Street Organ Made With Tin Cans, Wood and String

A STREET organ constructed entirely out of tin cans, waste wood, string, and other scrap parts by J. F. Pearson, unemployed resident of Elephant and Castle, England, has brought fame to its constructor.

Although the organ is rather crude looking in appearance, it sounds as well as any manufactured product. Musical critics who have heard the instrument played on the street believe the tinny notes of the organ are due mostly to the lack of sound reflecting backgrounds in the street. They believe that the tones of this instrument could not be distinguished from the average theater organ if the two were placed side by side in a movie house.

Regular piano keyboards are used, and air for the tin can pipes is supplied by a foot bellows arrangement.

Rush-Hour Reading Glasses
Rush-hour crowds packed John Holding into the London subway too tightly to read his paper. In desperation, he bought a pair of right-angle-vision glasses, the type used for reading in bed by invalids who can’t sit up, and reversed the prisms so the glasses viewed straight upwards. Now he rides and reads in the densest crowds.

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President Roosevelt’s White House Hobbies

When storms toss the Ship of State, the President finds diversion with his great collections. Modern Mechanix sent James N. Miller to the White House for this story of the nation’s great hobbyist.

by JAMES NEVIN MILLER

A SECRET service agent rapped on the door of the home of a retired minister in a suburb of Washington.

The clergyman opened the door. The government agent flashed his badge. Timidly, perhaps apprehensively, the minister asked the man to step into the living room.

Imagine his astonishment when the agent announced:

“Your Reverence, the President would like to have you drop in some day at the White House. He’d like to see you about your stamp collection. He says that you should bring it along so that he can take a look at it.”
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1960 ELECTRIC SHOPPER

• All Electric
• 2 passengers
• 30 miles on single battery charge
• Operates for 1c per day
• Dependable for more than 25 years

Write for specifications and prices
ELECTRIC CAR CO. OF CALIFORNIA, INC.
495 Alamitos Ave. Long Beach, Calif.

If you can’t lie to your priest, who CAN you lie to?

Priest Develops Practical Psychogalvanometer

A PSYCHOGALVANOMETER invented by Father Walter G. Summers, head of the department of psychology at Fordham University in New York City, is said to be a practically infallible lie detecting device.

The apparatus consists of two boxes. One, resembling a radio set, contains a system of balanced electric circuits. The other, a milliammeter, produces a chart tracing of the emotional reactions of the person being tested. The combined apparatus amplifies the electrical charge inherent in the human body to such an extent that variations, caused by the emotions, cause a change in the tracing.

Electronic newsboy

Is this how you’ll get your newspaper In the future? Maybe, says Toshiba, the Japanese electronics firm that developed this facsimile receiver. It prints both sides of a sheet simultaneously, in six minutes. If mass-produced, the device would sell for an estimated $300.

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Scientific PEEP SHOW TELLS HOW OUR BODIES WORK

ILLUSTRATING with working models the many operations of the human body, a novel exhibition recently opened at the New York Museum of Science and Industry resembles the side show of a modern amusement park. By pressing buttons, turning cranks, and pulling levers, visitors can test their strength, their lungs, and their voices and see for themselves how blood circulates, how their muscles work, and a host of other interesting details. Controlled by a maze of motors, the exhibits provide a fascinating introduction to the mysteries of human anatomy and physiology.
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Chariot of 1938 Ben Hur Drawn by Four Motorcycles

For the Ben Hur of the motor age, no four-horse team would do. Instead, the charioteer—stunting in a sports festival sponsored by a Potsdam regiment in Germany—rides on a rubber-tired chariot drawn by four motorcycles. “Reins” in the driver’s hands lead to the handlebars of all four “bikes,” which are harnessed together by three horizontal bars. The har-ness recalls certain farm tractors which are controlled by reins.

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Avoiding Electric Shocks

While Making Electrical Repairs

THE home mechanic is usually not so well versed as he might be on electrical matters, and frequently receives an electric shock when attempting to replace burnt-out fuses, or making repairs on a defective lamp socket. Several safety hints here given will enable anyone to make their own general electrical repairs without danger.

Frequently fuses have to be replaced in basement cellars and, if you have a pair of rubber gloves, it is a good idea to wear them. If you are careful, however, and stand on a piece of dry board, or even on a dry folded newspaper, or wear a pair of dry rubbers, you can remove “blown” fuses and insert the new ones without receiving a shock through the body, due to contact through the shoes on a damp cellar floor.
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Pocketbook Firecracker Alarm Catches Wife

A PAPER firecracker device which goes off with the noise of a pistol every time the pocketbook containing it is opened was Exhibit No. 1 at a divorce suit instituted by C. J. O’Brien, wealthy contractor of Baltimore.

O’Brien told Judge O’Dunne how he had suspected his wife of taking loose change from his pockets each night, and how he caught her by rigging up the firecracker device.

MERRY XMAS TO ALL (and a carton of Kools)

WHERE’S the holiday throat that won’t enjoy their soothing touch of mild menthol? Where’s the smoker of either sex who won’t relish KOOLS blend of superior Turkish-Domestic tobaccos? Remember that each pack not only carries a valuable coupon, but there’s two extra coupons in a carton! — a good start toward those attractive B & W premiums (offer good U. S. A. only). So give ‘em all KOOLS . . . they’ll appreciate ‘em most! Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., P. 0. Box 599, Louisville, Ky.

Polio-Mobile

This hospital-on-wheels brings new hope to isolated polio victims.

THE dread disease often strikes far away from modern hospitalization. This fact gave rise to the mobile polio clinic pictured here. Built into a nine-ton semi-trailer and drawn by a tractor-truck, the unit was developed by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, under the supervision of Alan A. Rich. Packed into the comparatively limited space of the trailer are an iron lung, a hot pack machine for Sister Ken-ney treatments, a resuscitator, aspirators . and a ray lamp. The mobile clinic can be rushed to sections where outbreaks of polio overtax stationary equipment. The unit has already been in action in the Peoria, Ill., area. It proved invaluable.