PATENT ABSURDITIES.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9441, 11 May 1909, Page 7

PATENT ABSURDITIES.

Pathetic instances of misplaced human ingenuity are to be found in .the offices of registrars of Pate“ta.An American paper the day instanced the case of a ma.u who bad patented a device by which a family living in ... a flat conld every Tuning haul up their milk in a can from the front door of The London’correspondent of an Australian paper cites some mnoh more extraordinary cases from the records of the English office. Thera is an .amazing device intended for the use of shooting parties. The patentee claimed that direct communication could with great advantage be established between the tail of ® P dog and the trigger of a gun. The bird would rise, the dog s tail won! Unfortunately for the lnV ® n " 1 tor DO response from SPO! MW been forthcoming so far. A tailor desired to protect tr « n6B j; fr ™ “ n J snots by the simple provision or splash-bands, to be worn on the heels of boots. A country gentleman nn ■dertakes to provide a perpetual moon by sending up a balloon at night with a hnge reflector to a carefully .«l“ ta£3 alevatioD. The reflector j would catch the rays of the absent ; ann, and there would be an end to, dark nights, But the difiplaved in these pales into insipnilioance before the genius of i th ®|“® a who has patented a new way of stop ping a train. The communication cord by which trains in England are stopped in oases of emergency he regards as quite obsolete. It allows, he, considers, quite too much Initiative to the engme-rdiver. Hence he applies for a patent for a more peremptory device. h lB only a catapult—a powerful catapult, to be fixed on the guard s van. Bat consider its possibilities. The passenger wishing to stop the tram pulls the cord as usual. The catapult instantly discharges a volley of huge stones straight at the dnVor *’ if he is capable of doing anything at all, will at once grasp the situaticn, and the necessary levers. Bat this it proverbially a alow-going country; and the railway companies have refused another chance of mo.iug with the times.”