right along jus like stroking a cat; keeping it up, a-rub bing and a -rubbing, until at last I aske* h'rm bow be felt now; and, can you imagini ooy supprise, sir. when I seen that Willi an Jones was fast asleep! I was skeered at first; but in a minute I seen -that I hat bypnertized him unbeknown to myself, ant there set William Jones *s if he was fro® rtiff. . , . "I wa'n't so very sorry, sir, when J found out how things was a-going, al ibongh A I could harre seen what was th< » resequences of this strange occurrence It i-aeized sov bat and bid Bella Dougherty rood-br and started straight for hosne. * "But-, sir. 'of course I acted like a 1001 or I'd read in the papers how a man whi ivpnertizes another man can moke him be ieve anvthing and do anything, and so J bought I'd have some fun with Wlllla.ll Tones and enjov a lovely, quiet evemni rith Bella Douehertv. "So I says to William Jones: " 'Xow. William, you're a little school =cholar once again and you've missed youi etson, and so von just go over there ii ihat corner by the china closet and stanc ivith vour face to the wall and say ovei ind over your multiplication table till yoi sxow it. right.' . "And so, to the supprise of .Bell. Dougherty, William Jones' went right ovei in the corner, like I told him, and there hi stood, saying: 'Six sixes is thirty-fix. si: sevens is forty-two,' and so on, whilst 1 set over with." Bella Dougherty peacefully enjoying ourselves just exactly's if Willian Jones wasn't, anvwhere about. '•And, so, sir,-it went on until Mrs Muf fitt. «=be come down and eaid* to 'Belli Dougherty it was time to shut the hous up. and then I bid her good-night and tol< William to go heme and go straight to bed which he did. and a-saying the multiplica tion table all the way down the street. Hi would have said it- all night, sir, I do be litve, if I hadn't ordered him to stop ant to begin saying his prayers when I passet htm- in at his front door. "Yon may believe me. sir, that I hat William Jones on my mind all night ant was a-worrying a Utile about him too, fo' fear mavbe he'd never come to. So aronnt I goes the firs,; thins in the morning to hi boarding-honse. and his landlady tells m< be had been a-saying his prayers all mixe< up like with the multiplication table eve: since he come home the night before. Shi was a bit- troubled abont it, sir, as yoi nuv imagine, for William Jones was a goot boarder and it- 'd 'a' been mon;y out of he: pocket if he had lost his mind. "So. then, I seen William Jones ant knowed at oncet that the hypnertizing stil had hold of htm. Very well; I had nc idea how to get him out. of it- and hi didn i hurt him nohow, so I just commanded Wil liani Jones to drop tbe multiplication tabli and his prayers and to fix all his intellect in the retrular way of plumbing; and Wil liam Jones at once calmed down and seem ed his old self again. "Then a wicked thought flashed into mi mind You know how it is yourself, sir; yi-a are tempted and vou are weak and vol fall, and then the first tiling you know, t< ba sure your sin'll find you out and theri you are! Here I am, a shattered hulk It s-u'l'ienly occurred to me, sir, that H could control William Jones, why Tj o t tun his affections away from Bellj Dougherty who might take a- ioncy to him! <wh< knivws? ;ire so queer: and direc his thoughts toward niy own Aunt- Maggie is a middle-aged widcer and not si bad-looking, and far too good for such ; man as William Jones, although to spea! th.- plain truch I had no objections t< having hem for an uncle by marriage. "Therefore I did so. sir, and before th iek was out I heard William Jones wa plumbing in the most surprising manner plumbing here and plumbing there, ant paying attentions vigorously, fo to speak to Aunt. Maggie every evening. "In the meantime, sir, bei:eve me. I dit no: lose time in my sui» with Bell; Dougherty, who seemed real mad at Wil liam Jones when people began to talk abou his courting Aunt Maggie, so that in it> s than two weeks, when Bella Dougherty heard that William Jones and Aunt Maggn bad agreed to many. I got Bella Dougherty as good as to say. although she never quiti said it square, that she would have me"l never kiiowed how it happened, sir whether somebody waked V> illiam Jones U] t-r he just come to by himseif, but, sir anvuow William Jones about that tim; dropped hypnerusm and was himself again Imagine, s:r, how things stood I Ther< never was a man as mad as William Jones; m.id with me, and mad with Aunt Maggie to whom he sent a cruel message chat hi wa'n't marrying no grandmas and tha mada Aunt "Maggie mad; and then Wil iiani Jones set down and wrote me a lette: to the general effect that whenever he mei me mv course in this life would be short. "Naturally, sir. as you may believe. . ktpt out of William Jones' way, for I an no: fi'nd of quarrelling, and besides, Wil Bam Jones is forty pounds heavier, sir than I am. "But one night while I was setting in th< kitchen at -Murfitts, having some uplifting conversation with Bella Dougherty then was a sudden knock on the side door, anc up she jumps, pale and_skeered, and says : 'I do believe that is William Jones. H< said he nri.'ht Kill, maybe this evening! So, of course, as I never hunt- trouble, ] raised the window-sash over by the kitchen table at the back and went out just as William Jones come in the side door. He kept the door open a-watehmg for me, and so as I couldn't get- to the gate I climbed over the high fence into the next yard. "I ought to have gone right home, sir, without stopping, but 1 ihated to leave William Jones there with Bella Dougherty, and rae jux't driven out; so, as it was ra'mine hard and X had on my Sunday suit, v. hat, "dote; I do but try the latch on the kitcben door of tbe honr-e next to Mr Murfict's, and finding the door opened, in I walked and set down in a chair to await what was going to happen. That was a bid job for me, sir It isn't safe to take one false step. ••Fur the next minute the inside floor from the dining-room springs open ar.d a man jumps out and grabs ihe and says: •I've got thee at last, have I!' He was a Quaker, sir; a big man and with a grip like iron. I never knowed a man with a grip like that. Did you ever, sir. have vour lingers in the crack of a door and 'somebody a-leaning hard on the door? That was the way this Quaker held me. Then he calls out 'Amelia! Amelia! and in a minute a sweet old Quaker lady comes out- with a candle, and be says to her : 'l've caught that burglar, Amelia; thee get the cl'jtb«s line-'" "So tbe lady ;:ht* gets the clothes-line and that mam he ties my hands and my anns behind my back, good and tight, and then be made me set down and he ties me to the chair, and at last- he gives the rope two or three turns round the leg of the kitchen table and xiys to me : 'Friend, thee can jusi set 'here 'while I go to get an officer Gave me no chance to explain. Took it all for granted; whereas if ha would have listened to m? I cbuld have cleared up the whole mystery in two minutes. "So then, sir, out he goes for a policeman, and the oid lady jietK down in a chair Rot far from me and said she was sorry I iris nicked and'asked me about my [■:i>cbir. ami if I over went to FirsK-Day jchool. awl a whole lot of things. Then a thought si-tined to strike her and she went into tbe next room and came back with a i>ook tn her hand, and she said she would riud a piod book to me while we waited E.>r justice to take its course. "She was lovelv to look at, sir, with her tidy brown frock and the crape handkerchief folded across her bosom and lier cap ind the- smile on her face; a sweet face, sir; an angel face; yes, sir; but swept faces often baa cruel dispositions Whind :ht m. For then nhe told me that the book Iras called -Barclav's Apology for the Peopla railed Quakers, or Home thing like that, and she begun to mid it to me. "Have vou tVCT- mtd that book, sir? It t dedicated, I think, to Charles the Second, ltd it begins with Fifteen Proportions and ibe read every one of them Propositions ran first to hot. Then she turned to tbo

