HERE AND THERE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3160, 7 October 1914, Page 72

HERE AND THERE.

—Wonderful Artificial Arms.— The most remarkable man at the Clinical Congress of American Surgeons, recently held in London, was (says the Daily Express) Mr Cyril E. Huffman, the man with the magic arms. Mr Huffman was seriously injured m a railway accident some tune ago, and had to have both his arms amputated. This has not seriously handicapped him, however, for he is the possessor of artificial arms which enable him to cat, smoke, write, shave—in fact, do everything that an ordinary man can do. These mechanical arms, which are worked from the shoulder by a series of cords on pulleys, arc made of steel, aluminium, and papier niache. No--thing seems to bo beyond their powers, and the mechanism is so simple that in three hours a person equipped with them can learn to use a knife and fork and cat comfortably. With their aid coins can bo picked off the floor, and clothes put on and taken off. The inventor is an American machinist named Carnes, who designed the first arm of the kind for his own use after an accident. Tlie commercial possibilities of the invention wore realised by a man who bought an artificial arm from him subsequently, and a company was formed to sell them at £SO each. Mr Huffman can write excellently. The Carnes arm moves naturally, and with little noise, and the strength of the mechanism is remarkable. A 501 b weight, can be lifted easily, although the arms are light, and not in the least tiring to manipulate. —Bible Text Makes Lazy Husband Work.— Mrs Harriet Prentisscott, of Clearfield, Pa., U.S.A., has, after two years of argument, convinced her husband that it is his solemn duty, prescribed by the Bible, to wash the dishes. Prentisscott for those two years demurred strongly at the “dish-wash-ing” job. He held such labour was unfit for a manly man. But his wife, a patient woman, bided her time. Prentisscott, who is a Bible student, often quoted Scripture. The wife got an idea, and searched through the Bible. The other day while reading her Good Book she came across the verse in Second Kings, “I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipoth a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.” Smilingly engaging her husband in argument over the dinner dishes, Mrs Prentisscott declared.' that good men in the early ages always washed the dishes, and she could prove her contention by the Scripture. “Prove it.” mildly remarked Prentisscott, “and Pll wash the dishes for two years.” “I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipoth a dish, wiping it and turning it upside clown,” slowly read the wife from the Bible, as she covertly gazed at her husband. “Lot me see that,” was the weak rejoinder. “Humph 1” after

gazing fixedly at the words for a few minutes, he said, ‘Til do the dishes.” —Natural Gas. Medicine Hat (Southern Alberta) natural gas is in da.ly use by the Canadian Pacific railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It is now more than eight years since tliTs company commenced using it for lighting its passenger coaches—main lino and branches. During the year 1913 23,874 coaches and cars on passenger trains were supplied with natural gas from that point, an average of nearly 2000 cars monthly, or over 60 per day. Each car is fitted with two specially-made tanks, having a combined capacity of 375 cubic feet of natural or other gas, the pressure being 1501 b to tile square inch. The tanks arc easily filled •at Medicine Hat from the company’s big natural gas well. As the pressure at the well is in excess of 5501 b to the square inch, with an open daily flow of from 2,500,000 to 4,000,000 cubic feet each every 24 hours, no pumping is necessary. —Marooned, Not Married.— Thoughtfulness has brought a peck of trouble to Mr Hector O. Erickson, who lives here (wrote the Chicago correspondent of the Daily Express), and is well known as an eligible bachelor to a number of young ladies. He went to a small town in Michigan on business, and found that ho could not get a fust train home that night. So he telegraphed his mother, ‘‘Marooned here. Homo to-morrow.” The telegraph clerk muddled the message, and Mrs Erickson hurried round to ail her friends to tell them that her son had telegraphed that he was married. His young ladry friends hold an indignation meeting to condemn his heartless conduct, and when he arrived homo ho was met with stony glances all the way from the station. It was only by extorting a written explanation from the telegraph office that ho was able to put himself right. —Swiss Hotels.— The capita! invested in Swiss hotels, according to the latest figures, amounts to over £40,000,000, while the average annual profits are estimated at £10,000,000. The report shows that a number of the biggest hotels are controlled by large companies, which form a kind of trust, in which there is a largo proportion of foreign capital invested. There arc 43,000 hotel servants in Switzerland, most of whom are very well paid.