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| Railroad pocket watch. |
The Cortland Democrat, Friday, January
2, 1891.
WHAT AILS
THE WATCH?
PERHAPS YOU HAVE BEEN RIDING IN AN ELECTRIC
CAR.
Hundreds of Timepieces Go Crazy Because
the Electrical Fluid Magnetizes the Works—Jewelers Have Many Complaints—Electrical
Roads Responsible.
"What is the matter with my
watch?"
The speaker, a well dressed, middle-aged
man, laid his handsome gold stem-winder on the showcase of a big Broadway
jewelry store and looked daggers at the clerk.
While the attendant was quietly opening the
case and giving a little twist to the winder preliminary to a fuller examination
the angry gentleman continued to air his grievances.
He had purchased the timepiece at that very
establishment, he asserted, about a year before, and had paid a good round
price for it, too. That was all right; he didn't care about the cost, but he
did object to a firm guaranteeing that a watch was first class in every respect
when it didn't keep as good time as a second hand hand-organ.
While he had been speaking the clerk had
taken a small needle magnet out of the case and placed it in front of the
berate watch owner.
"Excuse me, but where do you live, sir?"
asked the clerk as the man stopped talking for a moment to wipe off his forehead
arid regain his breath.
"Live?" said he, "why, at
Jamaica, L. I., and that watch has caused me to miss four trains out of five
during the three weeks I've been down there."
"Been riding on the electric railway,
haven't you, sir?" said the clerk with a smile of satisfaction; "for
your watch is about as thoroughly magnetized as any I ever saw."
ELECTRIC RAILWAYS TO BLAME.
For the first time light dawned on the
customer's mind.
He was one of a large number of New Yorkers
who were spending the summer months on the line of the electric road that runs
between East New York and Jamaica.
He had never had any trouble with his timepiece
before, and he now remembered that he had heard many like complaints of watches
going wrong among his fellow passengers.
When the needle of the magnet had become
perfectly stationary the clerk held the works of the watch squarely above it.
Instantly the needle began to vibrate, first one way and then another, until
the man was convinced that the clerk's diagnosis was the correct one.
"That was the third case of the kind we
have had today," said the jeweler when the gentleman had gone.
Several workmen, he said, were kept
constantly busy on that kind of repairing alone. When a watch had been tested and
found to be magnetized it was at once taken apart and the works, even to the
most minute portions, were then subjected to an individual test. Then came the process
of demagnetizing, which usually took from three to five days, according to the
strength and quantity of the magnetic fluid with which they had become charged.
It is only those parts which are made of
steel, he continued, that were much affected, as gold and nickel would not ordinarily
take in a sufficient quantity to cause any trouble.
Numerous other stores were visited by the reporter,
and in every instance the employes [sic] reported that scarcely a day passed without
from one to a half dozen watches being left to be demagnetized.
AN AMUSING INCIDENT.
"A peculiarity of a magnetized
watch," said one clerk, "is that it will change from fast to slow a
half dozen times a day.
"A rather amusing incident occurred the
other day," said the clerk, "when a young lady, who had just come up
from Asbury park, walked in and said she 'Just wanted to see that man who had
told her that he had demagnetized her watch.'"
She had been in some two weeks before, it
seemed, and left her watch, and a few days afterward had received it from the clerk
with the assurance that it had been thoroughly demagnetized.
"Before night had fallen on that same day,"
the clerk went on, "she was once more a passenger on an electric car and
once more was her watch charged with the electricity."
It took considerable argument to convince
her, he said, that demagnetizing a watch did not make it forever proof against
the ravages of the electric fluid, as did vaccination against those of smallpox.
The storage batteries on the Fourth avenue
horse cars were held responsible by another jeweler for the magnetizing of many
watches. Most people did not suspect the cause, he said, and it was only after
they had suffered great inconvenience as a result of the eccentricities of
their heretofore reliable timekeepers that they learned from their jeweler
what the matter was.
The more delicate the works the more susceptible
they were, he said, to magnetic influence. This accounted for the fact that the
larger percentage of watches brought to him were those that were of the finest
manufacture and consequently of the greatest value.—New York Journal.