section, sir. about Salutations and. Recreations, and ahe road oocl KSui and -read natal, sir, actually it made my head swim. "Do yon know, sir. is Barclay still alive the <man Arbo wrote that book? Is there no way of getting even -with him? *1 couldn't get away. I might have waited out somehow -with the ohair fastened t*> roe ;,but I couldn't go. could I, sir, with the table tied to my leg, and particularly if I had' to climb tie fence? So I 'had to set there and be regarded as a burglar. "But at last I would be heard, and I told h6r I was an innercent man and than she j looked in the index to find if Barclay had anything interesting to say about the wickedness of telling falsehoods. And then I said I was -a. member of ifche Baptist Societv and ?the said at cuce rfie would Tead Barclay on 'the errors of that sect; but I irtsiited on being heard, and I explained to her that I got into this trouble by trying to cure William Jones by fractional electricity, and she said: Thee has an ingenious and fruitful mind tx> invent such a story. Oh, that it 'had' been turned to better devices than following a life of evil!' " 'And it seems hard, boo,' I said, 'that a IxTarresttd as a burglar simply because he tried to relieve die pain of William Jones by a scientific method invented by the Huiley Institute.' " 'Where is thv friend William Jones? she asked. "Do you know, sir, at tfaat very moment you could hear through the partition William Jones and Bella Dougherty laughing next door I It seemed like mockery to nye, n-satting there in chains, so to speak. " 'He is next door, ma'am,' I itud, 'acourting the hired girL' " 1 will prove if tliea is telling the truth,' she saad, and 4/he gob up and moved

