MODERN PROGRESS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1230, 25 September 1885, Page 3

MODERN PROGRESS.

Some of our modern tortures are becoming verv much modified of late years. Take the photographing business for instance. The old method of torture was to fix vour head in a vise patterned after the ancient thumb screw. This fixed you so that you couldn’t help yourself and enabled you to gaze at the camera with a sort of cast iron stare. You were then requ sted to rivet your gaze on that part of the wall that contained a card reading; “We do a cash business only.” and the operator would place Ids own watch in the palm of his hand and say, “ A ssume a pleasing expression, please,” as he whipped off the b'ass cap from the camera From then on came an eternity. During that eternity your nose itched, you felt a tickling behind the ear, your facs twitched, you wanted to sneeze, you were sure your stony glare was rapidly freezing on your face, and before the brass cap was replaced you had an uncontrollable desire to yell a wild Indian war whoop at the top of your voice.

Now all that is changed. The operator lets you sit iu a chair and assume any expression that suits you He gives a rubber bulb one quick squeez ■, and the camera winks jovially at you, and the thing is done. It is astonishing the progress that has been nude in photography. In New York the other day I saw a detective’s camera that would take a picture ou the street with the rapidity of a pistol shot. It went off not unlike a pistol, only with less noi-e, and took a picture complete in every particular iu the infinitesimal part of a second An optical company of New York manufactures them in the shape of a sort of hand-satchel box that is warranted nt to raise anyone’s suspicions as to what it is.

The dentist’s business is another occupation of torture see md only to that of the old time photographer. The improvements in that art of late years are also wonderful. A friend of mine who belongs to the craft has just put in a new hydraulic chair that will do much to place the wretch who sits iu it still further in the dentist’s power. A lever moved by the foot raises or lowers the anxious seat, and another lever tilts it to any a»gle required. A cord that dang.es at his good right hand contains a couple of electric wires which can be attached to two instruments of torture. The one is a little electric lamp and mirror that goes into the mouth and illuminates it like a brilliant ball room. The next is a sort of electric pen which beats the metal into the cavity of a tooth. It works literally like lightning. The next thing ought to be an electric to >th extractor.—a lightning jerker, as it were.— ‘ Detroit Free Press.