AMERICAN HAPPENINGS

Hokitika Guardian, 23 September 1930, Page 7

AMERICAN HAPPENINGS

GIGANTIC RADIO SET. TYPESETTING BY TELEGRAPH. SAN FRANCISCO, August 23. A radio ; installation, requiring 190 miles of wire and costing approximately 200,000 dollars, is being placed In New York’s newest hotel, the WaldorfAstoria,! now under construction. Believed to be .the world’s largest set of its kind, the system will make available to each of 2000 private rooms and to 15 public rooms six individual radio programmes. In announcing details, of the installation, Western Electric engineers said the same equipment also will be used to distribute public events in the hotel itself, throughout an inter-connecting public address system. Facilities will be provided in 140 suites to be located in the two towers of the building for privately-owned receivers. The centrallis od system will make available to each room six programmes, more than has been attempted previously. Programmmay be selected by a switch, which cuts the loud speaker into one of . six -, pairs of wires leading from the main 'receivers. The speakers will be of the table type and each will have a volume control. The main receiver is really six AC receivers in one. Each section has three stages of tuned frequency amphlification, automatic volume control and a single tuning dial. To supply sufficient output 42 amplifiers, using 174 radio tubes, will be used. LATEST MECHANICAL DEVICE - Setting type, by telegraph in a series of distant 'newspaper offices by the operation of a machine in a central office lias. been accomplished in the past month on newspapers served by the wire of the Westchester County Publishers,'.lnc.,'of White Plains, New York State. Announcement of the first practical use of the typesetter was maeje by* Mr J.'Noelmaey, president of the -Westchester Newspaper Company. Sending metssages by .telegraph* printed has been a general practice for several years,: bub the typewritten story had to be taken from the receiving apparatus, edited and carried to the composing room to be set in type. The teletypesetter eliminates the typesetter because it sets the type automatically. A story may be “cut” or edited to a limited'degree at the receiving end, but if maximum speed is desireci the message may not be intercepted. Rolls of piled paper tape, similar to that now widely in in use on teletype machines, .‘are the medium upon which the teletypesetter makes its impression. The operator depresses the keys of the transmitter, and impressions are ' made on tlje tape as it passes through the machine. The-tape looks like a perforated music roll. It passes through

a device %h kill reproduces in the ro•ceiving offices the identical impressions , appearing on the punched tape at the transmitting end. Simultaneously with the reproduction of the tape in the receivings offices, a printed version of the story is received by the newspaper composing rooms. This enables the receiving editors to read the story as it comes. If they wish to cut it they find the corresponding section of the punched tape and simply eliminate. ICONOCLAST’S VOLTE FACE. H. LV Mencken famed almost as much for his bachelorhood as for his iconoclastic writings, will marry Miss Sara Haardt, also a writer, shortly. Announcement of the engagement of Miss Haardt to the noted critic and editor was made by Mrs John Anton Haardt, of Montgomery, Allbaina, mother or the bride-to-be. It caused surprise among Mencken’s friends in New York who recalled his previous comments on the subject of matrimony. “Bachelors are the luckiest men in the world, if not the happiest,” Mencken once said. He implied that they spent most of their time “annoying married women. I wouldn’t exchange my bachelorhood for anything,” he add' ed. “It just like sitting in an easy chair and watching two clowns antic in the stage.” The announcement did not reveal whether the wedding, which was set for September, would be a church ceremony On this point, however Mencken once expressed himself: “Church weddings are primiteive orgies in the worst ol taste. ' Being married with all your friends about you is about ns private and discriminating as eating in the window of a restaurant.” Miss Haardt met Mencken, who is 49 while she was teaching English at Goucher College, from which she graduted in 1920. The editor took an interest in her career and assisted her alongttlie road to literary prominence. She will soon publish her first novel. COFFIN LYING CHAMPION. Consider the plight of Captain Jack Evansjiwlio lays claim to the coffin-ly-ing championship. Although the captain La's,broken his own record for lying m coffin in an amusement park in Atlantic;'' City, his backers refused to allow hifii to he dug up until certain financial details were settled. '

At the time Captain Jack had been underground without real food for seven days arid several hours. Signals from the champion to those six feet above him were that he wanted to come up. But one of the park owners insisted on 35 per cent of the receipts and unless he got the money, he said, he would refuse to allow the grave diggers to to turn a spade. Charles Hudspeth, assistant to Captain Evans, was almost driven to tears and punches. Communicating with Evans through the ventilator, Hudspeth yelled: ', “H<?y, we won’t get enough out of this for new suits. I’m going to ask visitors to donate 60 cents to see,you dug up and the park mob won’t get nothing, see.” “Get me out

olf here without so much argument,” answered Evans. “Make it 25 cents; times are hard and most of them up there haven’t got half a dollar.”

“All was settled then and the crowd began to pay quarter dollars to .see Captain Evans disinterred. When the park officials arrived on the scene there was an uproar. Fists began to fly. Somebody called Policeman Free. Moore and he -suggested they dig Evans up and argue,afterwards. The combatants agreed to let Moore bold the money. The captain was a sorry sight with bis cheeks sunken and a week’s growth on liis.chin. With shaking fingers he grabbed a glass ol water, thanked the crowd, and then collapsed. “GHOST RIDER” GAOLED.

Lend ear, you who dote on Western romances; who burn midnight oil over virile tales mid settings of purple hills ; who pester heroes ol cowboy romances, for autographed photographs. Lena ear, for this is a yarn to your liking, with all the atmosphere of a Class a Hollywood film romance. For weeks a phantom rider flashing on a white steed over the Laramie Peak country of Wyoming, had terrorised ranchers and planted casual bullets as souvenirs in the persons of residents who heedecl not his warnings. Dire tales reached the ears of peace officers. Housewives in gingham dresses stirred uneasily at the sounci of noof beats. Came eventide. And with eventide came the arrest of Charlie Adams, undone (believe if or not) by a typewriter and fingerprint. , Fingerprints on one of the warnings dropped at the door of a rancher bora a striking similarity to the fingerprints on a letter he himself wrote, The warning was typewritten, A University of Wyoming professor identified the type as the print of a machine at the home of Charlie’s boss, a rancher. The jig was up and Charlie confessed that.

Peace officers surmised .Charlie was trying to drive out of the country his rival for a woman’s hand, cloaking Ills motives in a general crusade against all ranchers of the vicinity. As a further effort to cover up his identity, they said, he shot himself and was admitted to the hospital, claiming to be the viptim of the sure-shot liorsman. The white steed was achieved through the use of a sheet.