towards the door. j '' 'Xo, ma'am no !' X sa)i<l; 'please don't do that! "William mustn't, Enow that lam here;' and so shv comes back and sets down again, and picks up Barclay, and looks sorrerful at me, and says: " 'lt- is wicked for thee to have vain imaginations. Why does thee persist in pretending that there is a William Jones?' And then she started to look through Barclay to find if he had anything that would fit "the William) Jones part of the case. "What could I do? I daresn't call in William Jones to prove mv innercence; he was mad all over at me and a, bigger man, too, and here I was tied; and I couldn't call Bella Douoherty without William Jones knowing it. It was hard, sir, for a j man its iimercent as a little babe fco set there with that sweet and smooth old lady considering him a shameless story-teller and firing Barclay at him, now wasn't it, sir? Would you have called William Jones, sir, under them ■there circumstances and his laughter and Bella Dougherty's still a-re-sounding through the partition ? "Well, sir, that policeman was a long time a-coming with the old Quaker. I never knowed why; but Friend Amelia sbe setdown again" and turned over th'a leaves of Barclay and begun onct more to read about Salutations and Recreations while, strange as ib may seem to you,, sir, I felt that I'd ruther see the policeman and be locked up in -a dungeon than to hear more of it. "But, "howsomedever, after a while in comes the Quaker and the officer with him, and the very first) minute the officer seen me he says : " 'I rt-ckernize him- as an old oeffnder.' ""Xo you don't! says I; I'm no old offender nor a young offender. I'm a perfeckly honest 'Baptist plumber and..-I "Kin prove it, too. " 'How kin tou ],?GVe it.?' says the officer.

• William Jones.' says I, 'who is a-settmg in that kitdhen right next door,, a-wooing the hired girl.' "I was bold about it. sir, because I kncnved William Jones daresn't strike at me ■othile the officer was there. '"We'll see about that,' says the officer, ?,nd lii goes to Mx ilurfitt's yard next door and comes back with William. Jones. I have no use for a man like William Jones. What do you ? think he does, sir! Why, ha looks me over from "head to foot, in a blank sort of a way, and then, burning to the policeman, he says: 'I don't know the man, officer; never saw h;m before ;' then that' low-down plumber walks out and leaves me there and goes back, and in a minute I hear him and Bella Dougherty a-laughing worse than ever. '"I iliought not,' says the officer, slippine the handcuffs on me, 'and so now you come richt along.' And Friend Amelia looked mournful at me and says to me she would come ronnd regular and read Barclay to me in my cell after I was convicted. "And so, sir. to make a long story short, I was took up before the magistrate and held for burglary, and -my mate George Watkinp, went my bail, and so I was let

go. "I might stop here, but I uvusfc tell you that the following Thursday I met William Jones up a kind of a blind alley where I was working in a house on the opposite side- He had me in a corner where there was no chance to run, so I put on a bold face and went, rich fa up t-o him and says : "William, there's been some differences bsitwixt us, but Fan not the man to bear srudies. and I forgive you.' "* ""What's that?' he says, savage. .

•' 'Why,' says I, 'the whole thing is just one of tliem unpleasant misunderstandings,' and .iihen I started to explain to him about the Huxley Institute theory of frictional electricity "and the aurora borealis.

"I can't- tell you what he said, sir in reply, with reference to the aurora borealis, because I'm a decent man and never use no low language; bub suddenly ihe jumped.on me, and the first thmjj I knowed I was being lifted in the ambulance and fetched to this ver hospital. Was it right, sir, do vou think, for William Jones to strike me foul, like that, -while I -was trying to state any case to liini ? :!N*o, sir. But that's not the worst of it. Last Tuesday word caane to me that Bella Dougherty had throwed mi over and is going to marry William Jones on Decoration Day! Think of that, sir!" and Mordecai Barnes turned his head upon his pillow and moaned. Turning again toward me. he was about to resume his statement, when, suddenly he exclaimed:

"Why, there's Aunt Maggie." A woman of fifty years, nicely clad, came to the bedside and" said to him coldly : "Is that yon, Mordecai Barnes?" "Yes, Aunt Maggie." "I'm ashamed of you, Mordecai Barnes," said she; "ashamed of vou. It served you right. You got jusfc what was camin' to you. I wish (William had bangsid you ■morse."

Mordecai Barnes groaned. "And more than that," continued Aunt ilaegie, glaring at tiro through her spec•laeies. ''l've torn up my old irill which named you my 6ole heir and made a. new one and -left all my property to this yer very hospital." With these words Aunt 'Maggie walked away and - left the room.

•Mordecai .Barnes could boo speak for a few minutes. He looked as if death would be rwdcwrte. Then, pulling tlhe bedclotUws up under iris chin ai>d closing ihis eyes wearily, he said: "Curse tihe day, says I, 'when George Watkans first went to the Huxley Institute and heard about frictional electricity."