The
Public Pulse.
Great Editor (gleefully) — "How many extra
copies were sold yesterday?"
Business Manager—"Only one."
"Eh? What? Only one? Why, we had a ten
column article on the outrageous way in which Chinamen are being smuggled
across the Canadian border. Only sold one extra copy! My! My! Who bought that?"
"A woman who is looking for Chinese servants."—New
York Weekly.
TOWN
REPORTS.
PREBLE.
Our farmers have all they can do now to keep
the roads passable.
The Christmas tree at the Presbyterian church
was the great event of the season for the young folks.
The snow is two and one-half feet deep in the
woods and still snowing. Don't you believe it? Try it and see.
Our law and order citizens had a meeting with
a presumable import of more law and order. Which kind of order, gentlemen,
please? [There was a Law & Order League in Preble which policed the community for
illegal excise and alcohol violations—CC editor.]
The Christmas eve party at the hotel tossed
off very pleasantly. The master fog horn roused our landlord and his temper quite
early in the morning.
Santa made his annual Christmas calls in
town, but he must have had a hard time getting through the snow drifts. For the
benefit of the little ones I will add a few lines about their old favorite, as
I know they are interested in their old friend.
"Over the sea a great many miles
And a great many years ago,
There lived a wonderful queer old man
In a wonderful
house of snow.
And every year since then
When Christmas times arrive,
The little boys and girls are glad to hear
That the old man is still alive."
The story is going the rounds that a
prominent member of the W. C. T. U., has been trying to dispose of a keg of ale
belonging to a relative's estate after some of it had been used, and that "Diff."
was called in to sample it, with a view of purchasing the same. They could not
agree on the value of it, but there can't be much dispute about that if she
will let him sample it a few times.
A week ago Saturday, A. Vandenburg went into
W. A. Morgan's blacksmith shop (and as Vandenburg claimed) D. Kingsley, who
runs the shop told him in pretty strong English to get out, claiming that he had
tried to put a value on some work he had done in the shop and he would not
allow him in there, shoved him (Vandenburg) from the back part of the shop to
the door, and with such force that he fell in the doorway on an iron plating fastened
under the door, and while down slammed the door against his head, pushing him
out. That the fall severely injured the lower extremity of his spinal column and
gave him a severe shaking up. That he has been confined to his bed and had to call
in a doctor. Mr. Vandenburg is in his 74th year, and it would seem unreasonable
for a young man to eject him with so much force no matter what excuse Daniel
would claim to have.
 |
| East Homer Railroad Depot. |
UNCLE SI.
SCOTT.
The question of organizing a "Farmers Alliance"
club is being agitated
here.
A new pool table was placed in the hotel of
Perry Grinnells last week we learn.
Mr. A. B. Burdick, Mr. J. E. Babcock and Mr.
Volney Barber are too far recovered as to be out again.
We learn that Supervisor Childs had a $12.00
cap stolen in Cortland last week Wednesday, at an eating house.
Born Dec. 28, 1890 to Mr. and Mrs. George
Fox, a son. The snow seems altogether too deep for young Foxes.
Our high toned collector is not getting the
taxes as fast as he might if he would let people pay when they wish and ask to.
We are needing a railroad very much to ship
off the snow that has dropped in upon us. It is getting to be very much in the way
and still it continues to come.
We learn that Landlord Fuller has recently
made complaint before our Road Commissioner (Charles Clarke) against Perry
Grinnall for selling liquor without a license.
Mrs. Charles Mason while returning from Homer
one night last week to her home in Spafford with a new $5.00 bonnet, was interfered
with by the atmosphere and her bonnet went to parts unknown. Her husband came
back the next day and was lucky to find it.
Two of our peace officers (a justice and deputy
sheriff) while going home in a cutter one evening recently, were overtaken by a
drunken man who was running his horses. They ran their horse also until there
was an opportunity to side-track into a neighbor's dooryard and thus escaped. Nothing
can be done to prevent such occurrences, we suppose, because it would be interfering
with a man's "Personal Liberty," and hotels must be given the
privilege of selling that which causes such occurrences, for they can't live
without that privilege they say.
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