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There’s money in Simple Inventions

by CLARENCE A. O’BRIEN
Registered Patent Attorney Washington, D. C.

The greatest profit does not always come to the inventor of a complicated machine—often the inventor of some simple, much-used article stands a more favorable chance of making a fortune.

WHILE such complicated inventions as the radio, the airplane, the telephone and the electric light are among the major blessings of this modern age, yet we often lose sight of the fact that there are a greater number of simple devices which are contributing greatly to our everyday comfort, convenience, and enjoyment of life. Read the rest of this entry »

Smoking Now No Effort at All—Dispenser Gives You Lighted Cigarette

SMOKING is coming to be such a convenient matter that it is a wonder any of us can resist becoming insatiable cigarette fiends. The latest device to ease the labor of lighting up a fag is an electric desk dispenser which delivers one cigarette at a time, fully lighted and ready to smoke.
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Cards Now Played like Midget Golf

THE latest addition to the ever increasing list of games devised for the amusement of incurable golf fans is a combination of midget golf and bridge, played on a carpet spread out at the bathing beach for games between plunges.

The unique carpet on which the game is played has painted on it a circle containing card symbols on which various card numbers are inscribed. In the center is a cup, and the objective of the player is to score by driving the ball into it. If he misses, the ball rolls onto a section representing another card.

The carpet can easily be rolled out on the beach for a rubber at any time.

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How Circus Elephants are TRAINED

by M. W.MEIER
Who wintered with the circus at Peru, Indiana, headquarters.

How do they train elephants to walk a tight rope and stand on two legs? Mr. Meier, intimately associated with the circus business, tells you all about the tricks of the trade in this fascinating elephant story, and incidentally disproves some favorite legends such as ah elephant’s ability to remember an injury for many years.
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Approval Meter

BY SAMUEL KAUFMAN

WITH the “approval meter,” program directors will no longer have to rely on laughter, applause or boos to learn just what the audience thinks of entertainment.

The method—developed by Schwerin Research Corporation—works automatically and records reaction for study later. All you do is push or pull a tiny lever at your side.
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Where Do They Keep The Towels?

THIS new foreign limousine has a hot and cold water folding wash-basin of aluminum built into its right front fender. Beneath the hood is a 2-compartment tank holding two and a half gallons of water. The hot water section is heated by exhaust gases passing through a spiral pipe. The two faucets give water of any desired temperature. The basin is automatically emptied when it is folded into the fender.

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SAN FRANCISCO FIGHTS FOR ITS CABLE CARS

“Save our cable cars,” say Frisco’s citizens. But the City Hall boys have other ideas.

By Louis Hochman

SAN FRANCISCO shakes again! In 1906 it was Nature that rocked the infant town into a mass of ashes and rubble. Today it’s human nature that is giving this Golden Gate City the shakes with a wave of public sentiment that has spread far beyond the city’s own boundaries. Once again the people of San Francisco have gathered in force to go fight City Hall. It’s a battle between practicality and sentimentality and the object of this latest uprising is once again the dinky little cable car—that ding-dong relic of the Gay Nineties that continues to clang its merry way up and down the precipitous hills of San Francisco in blissful defiance of modern science and the forces of progress. Read the rest of this entry »